Can tumbling wreck brass?

Boomer454

Boomer454

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I think I have just made a very amature mistake...
I had a batch of .45 Auto brass in an ice cream bucket. It came time to reload them so I through them in the tumbler.(A Lyman Twin Tumbler, with Lyman media). Left them in for about 5 hours. They came out clean, but with a very dull finish. Almost like they have been bead blasted with very fine sand.

I think there may have been some dirt in with them. Not alot, just what got picked up with them at the outdoor range.

Is this brass wrecked? If I put it back in with fresh media for an hour or so will the shine come back? Or should I reload them and just not pick them up next time?

T.I.A.
 
Send them to me for disposal. I would gladly save you the embarresment of unshiny brass.:D

As long as they are clean, load 'em up. They are just going to come out of the gun dirty again anyway.
 
Walnut media usually cleans the brass but leaves a dull finish. Corn cob media usually cleans the brass and leaves a shiny finish. Either media is just fine. I prefer to have shiny brass but since I am using Lizard Litter (walnut), I can live with the finish. It doesn't hurt the brass.
 
If you leave rifle brass in a tumbler (as opposed to a vibrating cleaner) for a long time you may notice that the necks getbunged up due to them hitting each other. Corn cob and the Lyman stuff bring the brass up to a nice shine. As above, most people just wipe the grit off them, reload and shoot them.
 
Ripstop said:
Walnut media usually cleans the brass but leaves a dull finish. Corn cob media usually cleans the brass and leaves a shiny finish. Either media is just fine. I prefer to have shiny brass but since I am using Lizard Litter (walnut), I can live with the finish. It doesn't hurt the brass.
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I like my lizard litter crush walnut. I throw in a little absorball (clay) and this seems to help but leaves a fine dust on the cases.
 
I had one batch of brass/media that had a bunch of small stone chips in it. The stones roughed up the brass pretty good and left a "bead blasted" finish.

Not a problem, just use them and throw them back in the tumbler and they will shine up a bit better next time.
 
I use both a tumbler (RCBS Sidewinder) and a Vibratory Cleaner (RCBS) the work well. The Sidewinder is very very fast at cleaning the case with the liquid cleaner, and no I do not get dinged necks. The corncob media is used when I want a polish in the Sidewinder. I also use the Vibratory cleaner with the corncob and about a tsp of Flitz Liquid Polish for a mirror polish. I no longer am concerned with mirror polished brass like I once was being more concerned with clean brass rather than high polished brass and I find that the liquid cleaner in the RCBS is a real time saver and serves my needs. With the advent of ceramic polishing media the Sidewinder is a wonderfull tool able to use all three medias, liquid, corncob and ceramics.
bigbull
 
I suspect the dullness you mentioned is really fine dust sticking to the brass. Run them for 15 min is brand new media and they might come out shiny.
 
Splatter said:
:eek: Ceramic? Can you point me in the right direction, please?
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I tried to post a link but cannot locate the product, it was Natchez Shooters supply. Their search engine is down. I will post when able to access the site database.
Ceramic media has been around for a long time in various industries but has only migrated over to the shooting world recently. Precision Shooting or Rifle magazine did an exhaustive test on various medias and tumblers for case cleaning and discovered the advantages of ceramic for this job. The result of the test was that ceramic media is very quick and has an indefenite life span for cartridge case cleaning. The media is shaped like small cylinders with the ends cut at an angle because of their shape they are also able to clean the primer pockets, once dirty they are washed with a detergent which regenerates them just like the ceramic knife sharpeners, with use they accumulate dirt / metal from their abrasive action on whatever they act upon and this only embeds on the surface of the ceramic which easily washes off. The results from the testing was very controlled and the results were measured with some type of light meter which measured the reflected light bouncing of the polished cases. Very interesting.
bigbull
 
bigbull said:
I tried to post a link but cannot locate the product, it was Natchez Shooters supply. Their search engine is down. I will post when able to access the site database.
Ceramic media has been around for a long time in various industries but has only migrated over to the shooting world recently. Precision Shooting or Rifle magazine did an exhaustive test on various medias and tumblers for case cleaning and discovered the advantages of ceramic for this job. The result of the test was that ceramic media is very quick and has an indefenite life span for cartridge case cleaning. The media is shaped like small cylinders with the ends cut at an angle because of their shape they are also able to clean the primer pockets, once dirty they are washed with a detergent which regenerates them just like the ceramic knife sharpeners, with use they accumulate dirt / metal from their abrasive action on whatever they act upon and this only embeds on the surface of the ceramic which easily washes off. The results from the testing was very controlled and the results were measured with some type of light meter which measured the reflected light bouncing of the polished cases. Very interesting.
bigbull
Click to expand...

Cool! I'm gonna dig into that one!

Thanks, bigbull!:cool:
 
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