Walnut tumbling media and bore wear?

Longwalker

Longwalker

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I am currently tumbling a large quantity of rifle brass for winter reloading projects. I noticed that when using the walnut media with the red iron oxide abrasive, quite a lot of the abrasive dust stays on the inside of the cases. I have been re-tumbling for a short while with plain corncob media to remove this. The rouge powder looks an awful lot like lapping compound to me. I suspect that after a thousand or so cast bullets coated with this stuff go down the bore, wear would be measurably increased. So I want to avoid that. My question - is my extra "clean up" tumbling step necessary? Would any gunsmith/ barrel expert want to give an opinion?
 
I used walnut when I started because it was all they had. Red dust everywhere all the time, huge pain. I just washed the brass, but it's time consuming.
 
You are prob using the large walnut media --which works great for heavy cleaning

you need to switch to crushed walnut ( sand blasting media / lizard bedding )
used dryer sheets cut up to removed for the dust --- will take a few cycles
add Car polish/ brass polish -Lyman etc in the smaller media and it cleans and no dust-- and when black dust from your brass shows up just add more used dryer sheets --and dust free again

ps I have noticed using the car polish brass-- if left out unloaded (in the air) tarnishes less
 
I do not have a dust issue, I put the cover on the tumbler. I also throw used fabric softener sheets in the media to catch the dust.....What residual dust that is in the case will all be burned up and expelled down the bore with combustion gases....
 
OP, I'm confused......you talk about cleaning cases for winter loading projects but then refer to thousands of dust covered cast bullets down the bore.............so are you tumbling brass or loaded rounds or cast bullets?
 
I'm currently tumbling 2000 empty .38 special cases that I will load cast bullets into. They will be shot in my M92 Rossi Carbine. The inside of the cases, after tumbling, still have some reddish sheen and the powder from the walnut media can be scraped off with a bore swab covered dowel. So I surmise that a bullet, loaded into such a case will have some of the abrasive embed in the bullet lube or lead and some of that abrasive will go down the bore with the bullet during firing. I recall a bore lapping system that was sold to smooth out rough bores that employed various grades of powdered abrasives coated on cast bullets. It worked by firing the coated bullets to achieve "fire" lapping. A smooth shiny bore is nice, but I just don't want to cause any premature wear.
I have since tumbled the reddish cases a couple hours per batch in plain corn cob with a few squares of fabric softener sheets for the clothes dryer. It seems to be rubbing off and picking up most of the powder abrasive, but when shining a light into the case mouth I still see reddish tinge.
 
I used the walnut media with the jewellers rouge all of once. I never touched the stuff again because it was too messy. I switched to a mix of the Lyman green corn cob media and crushed untreated walnut from the pet store and it works great and doesn't produce any dust outside the tumbler.
 
yomomma said:
Go rub some copper pipe on some steel for a while, with some pressure, at high temperature.

If its that "abrasive" I'm surprised no ones worn holes in their brass yet.
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They are a mild abrasive. If they weren't how the heck do you think they clean off carbon from the casings? By abrasion... Same reason the polish makes it shiney...
 
yomomma said:
Mild abrasive is even "overstating" their abrasiveness. I can use copper bullets as a tumble media and they would clean off the carbon too.
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Highly doubtful unless you have an industrial strength vibratory tumbler. Copper bullets would be too heavy for the unit, just like SS pins. And if your unit was strong enough to tumble them, then yes copper would work too, as its harder than carbon and will act as an abrasive.
 
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