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I did some tumbling while I was waiting for the media to come in. I only ran it for an hour and they came out nice. I didn't de-prime those though as I was only testing it on some brass that was old and tired.
From what I have been reading, you don't want to leave the brass sitting in the water. Here is how I run mine if I let them go while I am sleeping. It will be turned on when I set it all up, and run for 3.5 hours. Then it kicks on with the timer 30 mins before I wake up, that way it does a full 4 hours. I guess its better if they sit in the dirty water with it not running to run them for 30 mins or so before opening it up. Just what I have read, so that's how I do it. |
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I picked up one of the dual drum tumblers last week and got the stainless steel pins this past Thursday. I did some batches today and they turned out fantastic.
I followed PapaGeo21's method: 1 LB brass, 1 LB stainless media, half a 9mm case lemi-shine, squirt of dawn. Tumbled for four hours and they look like new. Thanks for testing this all out OP, this is a great alternative to the Thumler's and you can do the same amount of brass (2 LBs). |
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First dry with a towel after rinsing in cold water. I mostly let them dry in a pan over night.  If I'm in a hurry, $25 food dehydrator from Harbor Freight takes 2 hours.
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Shooting and Reloading, one hobby feeds the other.
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I just took another load out of the tumblers. All I do is very simple.
After I do my media separating in my frankford arsenal bucket going through the water, I put all the brass into some cheap pasta colanders I got at walmart and set them aside while I clean up the bucket and whatnot so they can drain some water out. Then I dump about 1lb of brass at a time into a large towel, grab all four corners and go up and down with each arm so they tumble in the towel. Then I dump them onto another small towel with a 5 dollar fan from walmart sitting there blowing air across them. Takes about 40 mins or so for pistol brass to dry. Rifle brass I leave the fan over night and just put them all away in the morning. If I was doing a LOT of rifle brass I would do what DryFlash does and buy the HF food dehydrator. |
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SS Media showed up the other day, stopped into HF late last night to pick up the tumbler...ran some .40 S&W that was tarnished through it for 3 hours...checked it only to find the brass clean, but not at all shiny. I've used a bucket of hot water and Lemishine in the past to make some really nice looking .223, but this so far hasn't worked. I'll have to go back tonight and figure out what I did wrong. Honestly, I've been dry tumbling so much brass this week, I'm not sure I have anything dirty to clean up! |
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Thought I would add some of my brass I just did.
This is only about 2 lbs. of 9mm Brass tumbled for 4 hours with 1 sec of dawn, lemishine half 9mm, 1 lb of pins and water just covering the brass and pins. Think they came out really nice. Love the clean pockets and in side the brass. 
Sorry just took with my Phone camera. |
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Originally Posted By PapaGeno21: How much brass, lemishine, water, dawn soap, and pins did you use? About a pound of each (maybe a little heavy on the pins), and for Lemishine I filled a .40 to the top and put half each container. The brass came out super clean, but not shiny...it literally looks like vintage bronze armor...kinda cool, but not shiny. |
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Originally Posted By PapaGeno21: Brass looks great JZ. Lonely, it all comes down to the lemishine. Try using half of a 9mm case. Too much mine turned Orange/darker. I am having a perfect color with the 1/2 9mm case. Hmm, I thought maybe I didn't have enough, but I'll try 1/2 a 9mm case and see if that helps. Thanks! Now I just need some more dirty brass! :) |
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Originally Posted By lafd04: Try cold water opposed to hot water. From what I read where I got my pins from said that the hotter the water the more of a reaction with the brass they're can be. Yeah, I read that too...after I ran my first batch. Trying again tonight. |
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Originally Posted By lazza1950:
Has anyone ever tried a small cement mixer ? There's one that's 1-1/4 cubit feet on the HB site. $149 bucks. Think I saw a smaller one at Home Depot once. Its been brought up seems that it would work better with dry media then wet SS pins since it would need the paddles removed and something else put it, needs to be resealed and a cap for the end and then the mixer would need to be run on a vertical plane otherwise the media would sink to the bottom and stay there not doing much cleaning. |
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Hmmm....I'm new and have been just washing my brass using water/vinegar/soap, they are clean enough but not purty.
I don't shoot a ton, would need to clean 100-200 9mm at a time and if I hit the outdoor range some 223. If I get the dual drum tumbler do you have to have brass in both drums or can you just run one drum? How many 223 in a drum? Not sure if I wanna go this route or the normal tumbler route (prolly HF model). |
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Originally Posted By jbizzle:
Hmmm....I'm new and have been just washing my brass using water/vinegar/soap, they are clean enough but not purty. I don't shoot a ton, would need to clean 100-200 9mm at a time and if I hit the outdoor range some 223. If I get the dual drum tumbler do you have to have brass in both drums or can you just run one drum? How many 223 in a drum? Not sure if I wanna go this route or the normal tumbler route (prolly HF model). I have been using one of these HF two barrel tumblers for about 2 years now and it works great just like everyone has said, I use my HF tumbler more than I do my Thumlers tumbler since I'm usually doing small batches of brass. I shoot mostly 6.8 SPC(~1K rd's a month) and keep my brass separated by boxes of 50 cases. After I shoot 50 rd's the brass goes back in the box and then they are cleaned and processed the same way, by lots of 50, and it's much easier to do this with the small tumbler than it is with the larger Thumlers tumbler(the small tumbler is also easier on the brass). I'm actually planning to get a round ID barrel for my Thumlers tumbler to replace the octagon shaped barrel that came with it, the round ID barrels clean just as good and the media doesn't pit the brass or round the case mouth near as bad as the octagon shaped barrels do. The small HF barrels easily hold 100 - 40 S&W or 9mm, 75 - 223 Rem, or 50 - 6.8 SPC cases in each barrel so I can usually clean a weekends worth of shooting in 2-3 tumbling secession's. My cleaning ratio's for the HF barrels are: 1lb SS media per barrel, brass filling barrel at least 75% full, water 1" from top of barrel, squirt of dish soap, and 1/2 teaspoon of Lemishine and run for a couple hr's max. |
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http://www.buffaloarms.com/Stainless_Steel_Media_it-164066.aspx?CAT=3889
This is where I got my ss pellets. I am sure there are other places to order from as well. |
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Just ran across this thread. I also got my media from Buffalo Arms.
I use the exact same HF tumbler, since I had one laying around. One of these days I plan to build or buy a larger tumbler since the capacity is fairly limited. The results are just simply astounding. My brass looks virtually new, and there's no residue left to get in my dies. The best part to me is that I don't have to worry about lead from the tumbling dust. It all just goes down the drain with the water. Since I have a young child that's a big deal to me. For drying if I'm not in a hurry I just let it air dry in a pan, but to speed things up I put them in a cheap aluminum foil roaster and put them in the oven on it's lowest setting (160) with the door open. I put a cookie sheet on the rack below to avoid overheating the brass with direct heat. |
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Midway has their 5lb bag of stainless pins on sale for $35.99. Sale is thru 1/31/12 http://www.midwayusa.com/product/635839/pellet-pins-brass-cleaning-media-stainless-steel-media-5-lb-bag ... |
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Originally Posted By 63Sierra:
Bought one of these today. I need to get some stainless media and I will be ready to go. Can't argue with OP's results. I did opt for the $6 one year replacement warranty. I'm gonna run it hard and see what it can take. If you are bored, take the metal top off and tighten the pulley screw to the arbor. Mine was a little loose and slipped when the canisters were filled resulting in them not rotating. No problems after that. |
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Originally Posted By JerzeyTransplant:
Just bout the setup. Dual drum tumbler from harbor freight, stainless Pins from buffalo arms, and lemishine from amazon prime. Now I just wait. The stainless media cost more that the tumbler did  Couldn't find the lemshine at the grocery store? Its located in the dishwasher cleaning products. $4 |
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Originally Posted By JerzeyTransplant: Just bout the setup. Dual drum tumbler from harbor freight, stainless Pins from buffalo arms, and lemishine from amazon prime. Now I just wait. The stainless media cost more that the tumbler did funny isnt it i got my tumbler from HF today |
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Originally Posted By PapaGeno21:
The only problem is there will be no way to attach the paddles to the drums. You will see what I mean when you get one! I personally do not mind the 4 hour tumble time, I am sleeping while its working! From talking to other people it seems running it then letting it sit for a while, if you run it again for a bit before you empty will work good. So what I have been doing is I go to bed at 1AM, so the tumbler runs from 1-4:30am, then I wake up at 10am so the tumbler kicks back on at 930am. I wake up, shut it off and empty them out. Total tumble time is 4 hours. Ive got a good 1000 pieces of different pistol brass all in line to be tumbled this weekend. So in your opinion these HF tumblers will clean the brass as well as other machines even without an agitator, it just takes longer? |
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So in your opinion these HF tumblers will clean the brass as well as other machines even without an agitator, it just takes longer?
3 Hours with SS Media 
So yes I would say so :P I've even dropped down to 2 hours on some not so dirty brass (once fireds from indoor range) and they were basically just as clean, the primer pockets weren't totally clean...but I don't care on the 9mm. I tumble 223 a bit longer. |
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Originally Posted By jbizzle:
So in your opinion these HF tumblers will clean the brass as well as other machines even without an agitator, it just takes longer?
3 Hours with SS Media http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6610/ssmedia2.jpg So yes I would say so :P I've even dropped down to 2 hours on some not so dirty brass (once fireds from indoor range) and they were basically just as clean, the primer pockets weren't totally clean...but I don't care on the 9mm. I tumble 223 a bit longer. Off to HF I go ....... 
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First batch just completed. They came out great of course. Now that I have dumped the water and rinsed the brass are there any tricks to recovering the stainless media? Right now it's sitting in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket full of water. I also feel paranoid that there will be a stainless pin stuck in a case when I load it. Anyone else?
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Make sure you're rinsing all that soapy, dirty water off with fresh water when your done then shake em out and dump onto a dry towel. You can let them sit overnight or if you're in a rush you can dry them in a dehydrator or on a pan in the oven on low wi the door cracked. It really only makes sense to towel dry and wait to me but to each his own.
Originally Posted By TrollSkeet: How are u guys drying the brass? They look blingy after I take them out but I see water marks after I let them dry. They turn brown |
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Originally Posted By TrollSkeet:
How are u guys drying the brass? They look blingy after I take them out but I see water marks after I let them dry. They turn brown Shake them as dry as I can in colendar, dump out onto towel in front of heating vent. Agitate them every 20-30 mins a couple times. Leave till next day. Prolly will devise up a drying device or get a HF Dehydrator eventually. |
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Finally went out and got this setup. I ran a batch with just lemon shine and dawn soap and after 2 hours could not believe how clean the cases were.
I know I'm not as picky as most when it comes to pistol or plining 223 being spotless but it was good enough for me. I bought 5 pounds of the larger size ss pins and have full intention of reselling. Theres nothing to gain for me and the hazzle of separation and pins going everywhere just doesn't make sense for my application. Now my brass isn't soak in mud or clay either!!! My harbor freight tumbler cleaned over 4000 pieces of brass from 9mm to 30-06 this week with no issues. Still on the original belt so I'm very happy with the quality. Great thread and thank you for taking the time to post!!!! |
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