having seen all of the info on the interwebs about cleaning your dirty brass with stainless steel pins as a polishing media with soap, water and Lemishine, I was interested. I reloading a few odd calibers where the brass is getting expensive and some of it is pretty tarnished. I looked around but didn't have a spare $300 to spend on a new tumbler, media, etc., so I've been scouring the internet for a good deal. of course I found it, but had to do some work to get it right..
I picked up a really old Thumler Tumbler model A-12 (holds 12lbs) from a guy in Griffin who was retiring from reloading (had a bunch of really old gear) or just selling a lot of older dies and such. I bought a set of CH 30 carbine dies from him, and the Thumler. The tumbler new is probably $165, but this one was pretty old. Most people who are buying from scratch get the bigger (15lb) Model B High Speed Thumler Tumbler. I spent some time cleaning it up, and working on making the barrel waterproof again (mainly the rubber seal on the end was old and hard, had to use some silicon caulk to "reseal" it). Seems to hold water pretty well now, and a buddy mentioned that he might have a spare barrel as well.
The Stainless media never wears out, and there's no dust or anything so it's a bit "cleaner" IMHO. There's a few threads on snipershide.com as well as most of the other big forums out there and the consensus is that it's fine on the brass, and no negatives besides being a little more time consuming and more $$ up front.
I got 5lb of stainless pins from a guy on AR15.com for $40, but I've been told you can get it a bit cheaper from these guys. Just call and tell them you want the pins for tumbling your brass cartridges and they know what you want...
http://www.pelletsllc.com/
Supposed to be a bit less $$ than other places. The bag I got from the guy on arfcom was from Pellets llc. From there you just use water, a bit of dishwashing detergent and a pinch of Lemishine from Walmart.
I don't usually deprime before cleaning as it's a pain to get media in the primer flash hole, but this way is really good. I mainly wanted it to get some of the higher priced brass (rifle) in better condition. I have about 300 peices of 348 brass, and I pick it up any time I see if for a good price. The last batch I got a month or two ago was $26 for 70 pieces but it was tarnished and older, so I thought if I have to spend a bit more $$ cleaning it up, I"m still ahead of the game. i've been tumbling it, sizing and depriming, trimming and then chamfering it so it'll be ready to load. Now I can really give it a good cleaning and be set.
As a test last night, I put in about 45 of the 348 winchester brass that I bought recently that was pretty grungy. I had tumbled it in walnut and polish for a few hours but still was pretty dark. With the stainless media is says to tumble it for about 4-6 hours initially and work from there. My A-12 is a bit slower tumble than the bigger Thumler, but I'm not planning on big quantities...
I took a few before photos, and some after ones to see the difference. In the before photos it's been tumbled in corncob/walnut with polishing compound added, and that works well but I was interested in having a "like new" appearance, and cleaning the inside of the brass as well as the primer pockets.
overall i'm pretty impressed with the results. I can't say that I'll use it on all the pistol brass (or the bulk stuff like 9m, 40, 45) but for something nicer (rifle brass, 44 mag, 45 schofield, etc) it'll be nice to have "like new" brass from my older stuff.
Here's a few links to the process, equipment, and other stuff related:
http://www.thumlerstumbler.com/rotary.html
guy that's selling all the stuff you need in packages, but also some info/video on the whole process:
http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com/
there's a few guys making homemade tumblers that look nice but I don't weld...
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_7_114/907679_Large_capacity_wet___stainless_tumbler.html
maybe next year i'll work on a bigger setup.
Brass after tumbling in traditional media for 6 hours:
Same brass after tumbling in Stainless Steel Media for 4 hours (it actually looks better than in the photos):
I picked up a really old Thumler Tumbler model A-12 (holds 12lbs) from a guy in Griffin who was retiring from reloading (had a bunch of really old gear) or just selling a lot of older dies and such. I bought a set of CH 30 carbine dies from him, and the Thumler. The tumbler new is probably $165, but this one was pretty old. Most people who are buying from scratch get the bigger (15lb) Model B High Speed Thumler Tumbler. I spent some time cleaning it up, and working on making the barrel waterproof again (mainly the rubber seal on the end was old and hard, had to use some silicon caulk to "reseal" it). Seems to hold water pretty well now, and a buddy mentioned that he might have a spare barrel as well.
The Stainless media never wears out, and there's no dust or anything so it's a bit "cleaner" IMHO. There's a few threads on snipershide.com as well as most of the other big forums out there and the consensus is that it's fine on the brass, and no negatives besides being a little more time consuming and more $$ up front. I got 5lb of stainless pins from a guy on AR15.com for $40, but I've been told you can get it a bit cheaper from these guys. Just call and tell them you want the pins for tumbling your brass cartridges and they know what you want...
http://www.pelletsllc.com/
Supposed to be a bit less $$ than other places. The bag I got from the guy on arfcom was from Pellets llc. From there you just use water, a bit of dishwashing detergent and a pinch of Lemishine from Walmart.
I don't usually deprime before cleaning as it's a pain to get media in the primer flash hole, but this way is really good. I mainly wanted it to get some of the higher priced brass (rifle) in better condition. I have about 300 peices of 348 brass, and I pick it up any time I see if for a good price. The last batch I got a month or two ago was $26 for 70 pieces but it was tarnished and older, so I thought if I have to spend a bit more $$ cleaning it up, I"m still ahead of the game. i've been tumbling it, sizing and depriming, trimming and then chamfering it so it'll be ready to load. Now I can really give it a good cleaning and be set.
As a test last night, I put in about 45 of the 348 winchester brass that I bought recently that was pretty grungy. I had tumbled it in walnut and polish for a few hours but still was pretty dark. With the stainless media is says to tumble it for about 4-6 hours initially and work from there. My A-12 is a bit slower tumble than the bigger Thumler, but I'm not planning on big quantities...
I took a few before photos, and some after ones to see the difference. In the before photos it's been tumbled in corncob/walnut with polishing compound added, and that works well but I was interested in having a "like new" appearance, and cleaning the inside of the brass as well as the primer pockets.
overall i'm pretty impressed with the results. I can't say that I'll use it on all the pistol brass (or the bulk stuff like 9m, 40, 45) but for something nicer (rifle brass, 44 mag, 45 schofield, etc) it'll be nice to have "like new" brass from my older stuff.
Here's a few links to the process, equipment, and other stuff related:
http://www.thumlerstumbler.com/rotary.html
guy that's selling all the stuff you need in packages, but also some info/video on the whole process:
http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com/
there's a few guys making homemade tumblers that look nice but I don't weld...
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_7_114/907679_Large_capacity_wet___stainless_tumbler.html
maybe next year i'll work on a bigger setup.
Brass after tumbling in traditional media for 6 hours:
Same brass after tumbling in Stainless Steel Media for 4 hours (it actually looks better than in the photos):
