Stainless Steel vs Corn Cob/Walnut? Vibratory vs Rotary? Why not a Cement Mixer?

[seawash]

I’m a newbie to this cartridge reloading and am looking for input. I recently got a press, been stockpiling my brass, have powder, bullets, manuals, and primers. I reload shotgun and usually reload when I have about 1000-1500 hulls in the empty bin. I plan on processing the brass in batches of about 1000-1500 empty 9mm, or 45, or 223 at a time also.

As I see it, I have the following options.

Corncob/Walnut with Vibratory Tumbler-

Pretty standard set up, used by many reloaders, for many years. Tumbler will cost approximately $50-$150 depending on brand and size. Media is fairly cheap.

Stainless steel and Rotary Tumbler-

Reloaders that have switched to this method claim they would never go back to CC/Walnut, it’s the cat’s meow, best thing they’ve ever done. Cleaner/brighter brass, less dust, etc. You also have to dry the brass afterwards. Initial costs are definitely higher. Rotary Tumbler will cost approximately $180 - $300, and SS media about $50/5lbs. This will hold about 15 lbs of media/brass/water.

Given the relatively low cost of the small electric cement mixer from Harbor Freight or Northern Tools ($150), why not use a cement mixer with stainless media for wet processing or Corncob/Walnut for dry processing? Can this be scaled down to accommodate only 1000-1500 cases? I’m actually thinking of removing the cement drum and attaching some type of PVC drum like they are using on the rotary tumblers; haven’t figured out how to do this yet or come up with plans.

For someone starting out fresh, should I skip the CornCob/Walnut and go straight to SS media?

Why not just use or convert an electric cement mixer ($150) instead of buying a rock tumbler ($200-$300)?

Will an electric cement mixer motor burn out, or turn too slow?

Have I missed something?

Thanks

Seawash

Edited January 21, 2012 by seawash

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi seawash

Your summary appears well written.

Have only used vibratory which works fine and you are correct that it can be a little dusty dumping media.

One fella's well-written reloading pages, he mentions that there is lead in the primers and he alleges that the reason fired brass gets "dirtier" sitting in a sealed baggy-- lead compounds dusting out of the fired primers. He suggests wearing a mask when dumping media to avoid breathing lead-contaminated dust. He claims he gets home from the range, deprimes then tosses the brass into the tumbler first thing, then dumps the primers in the outside trash bin and then takes a shower to wash off any lead. I'm too lazy for that (except the mask). Lead ain't hurt me none, duh, durr, derp.

I use a couple of large shallow rubbermaid covered tubs to hold the corncob and walnut when it isn't in the tumbler. I'm clumsy and routinely spill part of the media on the floor but broom and dustpan works fine.

Have read of people using concrete mixers. Dunno how that compares.

Have had two "medium size" mixers. Never tried a small one. I think both HF and Northern Tools sell very small mixers. Likely other places as well. The Harbor Freight website has downloadable PDF assembly/use manuals on just about everything they sell that is complicated enough to need documentation. Sometimes Northern Tools has online manuals.

Both brands of my "medium size" concrete mixers have plastic drums. Which in my size of mixer is probably more long-term durable than metal. On both there is a bearing shaft with a metal disk on the end, and the back of the mixing drums bolt to the metal disk. On one of them IIRC the metal disk is a large-diameter gear.

First got a made-in-canada "Red Lion" from Lowes which worked great for a couple of years until it broke. I tore it down to discover a NYLON worm gear, which has got to be one of the worst ideas in history for a concrete mixer. The steel gear on the drum had modified the nylon worm gear into a big ball of nylon string. Web searching, this was a common complaint. A replacement worm gear wasn't cheap and other folks said you will keep replacing them, so just got another brand of mixer instead. A shame because the "Red Lion" worked fine and was otherwise built "plenty good enough" for an amateur. I keep meaning to one day try fabricating a metal replacement worm gear and bring the Red Lion back from the grave.

The replacement mixer is a Northern Tools "at least partially made in usa" Kushlan that has been great so far. The important bearings have grease fittings. The instructions say squirt some more lithium grease every time you run the mixer. The Red Lion had a weirder lube system that worked fine until it broke. On the Red Lion you would fill a little bottle with kitchen vegetable oil on each session and a wick would drip the cooking oil into the bearing. The grease fittings seem better to me.

IIRC there is a belt in the Kushlan drive system but I'd have to take the cowling off to see the goodies and can't recall details.

Would it be annoying to you, to have to use a grease gun on the mixer every time you want to clean brass? Dunno if it would bother me. It MIGHT drip at least a little grease on the floor during operation, which is no big deal outdoors.

Maybe a purpose-built brass rotary tumbler would be less day-to-day hassle? Dunno.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest BungieCord]

SS media also cleans the inside of the case necks and in the primer pockets, the media doesn't get stuck in the flash hole or primer pocket, never wears out and if you're paying $50 for 5#, you're getting gouged.

[I_Like_Pie]

Another secret of a good reloader.....

You don't have to clean your brass if you don't want to. Some folks say that it wears out the dies faster. That may be true, but I have some .38 dies that have been loading thousands of uncleaned brass every year for the better part of 3 decades now and they are no worse for wear.

[Dolomite_supafly]

If you want clean, not necessarily pretty, brass use Lemishine. It is available for cheap (under $2) at Walmart and works really well for cleaning brass. I boil enough water to cover the brass I am wanting to wash then add a tablespoon of Lemishine to the water. Then I pour this mixture over the brass. I will shake it for about a minute then let it stand for 24 hours. Every time I walk by it I give it a shake. The brass will come out clean. Make sure you rinse the bras with clean water then let it dry for 24 hours.

Without a doubt you need to make sure you clean your brass if they have been on the ground. A single piece of sand or a small rock can ruin a die. It will cause a burr inside the die and every case after that will have a burr as well.

Dolomite

[Guest canebreaker]

I've seen a tumbler made with a 5 gal. bucket with wood paddles bolted to the sides on castboolits.com, I'll find a link.

[dlm37015]

i use a cement mixer from lowes with a rubber drum .i get my media from the pet food store and use nu car wax as cleaner polish

[mikegideon]

I use walnut and Nu Finish in a Hornady tumbler. I'm wrestling with the stainless steel solution. If it wasn't a wet process, I would already be on it.

[Guest nicemac]

A Thumbler's Tumbler Model B is available online for $169. I got my SS media, 5 lbs. for $25 shipped. After using it, I would never go back. A cement mixer sounds like a good idea of increasing the amount tumbled at one time. The Model B can only tumble 2 lbs of brass. Yes, it has a 15 lb. capacity, but 5 lbs of media, plus one gallon of water (8 lbs) is already 13 lbs. Add 2 lbs of brass and you are at capacity. Add a couple of drops of Dawn dishwashing detergent and a thimble-full of Lemi-Shine and tumble for a couple of hours.

The Thumbler's Tumbler is metal, not plastic. The drum is not round, but is hexagonal and is lined with a heavy rubber liner that is made to tumble rocks for weeks at a time. This is a rugged and durable machine with a proven track record. It turns very slowly.

As far as the comment about it being a "wet process", why is that an issue? I dump it in my separator, rinse it off for 30 seconds in cold water and dump it out on an old cookie sheet to dry. A few hours later it is ready to use (less in the Summertime sun). If I want it in a hurry, I set the oven on 175° and put the brass on a cookie sheet and slide it in. After about 10 minutes, my brass is dry and ready to load. It is completely clean, so there is no smell to offend the minister of kitchen operations.

The results of tumbling with SS media speak for themselves–the brass sparkles like jewelry, inside and out…

Edited January 23, 2012 by nicemac

[Jonnin]

A dryer sheet stops the dust in the corncob or walnut or other such "dusty" media. Best tip anyone ever gave me. I do not think it matters what you use, but I will argue that cleaning your brass is important depending on where you got that brass. If you shot up a box of new ammo into a brass catcher and then reload it, you do not have to clean it too much (at all??) and less if you use hard carbide steel dies. If you picked it up out of the dirt at your local outdoor range after it has been there for 6 months, it is probably not a good idea to just run that thru the die and hope the dirt does not scratch the inside of the die up. And in between the two extremes you can have any level of nasty on on your brass. The brass does not have to look brand new when it comes out, either, it just needs to be clean enough that you can see any defects in the cases and all the dirt is knocked off. If you want the cases to look brand new, vibro tumblers with corn cob or walnut are not the best choice, I have tumbled pistol brass for 10 hours and it still is not like-new shiny and probably would not be if I left it for a week... the brass seems to be stained by weather and powder beyond what that type of media can clean.

[Guest nicemac]

A dryer sheet stops the dust in the corncob or walnut or other such "dusty" media. Best tip anyone ever gave me.

I always just put the lid on my vibratory tumbler when using walnut shells. No dust.

If you want the cases to look brand new, vibro tumblers with corn cob or walnut are not the best choice, I have tumbled pistol brass for 10 hours and it still is not like-new shiny and probably would not be if I left it for a week... the brass seems to be stained by weather and powder beyond what that type of media can clean.

I always added some Dillon brass polish when tumbling in walnut shells (some people use car wax). If you put polish in and leave it 4-6 hours, it will get pretty shiny, but it will not clean the primer pockets or clean the inside of the cases.

Edited January 23, 2012 by nicemac

[mikegideon]

As far as the comment about it being a "wet process", why is that an issue? I dump it in my separator, rinse it off for 30 seconds in cold water and dump it out on an old cookie sheet to dry. A few hours later it is ready to use (less in the Summertime sun). If I want it in a hurry, I set the oven on 175° and put the brass on a cookie sheet and slide it in. After about 10 minutes, my brass is dry and ready to load. It is completely clean, so there is no smell to offend the minister of kitchen operations.

I hate waiting for ANYTHING to dry. Baking stuff I'm not going to eat falls on the hate list too. Can't argue with the quality.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks for the dryer sheet suggestion. Other comments I saw seemed to be saying that the dryer sheet was somehow to help clean the media or improve the brass cleaning, which hasn't seemed worth trying. But reducing dust would be helpful.

Because it only takes a couple of minutes to add/remove brass&media to the vibratory cleaner, and I don't need to clean zillions of cases on a production basis, it only takes a couple of extra minutes of human labor to make one cleaning run with walnut then a second run with corncob and a cap of flitz. The vast majority of cases come out spotless clean and shiny.

Some stains are too deep to polish out. Earlier recounted quick tests when I tried polishing out deep stains with a felt wheel. On a couple of cases I tried you could polish out half the thickness of the brass and still see stain. Some cases are just too corroded to be safe.

Plenty of cases with minor stains are fine and I don't mind seeing a few stained cases. But some of them can be too far gone.

Am not claiming that vibratory is best or some other method ain't vastly superior. Just in my situation any problems with vibratory cleaning have not grown significant enough to consider fixing what ain't broke.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest nicemac]

Some stains are too deep to polish out. Earlier recounted quick tests when I tried polishing out deep stains with a felt wheel. On a couple of cases I tried you could polish out half the thickness of the brass and still see stain. Some cases are just too corroded to be safe.

Plenty of cases with minor stains are fine and I don't mind seeing a few stained cases. But some of them can be too far gone.

My wife's uncle gave me some .243 brass that he had been saving for many years. Stained so badly that I thought it would never come out. I had tumbled them overnight in walnut shells and Dillon polish and packed them back up until I got more brass to load in a batch. They had been sitting for a year like that. Clean, but the stains remained unfazed.

When I got the new tumbler, I thought, what the heck, popped them in the wet tumbler with some Lemi-shine. Two hours later, they looked brighter than new inside and out. Stains were gone. Completely gone.

Send me your badly stained cases. I will tumble them and send them back to you highly polished.

[Grunt67]

If I was starting from scratch, I'd go with the tumbler & stainless media. Just heard too many good things about this setup. Bad news is, I just bought a new Frankfort arsenal vibrating

cleaner a little over a year ago. Can't justify changing. Wish I had learned of this sooner.

Oh, well.........

[Guest Lester Weevils]

My wife's uncle gave me some .243 brass that he had been saving for many years. Stained so badly that I thought it would never come out. I had tumbled them overnight in walnut shells and Dillon polish and packed them back up until I got more brass to load in a batch. They had been sitting for a year like that. Clean, but the stains remained unfazed.

When I got the new tumbler, I thought, what the heck, popped them in the wet tumbler with some Lemi-shine. Two hours later, they looked brighter than new inside and out. Stains were gone. Completely gone.

Send me your badly stained cases. I will tumble them and send them back to you highly polished.

Thanks I appreciate the offer Nicemac. Your messages are informative and enjoyable.

I don't see much brass which looks deeply stained after tumbling. Lately been looking at the inside of deep-stained cases to see if the discoloration might go "all the way thru". I toss the few that look too crappy inside or out. Have read of some folks probing suspicious stains with a dental pick to test if the metal is soft or brittle.

You have my respect on things mechanical. I'm hardly able to change sparkplug on a lawnmower. The following is a question, not an argument.

If pins plus a liquid cleaning solution can remove deep nasty stains--

Assuming that a case really does have corrosion half-way thru or more-- Deep stain that won't polish out even with a felt wheel--

If such stain is removed via stainless pins and chemical solution-- Could that imply that the deep corrosion had made the brass porous enough for a cleaning fluid to leach deep stain? If the cleaning solution manages to remove stain from deep inside a porous spot, then maybe the end result could look clean but have even less material in the corroded spot than before cleaning?

Dunno nothin about it. Just wondering. If a cleaning technique is good enough to leach out very deep stains, then maybe in some situations it could mask structural problems?

[Guest nicemac]

Thanks I appreciate the offer Nicemac. Your messages are informative and enjoyable.

I don't see much brass which looks deeply stained after tumbling. Lately been looking at the inside of deep-stained cases to see if the discoloration might go "all the way thru". I toss the few that look too crappy inside or out. Have read of some folks probing suspicious stains with a dental pick to test if the metal is soft or brittle.

You have my respect on things mechanical. I'm hardly able to change sparkplug on a lawnmower. The following is a question, not an argument.

If pins plus a liquid cleaning solution can remove deep nasty stains--

Assuming that a case really does have corrosion half-way thru or more-- Deep stain that won't polish out even with a felt wheel--

If such stain is removed via stainless pins and chemical solution-- Could that imply that the deep corrosion had made the brass porous enough for a cleaning fluid to leach deep stain? If the cleaning solution manages to remove stain from deep inside a porous spot, then maybe the end result could look clean but have even less material in the corroded spot than before cleaning?

Dunno nothin about it. Just wondering. If a cleaning technique is good enough to leach out very deep stains, then maybe in some situations it could mask structural problems?

I suspect there are two different things here. One is staining. The other is corrosion. You are correct–polishing cannot take out corrosion. I have never encountered corroded cartridges and if I did, I would toss them. Staining can be polished out. Using a mechanical process that generates heat as it polishes(the felt wheel) could be giving misleading results because of the rubbing/ heating aspects of contact and actually appear to drive the stain in as you work it.

I would very much like to try to polish some of your brass that you feel is too far gone (stain-wise) to clean up in the wet solution to see the results. Send me a few pieces and I will polish and ship them back to you. PM me for address.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I suspect there are two different things here. One is staining. The other is corrosion. You are correct–polishing cannot take out corrosion. I have never encountered corroded cartridges and if I did, I would toss them. Staining can be polished out. Using a mechanical process that generates heat as it polishes(the felt wheel) could be giving misleading results because of the rubbing/ heating aspects of contact and actually appear to drive the stain in as you work it.

I would very much like to try to polish some of your brass that you feel is too far gone (stain-wise) to clean up in the wet solution to see the results. Send me a few pieces and I will polish and ship them back to you. PM me for address.

Thanks nicemac

Didn't think about a felt wheel driving the stain deeper. That very well could have been what was going on. Was just fiddling with a few deep stained .357 cases one day and was curious if I could just hit em a second or two and fix it. Just a few taps on the felt wheel weren't near enough to get the job done.

Over the holidays, cleaned all the brass that had been piling up for a few year and discarded "bad" stuff. Will make sure to keep any new-found bad ones and send some, but it might be awhile. I still have about two thousand cleaned-and-primed cases waiting to reload ATM.

[Jonnin]

Lester, the dryer sheet does keep the media cleaner too. It picks up the 2 types of small particles that you get in the process... dust from the media grinding on itself and soot/dirt from the brass. I do not know that it does anything at all to polish the brass any better. I probably reload some cases that have deep stains (how would you know, apart from grinding on it), but I have not had any crack or split so I am going to keep doing what I am doing. I do not make high pressure loads (tend the other direction, really) and doubt anything I do would split any case that is not already cracked or split (I do watch for those!). I do not thing the deep, black stains indicate any sort of structure problem, but if someone knows different, speak up please!

[SonnyCrockett]

I use walnut shell media,usually buy at pet stores or Amazon,2 hours in the tumbler

is all I need , I only reload handgun brass so I dont need a gleaming shiny brass...clean is OK w me

If I want shine a take a little metal polish and squirt it onto the tumbling media but really IDK

Corn Cob.......waste of money

Metal? I would not even consider since it cant absorb the grime

.02

[Guest nicemac]

I use walnut shell media,usually buy at pet stores or Amazon,2 hours in the tumbler

is all I need , I only reload handgun brass so I dont need a gleaming shiny brass...clean is OK w me

If I want shine a take a little metal polish and squirt it onto the tumbling media but really IDK

Corn Cob.......waste of money

Metal? I would not even consider since it cant absorb the grime

.02

The soapy water absorbs the grime much better than walnut shells or corn cobs…

[RichardS]

I'm a fan of the rock tumbler with stainless media. Rinsing/drying does add time to the process but I have been cleaning my brass in advance and storing it clean, that way I am not waiting for brass to dry the same day I am wanting to load. To speed up drying I take an old household box fan and set it horizontal supported by 4 blocks at the corners. Quart sized paint cans work well for this. Then put the wet brass on trays under the fan to dry.

I have to start pulling the primers before tumbling, have not been doing that be the pic above shows such clean primer pockets that I'll be doing that from now on. Should also make drying quicker as there will not be that little bit of water stuck in the spent primer.

I already had a rock tumbler so just use that. As mentioned above, the rock tumblers have rubber-lined drums but I'm not sure that is required for case tumbling. I would be wary of a bare steel drum but one made of plastic or lined with plastic would probably work fine. So seems like the plastic cement mixers might work.