SS wet tumbling vs Vibratory tumbling

I never knew the HF tumbler was only $29! It looks like a pretty solid unit too. How many cases can you tumble in it with the 3/4 lb of SS pins?
 
Trinimon said:
Ok, maybe I sipped too much of this SS wet tumbling kool-Aid but here's a test I ran last night for sh!ts & giggles.

Here's some 2x fired 308 cases that were cleaned with green cob media for 3hrs. Brass is nice and shiny on the outside and looks clean.
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Dumped cases into my $29. HarborFreight rock tumbler with roughly a tablespoon of dishwashing soap, a pinch of Lemi Shine, 3/4lb of SS pins and filled with hot water just below the top of the cases. The drum on the right are previously media cleaned 357Mag cases.
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Tumble for 3hrs.
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This is the dirty water that comes out at the end from previously cleaned media tumbled cases.
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Silly me didn't think about this at the start but next time I'll do a volume weight test on a single case. I don't think there will be a significant change in volume from cob to ss tumbling but would be interesting to see.

I'll probably stick to media tumbling for my plinking ammo cases since I wouldn't have to wait for them to dry before sizing them etc.
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How reasonable was Harbor Freight regarding shippping charge for your tumbler?
 
See the two posts above me are also in the Vancouver or BC area with the same question.

Just got a PM back from OP (thanks for quick, detail reply). Seem OP got the tumbler during XMas sale, now back to reg price of 50 bucks which seems to still be a great deal. OP picked up from the States. Checking the Harbor freight site seems they don't ship to Canada but US shipping is ony $7 so good for those of us close to the border. HFT has a store in Bellingham.

Big question for me now is dust vs. water mess.
 
Hf will ship to Canada, you need to phone and do the transaction over the phone.
I live close enough to the border and was going across anyway that I had it shipped to my US addy.
 
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Kryogen said:
No it is not, the rinsing and drying is wasted time. I dont inspect the brass while i bulk rinse and dry.

I inspect my brass when i prime it.
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Different approach's to the same end. I come across split neck's at some time before their loaded be it at the seperation of pin's, drying,or priming
 
I made the switch to SS and here were my reasons and the examples of saving work:

- Dust free
- Minimal consumables
- clean inside and out , no need for a brush inside the neck OR a primer pocket cleaning tool.
- less noisy than vibratory
- no media in flash holes
- much faster cleaning process
- higher capacity than US

When when covering my vibratory cleaner with a towel I still had dust all over my shop.

Universal decapping die, into cleaner, no other cleaning type prep needed.
 
I'm outta dirty brass so I started experimenting with some previously cleaned ones.

After one hour tumbling, the cleaned cases came out, well MUCH cleaner. I'm hooked! Clean brass in 1hr vs 3hrs tumbling? Frak yeah!

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For those ordering the HF rock tumbler, you can use coupon code 76157505 to get $10. off. You'll have to call in to place your order.
 
There is no doubt that ss pins gives the best clean. I just find it a hassle to rinse and dry.
Then, the squeaky clean brass grabs too much in the dies, so you need to lube to reload without too muchforce.
And then, your cases are dirty with lube....

And then i personally toss them into corncob to get the lube off.

Oh well. It just depends how ocd you feel that day. When i just want quickreloads i sometimes do not even tumble.

I. Have cob, us and ss....
 
I am in the middle of getting into SS tumbling. I didn't have a vibratory tumbler either so I'm starting from scratch. I ordered the SS pins from Rooky way back in Oct then eventually got LemiShine (luckily my Canuck Rubber store has tons of it) and Dawn dish soap which is available everywhere. I recently ordered a Thumlers Tumbler (HS model) last week from Canadian Treasure Seekers. I also purchased a Redding Universal decap die set as well. Saw several YouTube videos and from reading posts on various online forums this was the way to go for me. I have an old dehydrator that I will use to dry my cases. I can't wait to try it out and get started! :)
 
Bluedevil25 said:
I am in the middle of getting into SS tumbling. I didn't have a vibratory tumbler either so I'm starting from scratch. I ordered the SS pins from Rooky way back in Oct then eventually got LemiShine (luckily my Canuck Rubber store has tons of it) and Dawn dish soap which is available everywhere. I recently ordered a Thumlers Tumbler (HS model) last week from Canadian Treasure Seekers. I also purchased a Redding Universal decap die set as well. Saw several YouTube videos and from reading posts on various online forums this was the way to go for me. I have an old dehydrator that I will use to dry my cases. I can't wait to try it out and get started! :)
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Good stuff. Keep in mind that you don't have to use a gallon of water (approx 8lbs?) in your Thumler despite the videos mentioning that. Just enough to reach about 1/2" from the top of your brass.
 
Bluedevil25 said:
I am in the middle of getting into SS tumbling. I didn't have a vibratory tumbler either so I'm starting from scratch. I ordered the SS pins from Rooky way back in Oct then eventually got LemiShine (luckily my Canuck Rubber store has tons of it) and Dawn dish soap which is available everywhere. I recently ordered a Thumlers Tumbler (HS model) last week from Canadian Treasure Seekers. I also purchased a Redding Universal decap die set as well. Saw several YouTube videos and from reading posts on various online forums this was the way to go for me. I have an old dehydrator that I will use to dry my cases. I can't wait to try it out and get started! :)
Click to expand...

I've found that a media separator is pretty much essential to efficient wet tumbling. I have the Cabela's branded one and it works very well, but even after using the separator I still very often find one or two pins in my brass, either inside the body of the case or stuck together in pairs in the flash hole. Having the separator also saves me a lot of dicking around in the sink as I can just dump the entire contents of the tumbler, including all the dirty water, into the bottom half.

Rocky's pins will work with a magnet, so I usually leave my final inspection after case prep to the end (unless a case has obvious problems that I notice during other steps) and just pass each one over a strong magnet before I inspect it.
 
Kryogen said:
No it is not, the rinsing and drying is wasted time. I dont inspect the brass while i bulk rinse and dry.

I inspect my brass when i prime it.
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It's only wasted time if you need to wait for your brass to dry before loading it.
My brass usually sits for weeks or even months before reloading since I have more brass than needed.
 
Kryogen said:
There is no doubt that ss pins gives the best clean. I just find it a hassle to rinse and dry.
Then, the squeaky clean brass grabs too much in the dies, so you need to lube to reload without too muchforce.
And then, your cases are dirty with lube....

And then i personally toss them into corncob to get the lube off.

Oh well. It just depends how ocd you feel that day. When i just want quickreloads i sometimes do not even tumble.

I. Have cob, us and ss....
Click to expand...

Only for rifle rounds no lube on my pistol brass ever..
 
Exciting. Cannot wait. Then I'll join the big boys with their shiny brass

I've read people do 5-5-5 ratio.

5 lbs of brass.
5 pounds of water
5 lbs of stainless media.
 
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