Using rice as a tumbler media

Rice didn't work, it left a white residue, that was hard to get off. Wheat Kernels work, ok. Barley Kernels work, ok. Ground corn works and ground up walnut too.
You can buy ground walnut at pet stores cheap. Its called lizard litter or pet bedding. $6 for 10 lbs.
 
You need to be more specific, which type of rice were you thinking of? White,Brown,Sticky Rice,Min. Rice? Min. Rice might be quick and convenient.:sucks:
 
I use the 10?kg bag of crushed walnut shell from Petsmart. It's sold as bedding compound for pets. I mix in some cleaning stuff, ie. Flitz, Peek, Brasso, etc. It's about 1/10 the cost of the commercial brass/tumbling media found in the retail stores.
 
koldt said:
I use the 10?kg bag of crushed walnut shell from Petsmart. It's sold as bedding compound for pets. I mix in some cleaning stuff, ie. Flitz, Peek, Brasso, etc. It's about 1/10 the cost of the commercial brass/tumbling media found in the retail stores.
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Have you bought a bag recently? The last few times I went looking they said they were not carrying the 25lb bags anymore.
 
I use rice, works great if a little slow. If you add a little commercial polishing media it helps. I use about 90% rice, 10% Lyman turbo media.
It does plug flash holes (as does most other media) but I just pop it out with a small screwdriver.
 
I used rice as a pre-polish for a while, and it works well but is a bit dusty. Real dirty pickups would go into the rice first and then into treated corn cob for a final polish and to get rid of the rice dust.

In the end I dumped the rice as it was to dusty IMO.
 
I got PO'd with walnut dust one time and having to hand clean 500 38 special brass. I have used uncooked white rice for years - throw in a couple of tablespoons of Nu Finish car polish and I throw in 4 or 5 .30 cal gun cleaning patches with the brass - it accumulates the gunk. It has worked fine for me - just have to check the flash hole to make sure there isnt a kernel plugging it.
 
I just picked up a 25lb bag of crushed walnut from petsmart yesterday. I think I paid $15.00ish for it ( I bought a few things so I can't remember).

I like walnut as it cleans very well. A lot of my brass gets tarnished as I load in cycles and it could be months before I get to it. It doesn't polish the cases as well as corncob but it works good.

To keep the dust down I put a dryer sheet and a capful of medium cut polish in. I run the tumbler for a couple hours to allow everything to mix well and then tumble brass.

I made the mistake of throwing some polish in while tumbling some 7.62X39 brass once. I had to let the brass sit for a few days to let the polish dry as it had ran into the insides of the case and stuck walnut pieces in there. I had to fish the gunk out with a 30 cal bronze brush and blow the crap out with compressed air before using the cases again.
 
I wasn't able to find any crushed walnut at my local pet food stores, and the staff didn't know what i was talking about.

You can get corncob media in the pet section of the grocery store as Presidents Choice Green compostable cat litter. As an added bonus, you end up with fresh-scented ammunition. If you love your cat though, don't put the used media into the litter box after tumbling a lot of brass.
 
A buddy tried using rice once.....I am sure he will never try again. He spent many hours trying to get the rice out of the flash holes.

Some of the rice even jammed inside the cases and wouldn't come out.
 
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