Rock tumbler to polish brass?

Rock tumbler works just dandy. The most important thing is what media you use and not to overload the drum so as to restrict the movement of the brass. I have one for jobs of 25+lbs and its works like a charm.
Cheers
dB
 
That's one serious tumbler you're looking at. If you are needing to clean hundreds of brass at a time it would do the job for sure.
Frankly I prefer a dedicated vibrator style tumber myself. Cheaper, quieter, smaller. I have a Midway tumber which handles 300 or so pistol cases with ease, depending on caliber. Probably get about 500 9mm in it. With new or fairly new media it only takes a couple of hours tumbling and the brass looks like new again.
 
Forget it. Pick yourself up an old clothes dryer :D Duct tape over the holes and don't use the heat :D LOL!!!!

That thing will work perfectly. Like DaBear said. The media is the most important thing. Stay away from the pet store corn cob stuff if you're tumbling anything with .308 necks or smaller. The nuggets are a bit larger than the stuff you get in the gun store and will jam in the case neck. Personally, the best stuff I've found is the crushed walnut shell stuff that you find in the bird cage section at Petsmart. Add a little Brasso metal polish and a little NuFinish "once a year car polish" and you're good to go.
 
blacksmithden said:
Forget it. Pick yourself up an old clothes dryer :D Duct tape over the holes and don't use the heat :D LOL!!!!

That thing will work perfectly. Like DaBear said. The media is the most important thing. Stay away from the pet store corn cob stuff if you're tumbling anything with .308 necks or smaller. The nuggets are a bit larger than the stuff you get in the gun store and will jam in the case neck. Personally, the best stuff I've found is the crushed walnut shell stuff that you find in the bird cage section at Petsmart. Add a little Brasso metal polish and a little NuFinish "once a year car polish" and you're good to go.
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OMG your a genius!!! I would totally do that if I lived in a trailer park. I'd be too embarassed to do that now.
 
It is the media and the movement that do the polishing. So anything that can rotate, at a slower speed , with cases and media will polish your cases. Some of the large brass dealers in the U.S. , use cement mixers filled with cases and media to polish the Military surplus and commercial range brass that they bid on by the ton.
 
A good source of polishing media is the commercial blasting supply companies. In Edmonton, one is Manus Abrasives. A 25 pound bag of fine walnut shell is cheap and the bag will lasts "forever". They also supply corn cobb in a much finer grade that does not get stuck in the flash hole.

I would suggest that Brasso is not the best polishing compound as it is hard on the thin cartridge brass. I use a commercial brass polisher made by Iosso. To that I add "rouge" (available from rock polishing suppliers). The brass comes out "better than new".

If you are "cleaning) bullets in the tumbler prior to moly coating you can't use walnut shells, too much oil. This also applies to rubber tumbling drums used on most commom rock tumblers. There is enough oil in the rubber to prevent the moly from sticking to the bullets.
 
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