Tumbler Media

I use corn cob media. I have 2 batches. One is for cleaning and the other is for polishing. To clean a load of dirty brass I run my tumbler about 1 hour. Polishing is a 3 hour run.

When the cleaning batch gets almost black I will wash it with a Tbsp of Dawn dish washing liquid. I will agitate it a couple of times over a 24 hr period to get the dirt to break loose. Then I will rinse it until the rinse water goes clear. Then I dry it in the sun on an old tee shirt.

Once the cleaned corn cob media has dried I add a tablespoon of car polish and that becomes my polish batch. The previous polish batch becomes the cleaning batch until it goes dark and I start the cleaning process.

My media is about 2 years old and I see it lasting a couple more years. I wash a batch of media about every 3 to 4 months. I am cleaning and loading about 10K of brass per year. Everybody has their routine. I got turned onto washing the corn cob media by one of the older guys at the range.
 
I prefer walnut over corn cob. Walnut does a better job of cleaning. I am using Zilla brand, but I have noticed the stuff is dusty.
 
I use treated corn cob. In the last year I've been washing the fired cases before polishing. The media lasts far longer and the polishing goes quicker.

I de-prime first. Then they go into a bucket of water with Dawn where they get agitated by hand occasionally while they soak for a few hours. Then a hot water rinse, drain, and onto a towel to dry (typically overnight).

The process isn't good if you are in a hurry, but I find it works well and costs less (media lasts longer, less tumbler wear, and less electricity).
 
Harbor freight has a good deal on walnut media too. Works well and is inexpensive. I clean 4-5 batches a month. I use straight walnut with no additives. I run for about 60-90 minutes. Just to clean. I don’t care if they look brand new or not. I change the media when it starts getting very fine grained and very dusty. About every 6 months. The dust annoys me. This might be too early but I don’t care. Walnut is cheap. When I load 556, which is only a few times a year, I use the walnut to remove my diy case lube. I add a cap of mineral spirits per batch.
 
I de-prime first. Then they go into a bucket of water with Dawn where they get agitated by hand occasionally while they soak for a few hours. Then a hot water rinse, drain, and onto a towel to dry (typically overnight).
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someone mentioned this a few months back and it is a good tip. Sometimes I deprime at range with a Lee hand unit while I am waiting on other shooters to finish, sometimes at home but a good soak does help.
 
Well, I have already de-primed all of my brass 30-06, .380, 9mm and .223 before posting this thread. I guess it will not hurt to try BBarn's method.

Yes, I do tend to go on Amazon, only because I find items I am looking for a bit cheaper (majority of the time) and do have prime which saves me on the shipping cost. But do know I can't always get everything on Amazon. Went to PetCo and didn't have it. Ended up getting the walnut from Ted's Pet & Feed. They didn't have what I was looking for but got a 14lb bag of this: https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/PETCO/2551308-center-1

Will this work?
 
It could very well work but if not your kitties will like it. Give it a try.

Quite a few it seems deprime before tumbling. Does that clog the primer pocket holes? Yesterday when returning from the range some 250 .30 carbine, '06 Garand, and .45 cases immediately went into the tumbler. What is the theory for depriming first?
 
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nut based products will scrape your brass clean. Cob media that is treated will clean it further and make it shine. As it loses effectiveness, you can either replace it with new treated media or add cleaner, and when it's leaving gunk on the cases and not cleaing, replace. Add a natural sea sponge to your tumbler, it will catch all of the dust. Gently tap off media then wash the sponge. You can buy walnut with rouge to get the absolute, ultimate shine.

You should be able to get thousands of rounds through corn and polish media, yes, literally THOUSANDS before it is too dirty to use.

Don't feed greasy or oily brass through it, do you want that dirty grease wiped onto the next batch?

Wash dirty brass before tumbling, why feed mud or dust into your media?

When people tell you that it's stupid to clean your brass ignore them. Your clean brass will shoot just as well as their black and filthy brass. When someone tells you to get rid of your tumbler and spend over $100.00 buying a rotary pin tumbler, don't listen to them. Your nice and shiny ammo will shoot just as well as their super shiny ammo. If you want your brass clean and anyone disagrees, don't bother listening.

I don't know how to make it any simpler. Take whatever other more technical advice you receive if it makes sense to you.
 
condor bravo said:
Quite a few it seems deprime before tumbling. Does that clog the primer pocket holes?
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I de-prime my cases first because I wash them and the primer pockets dry very slowly if the spent primers are still present. And yes, media does clog some of the primer flash holes.

I check each case for media in the primer flash hole as I remove them from the tumbler. But if the cases are yet to be sized, the primer punch in the sizing die will clear the pocket anyway.
 
Condor, lets hope it works as I don't have cats. Lol.

No theory for depriming first. A couple of trips to the range, I had started collecting a lot of brass and just basically were just sitting there until I got dies for what I wanted to reload. Still don't have all of them. Wanting to get my hands on already (impatient), decided to get the universal tool. Maybe it might be an unnecessary expense, but what the heck, I sometimes spend on useless stuff that just sit there and wished I hadn't bought it in the first place or paying for coffee on a daily basis. At $13, I can't complain.
 
Briandg, thank you very much for that advise. Sure is helpful.

I understand that everyone here has different methods of getting to the same end goal. Many will say one is better than the other, which is what has worked for them. One of the ways I will definitely know is by trying it on my own and seeing what works for me. Everyone has been very helpful in providing their own experiences and help. Also, being still new I am very inexperience to this but hopefully that will change soon.
 
Briandg, thanks for the link. As mentioned above, my inexperience to not knowing better and not searching deep enough to see where else the product is sold. Thanks for taking the time.
 
Yes, people have different goals and needs and methods. Sometimes those methods are completely screwball. There are some that give perfect results.

How was tumbling/cleaning brass accomplished 60 years ago? A guy would make a homemade rotary tumbler with a coffee can and a motor using roller skate wheels and a board. He used the waste from computer card reader punchouts with a bit of kerosene. If he was really nuts, he added some cleaner to the chips.

Anything that a person does, literally anything, there is almost certainly a quicker, cheaper, easier, better way to do it.

Beware of advice from people who say "whatcha gotta do", or "all you gotta do", or "just do this and it'll work better than anything else".

What that really means is "I don't think that you're smart enough to figure this out on your own and I'm a lot smarter than you so do it my way and don't waste your time thinking".
 
Ninos, you will eventually figure out what works for you. Be careful about saying to yourself "well, I guess that it works well enough". I'm almost sixty and once in a while I still realize that I've been doing something wrong, maybe even something stupid.
 
Iv'e always used corn cob media because that is what I started with and works fine for me.

Do not put brass that will nest in another piece in the same batch. Only did that one time and learned a valuable lesson.

Good luck in your reloading.

Dana
 
Yes, I found that out when sorting brass to specific cartridges groups when picked up from range. A bit hard to remove at times. Thanks for the reminder.
 
I'll tell ya', I know it doesn't shoot any better, but I like sparkling clean brass. I fine steel wool the outside of the case mouth, use an old brass bore brush inside mouth a couple of passes, collet size the neck/deprime. Then I soak my brass in warm sudsy dawn detergent H2O for 20-30 min, rinse, soak in vinegar 20-30 min, rinse, stand on a cookie sheet an "bake" @ 200 degrees F for about 20 min and let cool. Then I put them in my frankfort A. tumbler four around 4 hours. I use the finely crushed walnut shell/lizard bedding from PetSmart. I used to use corn cob, but it is a pain in the rear going through EVERY single case to knock, blow, dig the cob out of the cases. The walnut shell is the size of sand grains and dumps right out. My brass is shinier, then new brass and the walnut shell gives them a silky smooth feeling....my wife asked if I put lotion on them they are so silky!!!
 
If my brass is REALLY filthy, my first step is a tumble in Lemonshine. This removes the range grub from brass and actually makes it nice and shiny. Then I decap/size and my final step is a tumble with Nufinish auto polish. I use corncob in my final tumble/polish and yes, I do need to remove media from the case and primer pockets. PITA!!! I like nice shiny brass, and with this method, my brass gleams!
 
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