tumble my boolits

[lunicy]

should i tumble lead? It looks so much better. Seriously, I tumbled a few boolits just for the hell of it, and it cleans them up nicely. Should I do so?

[ANeat]

Im always a little leary about banging lead bullets together. I would be curious to see how the bullets turned out. Seems like after we try to get good fillout, sharp corners and crisp features that tumbling would negate a lot of that.

[Forester]

I tumble lead boolits if I want to moly coat them with no apparent ill effects on accuracy. I also tumble every .45ACP and .38spl round I load in cleaning media after they come off the 550 and I get extremely good accuracy from them, especially tthe .45.

[bigborefan]

I tumble some of my bullets in walnut media once in a while. They look good that way and there are no dings on them like you would suspect. I've even tumbled 540 gr bullets made of 30-1 alloy with good results. Dimensions still stay the same with no change in roundness or diameter.

[blysmelter]

should i tumble lead? It looks so much better. Seriously, I tumbled a few boolits just for the hell of it, and it cleans them up nicely. Should I do so?



Why? In some time it will be grey and dull again and the only thing you have obtained is to spread lead-dust around you??

[fa38]

I have moly coated plain based rifle bullets by tumbling for about 45 minutes. There is always a slight increase in diameter just above the base of the bullet. These were bullets in the 170 grain to 225 grain weight range, .30 cal and .32 cal.

[Shiloh]

...I also tumble every .45ACP and .38spl round I load in cleaning media after they come off the 550 and I get extremely good accuracy from them, especially the .45.

You tumble loaded rounds??

Shiloh

[nvbirdman]

My boolits sometimes tumble when I shoot them.

[44man]

I like to polish my boolits with rifling! :-D Want to have fun, drop a lubed boolit on the carpet where the dog lies all the time. The little squirt is always sleeping under my bench seat, long blonde hair. Seems to keep the boolit warm until shot. :drinks:

[Forester]

You tumble loaded rounds??

Shiloh

Absolutely. With a tumbler full of cleaning media they are not banging together hard enough to set a primer off. Also, many-maybe every?- major ammunition manufacturer tumbles their loaded ammo to get sizing lube off of the outside of the cases, also for me it takes any small amounts of boolit lube off the outside of the case. Check a box of Winchester White box at Wal-Mart and you will find corn cob media in the bottom of the box.

I have tested a couple of times with different powders and different cartridges and I see no accuracy or velocity differences. An educated guess would be that I tumbled 25,000 rounds of one kind or another in the last year with no "bang".

P.S. I only do this on pistol ammo which I am doing large quantities of. Rifle ammo I am as gentle with as possible and just wipe them off.

[Morgan Astorbilt]

Forrester, I notice you're in Christiansburg. Did you by any chance have the fortune know my good friend and fellow schuetzen shooter Charlie Dell? He was the most knowledgeable person regarding cast bullets, and especially bullet lubes, I've ever known. I still mis him, may he rest in peace.
Morgan

[AlaskaMike]

The only thing that would prevent me from tumbling my bullets to clean them up is that unless I used brand new media, the bullets would get impregnated with whatever dirt and grit had come off my fired cases. I wouldn't want that going down the barrel of any of my guns.

Mike

[Forester]

The only thing that would prevent me from tumbling my bullets to clean them up is that unless I used brand new media, the bullets would get impregnated with whatever dirt and grit had come off my fired cases. I wouldn't want that going down the barrel of any of my guns.

Mike

My only evidence that this is a non-issue is a kart .45ACP barrel with +/- 60,000 rounds through it most of which were tumbled after loading. The barrel still holds as tight a group as it ever did (pretty d@# tight) and the rifling looks pristine.


Forrester, I notice you're in Christiansburg. Did you by any chance have the fortune know my good friend and fellow schuetzen shooter Charlie Dell? He was the most knowledgeable person regarding cast bullets, and especially bullet lubes, I've ever known. I still mis him, may he rest in peace.
Morgan

Unfortunately I did not. I have only been in town about 8 years, may have been before my time here?

[Morgan Astorbilt]

Forrester, He only passed away recently. He was the president of the American Single Shot Rifle Association (ASSRA) Wrote a couple of books on single shot rifles. He lived on Den Hill Rd., and had a shooting range where he Held Chinkapin Schuetzenverein matches. He also had a rail gun, shooting 100yds. out of his basement shop window for testing bullets and lubes. It's your loss that you didn't know him, he was one of the finest gentlemen in the world, a great machinist/gunsmith and a wealth of information, which he would share in a heartbeat. I think he was 82 when he passed.
Morgan

[Forester]

Forrester, He only passed away recently. He was the president of the American Single Shot Rifle Association (ASSRA) Wrote a couple of books on single shot rifles. He lived on Den Hill Rd., and had a shooting range where he Held Chinkapin Schuetzenverein matches. He also had a rail gun, shooting 100yds. out of his basement shop window for testing bullets and lubes. It's your loss that you didn't know him, he was one of the finest gentlemen in the world, a great machinist/gunsmith and a wealth of information, which he would share in a heartbeat. I think he was 82 when he passed.
Morgan

He does sound like quite a guy...wish I had been able to meet him. If he was on Den Hill Rd. he would have been within just a few miles of my house.

[38 Super Auto]

should i tumble lead? It looks so much better. Seriously, I tumbled a few boolits just for the hell of it, and it cleans them up nicely. Should I do so?

I tumbled some unsized 150gr .358 slugs because they were covered with grey dust - is that lead oxide? They came out cleaner, but still dull grey.

I tumbled them because I didn't want to expose myself to the dust that could become airborne which had formed on the boolits.

Merry Christmas, :drinks: