Second tumbler crashed in 3 yrs????

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Brianma65

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So my second tumbler,in 3 yrs, kicked the bucket.
First was a RBCS,the mother seized after 2 1/2 yrs. It was OK but noisy.
My second,mastercraft, lasted 3 months. The rubber washer disintegrated,and the wing nut stripped out.
What am I doing wrong???
I tumble about 600 pieces a week,sometimes I let it run overnight.

Thinking it's time to upgrade to a SS rotary ??? Frankfurt maybe???
 
Ya just upgrade to ss rotary and be done with it. That being said I have the Canadian tire one as well. It has done thousands of pistol brass it is still going strong until I upgraded to ss rotary. Maybe you are over filling them and putting putting more weight than they can handle. That might burn out the motors quicker.
 
Go wet ss pin tumbling. The pins last forever, I've cleaned thousands in the year I've had mine. I really can't go back to not ss tumbling. The brass comes out Shiney like gold with clean primer pockets.
 
does the canadian tire one carry a warranty most of their tools are life time.I have returned screw drivers i used at work clearly abused they exchanged them no questions asked
 
Ive had a Lymann tumbler for more than 8 years... got it long ago. Its still working fine. Ive loaded it heavy with rifle and pistol brass, never had an issue.
 
Brianma65 said:
sometimes I let it run overnight.
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there are polishing additives that you place a few drops in the media and it helps to clean it fast. I never tumble more than an hour and brass is shiny like new. running it over night might be the problem.
 
I returned it and got a refund. I've tryed a couple diff brass polishes, didn't seem to work well.
If I leave them for only 3 or 4 hrs , I find the brass is still dull.
Now I know they don't have to be shiny, but it's the way I gotta have em :)

There a few Tumbler tumblers on cabelas, looks like 2 of them uses a belt.
And there's a Frankfurt,which is almost double the price.
 
Janeau said:
Buy a Dillon. Purchased mine in 1983 and it is used weekly. Buy quality.
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Yup. They replaced the first one that I sent back to them after using it for 5 yrs. No charge and even sent back an envelope of my black labs hair they found in the motor. LOL
That being said, I also use a stainless pin tumbler now and love it. Need both in my opinion.
 
bsand said:
Go wet ss pin tumbling. The pins last forever, I've cleaned thousands in the year I've had mine. I really can't go back to not ss tumbling. The brass comes out Shiney like gold with clean primer pockets.
Click to expand...
Would you mind giving me a step by step, how and what you use?
 
frankford arsenal rotary tumbler 10 pounds of pins (they give you 5, i bought another 5, cuts down on peening on necks). I have tumbled anyhwere from 50 to 250 308 cases, and 100-600 223 cases at a time. I fill up to 1" to the top of the container with hot water, 2 DQ red spoons full of HE tide, 2 spoon fulls of dawn, and 1/2 spoon of lemishine. Tumble for 1 hour to 1.5 hours (dependin how many cases). I deprime before tumbling.
 
A rubber washer and wing nut should only cost you a couple bucks from any hardware isle if that's what the only problem with the mastercraft is. If the threaded rod is stripped that should also be cheap. I have one I bought for 50$ on sale and I have been impressed with it at that price point so far.

I also have a Thumlers tumbler and that thing works great with just a 38 special casing full of lemishine and some dish soap. I don't even bother with SS pins. Brass comes out crystal clean and I give it a quick vibratory tumble in the mastercraft for an hour or so with walnut sandblasting media and a cap ful of nuFinish. The primer pockets are clean and they're almost too pretty to shoot.
 
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I had two different vibratory tumblers in over 46 years of reloading and was never that impressed with their cleaning abilities. About five years ago I bought a STM wet tumbler and wish I had bought one much earlier.

I also remember in the early 1970s without any type of tumbler and polishing the cases with 0000 steel wool and life was much simpler. (except for sore fingers)

Also many competitive shooters do not like wet tumbling with SS media because it removes the carbon from the inside of the case neck and effect bullet grip.

After wet tumbling with SS media I resize my cases after dipping the case necks in graphite. (a form of powdered carbon) and coat the inside of the neck with carbon.

These competitive shooters say the wet tumbled cases will cause the bullet to bond to the case neck and effect neck tension. Other competitive who wet tumble will set the bullet long and just before a match seat the bullet deeper to the desired length and break any bonding between bullet and case neck.

Bottom line, I prefer wet tumbling over dry tumbling with walnut or corn cob media.
 
bigedp51 said:
I had two different vibratory tumblers in over 46 years of reloading and was never that impressed with their cleaning abilities. About five years ago I bought a STM wet tumbler and wish I had bought one much earlier.

I also remember in the early 1970s without any type of tumbler and polishing the cases with 0000 steel wool and life was much simpler. (except for sore fingers)

Also many competitive shooters do not like wet tumbling with SS media because it removes the carbon from the inside of the case neck and effect bullet grip.

After wet tumbling with SS media I resize my cases after dipping the case necks in graphite. (a form of powdered carbon) and coat the inside of the neck with carbon.

These competitive shooters say the wet tumbled cases will cause the bullet to bond to the case neck and effect neck tension. Other competitive who wet tumble will set the bullet long and just before a match seat the bullet deeper to the desired length and break any bonding between bullet and case neck.

Bottom line, I prefer wet tumbling over dry tumbling with walnut or corn cob media.
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Just as it was looking so easy, you had to go and throw that in there LOL.

Now I'm gonna be thinking about bullits being stuck in the cases
 
just wondering if op is setting the tumbler on carpet/mat/towel? that overheats motor also picks up more crap like dog and cat hair.

My house mate (kid brother) used to do that to me as the noise bothered him when he was watching tv.
 
Brianma65 said:
Just as it was looking so easy, you had to go and throw that in there LOL.

Now I'm gonna be thinking about bullits being stuck in the cases
Click to expand...

You can blame my two sons, I always had bolt actions and revolvers and my brass never hit the ground at the range. Then my sons told me I had to get modern and buy semi-autos that throw perfectly good brass away to land on the ground. When these cases starting scratching my dies I started wet tumbling to remove all the dirt and grit embedded in the brass.

In my opinion dry tumblers are not as good at scrubbing the cases free of all the embedded dirt and grit with you get with semi-autos. I have two AR15s and my sons have one each and dad does all the reloading and I got tired of polishing the inside of my .223 dies.

If you are not scratching your dies and having grit embedded inside the sizing die then dry vibratory tumblers are fine.

The sad part in all of this is when my sons were younger I bought the same type STM tumber (rock tumbler) to polish rocks.

I gave it to my brother-in-law for his kids to polish rocks and he sold it for next to nothing at a yard sale. :bangHead:

The new STM tumbler cost three times as much as the old one did. :mad:

NOTE, dipping the case necks in powdered graphite puts a carbon coating between the bullet and case.

Imperial Dry Neck Lube
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/319390/imperial-dry-neck-lube-1-oz-powder

"Imperial Dry Neck Lube is graphite based powder and is designed to reduce the drag and chatter of the cartridge case neck within the sizing die and allows for easier passage of the expander button through the case neck."


There are small porous beads in the powdered graphite and all you do is dip and twist to coat the inside the case neck.

The graphite eases bullet seating and many think it also helps reduce neck runout during seating.
 
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wce323078 said:
just wondering if op is setting the tumbler on carpet/mat/towel? that overheats motor also picks up more crap like dog and cat hair.

My house mate (kid brother) used to do that to me as the noise bothered him when he was watching tv.
Click to expand...
Keep it on the laminate floor, in my gun room.
 
Brianma65 said:
So my second tumbler,in 3 yrs, kicked the bucket.
First was a RBCS,the mother seized after 2 1/2 yrs. It was OK but noisy.
My second,mastercraft, lasted 3 months. The rubber washer disintegrated,and the wing nut stripped out.
What am I doing wrong???
I tumble about 600 pieces a week,sometimes I let it run overnight.

Thinking it's time to upgrade to a SS rotary ??? Frankfurt maybe???
Click to expand...


CTC "experts" say this...reviewers say otherwise.
 
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