New Tumbler/Cleaner

S

Saltydog235

New member
My 20yo, gun show special vibratory tumbler finally bit the dust. Now I'm in the market for a new one. I'd rather not go back the cob/walnut media type vibratory unit. I've been looking hard at the ultrasonics by Hornady and RCBS as well as a rotary with SS pins. Never dealt with or used either. Which is better?

I like the idea of the ultrasonic being able to clean small parts as well but I'm skeptical if the claims are true or not. Drying is not an issue, have a spare oven, dehydrator and usually plenty of time between the stages of loading these days.

Educate me.
 
Which is better?
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None of them.

All of them.

Depends.


There are advantages and disadvantages to all forms of case cleaning. And we all find what's best for ourselves and our loading style

I have/do use both corn cob vibra tumble (Lyman 1200); and wet tumbling with SS pins (Frankford Arsenal).

Corn cob is quick and easy. Gets the outside of the cases clean. It's a good system, but not without its drawbacks. It doesn't get the primer pockets or inside of the cases clean. If these things are important to you, then another method may be necessary.

SS pin tumbling gets everything shiny clean; inside n out, including primer pockets. Its scrubbing action is very effective - more so than ultrasonic. But dealing with the pins is a pain in the keester. It's kind of expensive up front, and continues to require a cash outlay for the cleaning solution.

Ultrasonic is also expensive up front, but not so bad. It's easy to work with because you don't have the pins to deal with. But it's not very effective with particularly dirty cases (no scrubbing action), and batch size is limited. (I have little personal experience with ultrasonic, so if I mis-characterized something here, somebody please chime in and keep my honest - thanks.)

What do I do? Well my process is a little different, but it works for me:

I first vibra-tumble in corn cob (got a batch going right now :p ), then process the brass (resize/decap, flair), then tumble in SS pins. It's more effort than many are willing to do. But like I said, it works for me. I am often asked: "Why not just do it this way?" Or "why not do it that way?" And I have an instant and rational answer for all the questions. I have settled into this process and it works perfectly for me. And btw, my brass looks great out at the range and at competitions ;). Not to mention, they are also easy to see; and therefore, recollect.
 
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Better? None. Although I believe it's all a personal choice, I tried wet tumbling and found it was a bit too involved for me (mix solution, tumble, rinse, dry). I don't need/want ultra shiny brass with spotless interiors or primer pockets so the extra time spent is of no benefit to me. Most of the time I only get my brass "smooth" and clean, so a time in my rotary with walnut or cob is great for me.

FWIW; I didn't tumble brass for the first 12 years of my reloading and had no damage dies or chambers, and could easily spot any damages/defective brass...
 
I have a large ultrasonic cleaner, but, like the ones I've seen sold to reloaders, it's power density isn't particularly high. It did pretty well on the corroded cases rescued from a flooded bag, below. This was using a solution of 5% citric acid and a small squirt of dish washing liquid to help suspend dirt. Still, what you see is the result of 40 minutes total cleaning time, and this was with the heater on at about 140°F. There are better, industrial grade ultrasonic units made for cleaning guns that have ten times the transducer power per gallon. I expect one of these would work well, but I will never find out personally, as they run in the thousands of dollars.

Ultrasonic%20Combined_zpsraulqnrf.jpg
 
FWIW; I didn't tumble brass for the first 12 years of my reloading and had no damage dies or chambers, and could easily spot any damages/defective brass.
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Me too.

I didn't go OCD on clean shiny brass until relatively recently.
 
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FWIW; I didn't tumble brass for the first 12 years of my reloading and had no damage dies or chambers, and could easily spot any damages/defective brass.

Me too.

I didn't go OCD on clean shiny brass until relatively recently.
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Yep, a few of my cases get a shine. My 30-06 and 45 ACP brass gets pretty shiny (Garand and 2, 45s toss brass hither and yon :eek:) so I can find them in the dirt, rocks, trash at the "range" I shoot at...:D
 
I have all three and use all three.

But I use corn cob with Lucas Oil Polish more than anything else. The Lucas polish is the bomb, and you can do a lot with it.

I use the ultrasonic for some of my precision stuff, after a quick 30 minutes in old corn cob and a rinse, deprimed of course. If you are doing batches of 100 or so a few times a month, this might be the way to go, especially since you have a spare oven.

Wet tumbling on a large scale might be worth it, but small scale, not for me.

One thing to be careful of with wet (ultrasonic or tumbling) is dezincification. See the pink hue on a few of the cases in Unclenick's after photo? His solution was too acidic and pulled copper out of the brass matrix compromising the strength. Microfractures, stress corrosion cracking, environmentally induced cracking, etc, are concerns. On the professional side, I have worked on several cases where cases were compromised by a wet cleaning solution that was too aggressive and lead to case ruptures or worse.

There are going to be like 5 people come along and tell you how they have been doing it for years and never had a problem. A few of those will have been lucky, and maybe one or two will understand the issues and have used buffered and or balanced solutions to prevent dezincification. Dezincification can (and does) occur in some cases with normal tap water, so yes, you have to know what you are doing if you make a home brew.

Processing over 50K a year, I choose corn cob and Lucas polish for about 45K of that. Ultrasonic for about 2K and I run a batch here and there with the SS pins for really dirty stuff.
 
Wet tumbling on a large scale might be worth it, but small scale, not for me.
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I only load for handguns so it takes a lot of brass to fill my Frankford Arsenal ss pin tumbler to where it's practical to run. When I get home from the range, I vibra tumble and recondition each batch. But I let several batches (usually about 600 rounds of 38 Spl.) build up before I run the ss pin tumbler.

One thing to be careful of with wet (ultrasonic or tumbling) is dezincification.
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My college chem 101 allows me to kind of understand this. What I do know is that when I was using Dawn and Lemi-Shine, my results varied from brilliant white-yellow shiny brass; to dull tawny completely "oxidized" (dezincified?) brass. And these varied results came with what I thought was a fairly consistent mixture of water/Dawn/Lemi-Shine. I finally tried using RCBS ultrasonic cleaner; and the result is beautiful textbook shiny like-new looking brass every time. I don't know what's different about it, but I know it works great - every time. So that's what I use now. Increases the cost of cleaning brass, and worth every penny IMO.

Now if I can just figure out nickel plated brass lol - but that's for another thread, I suppose.
 
Nick, the products made by manufacturers are properly buffered and pH balanced to prevent dezincification. There are methods to "passivate" the brass, and the addition of sacrificial metals such as zinc or aluminum zinc alloys.

A few folks who had some issues have over the years tried various methods to reduce their costs. Zinc strips added to the solution will put zinc into solution and greatly reduce dezincification. Keeping the solution at a pH of 7, and cool also helps. A neighbor uses a 50/50 mix of Hornady Ultrasonic brass cleaner mixed with his old solution of home brew. I tested several batches and found no zinc in his solution after running several batches, so that is what he is doing now. Cut his costs by 40%.
 
Buffers - that's the part I never thought of. And is probably the answer. At any rate, life's too short to spend a lot more time on it. The RCBS solution works; so that's what I'm using from now on.

I have been slowing reducing the amount (I weigh it), to see where the "effectiveness threshold" is.
 
I feel bad for my old vibratory tumbler. Every once in awhile I'll glance over at it in it's dark, dusty resting place and say "I remember you".

:rolleyes:
 
As they say, to each his own.

I still use my 30 yr old RCBS vibratory cleaner with walnut hull media. No wet mess, no drying time. Put it on a timer and walk away. Brass comes out shiny.
 
I load 99.99% handgun ammo. I run the cases thru Corncob, then reload them on a RL550. So far no problems. What few rifle cases, size, deprime, run thru corncob, manually clean primer pockets. i'm not sure it's necessary to clean the pockets in the rifle brass, prolly not.
 
I'm going to get the RCBS Sonic Cleaner and another cheap vibratory unit. Heck the first cheap one ran for 23 years, I'd say I got my $50.00 worth.

Thanks for the replies.
 
Ultrasonic? Think Hard

I clean brass for a living and I use ultrasonic and vibratory media. If you need a Shake bucket I recommend the Dillon precision, I have the model 2000.
The smaller model will do for most people. The model 2000 has an industrial ball bearing motor and is well built. I also have a Lyman Turbosonic 6000 and I use the Lyman solution with it. It will get your cases clean though I've found it takes about 60 minutes running with the temp set max at 140F also it take 60 minutes to heat up. The cases come out a soft yellow and not as shinny as with walnut and corn husk media. I dry the cases in the sun then tumble them for 2 hours they recover some of their luster but I prefer to tumble only for outside appearance. Inside they are spotless with the ultrasonic. I've looked at the stainless pin rotating contraption and it really only holds 100 rounds at a time I would grow old waiting for that to finish. Overall I definitely don't recommend the ultrasonic if you tumble afterwords the cases need to be 100% dry and if you dry them in a toaster oven even on low heat they will turn dark and look tarnished this doesn't come of with a tumble.
 
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