Brass tumbler for ball mill????

[AlaskanGuy]

I have an extra tumbler for cleaning brass....... I was kinda wondering if anybody has tried using it with lead balls, and willow charcoal for crushing and refining it down? Seems like it should work about as good as a ball mill dont ya think???? I am going to use the liquid method of making black powder, and am looking to do the final grind after using a meat grinder on my charcoal....

AG

[Nobade]

Most tumblers have motors too small. I have an old Lorton with a 1/2 hp motor that I geared up to 70rpm and filled half full of lead balls. That works well, but the normal ones are underpowered and slow. They will work eventually if you load them light, but don't push them too hard.

-Nobade

[Texantothecore]

It should work just fine. Try it and see how well it does for you. I use a Thumler ar6 and it grinds very quickly because I use 405 grain bullets as the grinding medium.

I use about 7200 rotations and it seems to work well.

[Boz330]

I found that with round balls and the Harbor Freight tumbler the powder tends to be forced up against the ends and clumps together. I don't mill my CC separately. I grind it in a meat grinder, mix all of the ingredients together and mill the whole mess at one time.
Texan I never thought of using bullets instead of balls, that would help eliminate the clumping in the smooth sided tumbler. I have used my Thumbler with brass pipe fittings to grind big lots but hate the clean up to go back to brass cleaning. It does allow me to make several pounds at a time but then I don't usually need that much.

Bob

[Fly]

Diddo on what Bob said.
Fly

[Texantothecore]

Boz,
I am really pleased with the results of using the bullets. They grind very rapidly, much quicker than rounball and my perception is that the resulting grind is finer.

I have been grinding the charcoal for two hours before incorporating but I am not entirely sure that it is necessary with a 6 hour incorporation grind and I am going to be doing some experimenting with shorter times in the future to see what works and what doesn't.

The two hour preincorporation run with the charcoal does give me charcoal powder which forms itself into flat surfaces when it settles and it sort of resembles a liquid in that respect so I figure that the particle size is quite small.

The grinding phase been a complete success.

[AlaskanGuy]

Wow... Nice.... This should work fine then... I have lots of boolits.... He he.... Thanks guys

[Texantothecore]

My figure of 7200 rotations of the drum is based upon a 6 hour run. Drum rotations will be the key rather than time.

[Fly]

My figure of 7200 rotations of the drum is based upon a 6 hour run. Drum rotations will be the key rather than time.

Well I,m not going to count! (WINK)
Fly

[AlaskanGuy]

Well, my brass tumbler is a vibrator.... Think that will still work??????

Anybody know if this will work????

[AlaskanGuy]

Vibrating tumbler??. Anybody know if is will work?????

[Texantothecore]

Vibrating tumbler??. Anybody know if is will work?????

Uh ...,.no,

[OverMax]

I bought an old 50's Warning blender having a thick glass jar at a garage sale last year. Simple two speed Bee Hive model. I chop & grind my charcoal in that blender rather than the manual meat grinder I also have for the same purpose. I found the meat grinder to work well but a little too messy for my liking. Blender does a good job at grinding to near Air Float but not quite. Ball roller is still no doubt the best at doing that.

[Boz330]

Well I,m not going to count! (WINK)
Fly
Oh come on Fly, you are retired, what else you got to do??????????????????????????

I'm with Texan I don't think the vibrating tumbler will work.

As far as grinding time, I haven't noticed a big difference in 4 to 6 hours and longer. I do corn my powder and my velocity to grain weight is actually better than Swiss, but not near as consistent. I mostly only use mine to hunt with so it doesn't make a big difference at 100yds, my self imposed limit. I have tried my powder in a BPCR at 300yds with decent results. In my Gibbs at 500yds vertical was too much for reliable hits.

Bob