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Thread: Magnetic wet tumbler???

  1. #1
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Magnetic wet tumbler???

    Has anyone tried one of these????
    I made a small one with magnets from old hard drives. It worked well, but the magnets were to small.
    Waiting for some bigger magnets to come in.

  2. #2
    Boolit Grand Master jmorris's Avatar
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    I made one with some pretty large magnets. It worked but only with a small amount of brass. Any more pounds can be done using gravity instead of magnets, at least on the cheap.

  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    OK, what is a magnetic tumbler?????

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  5. #5
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    NavyVet1959's Avatar
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    I've wondered what would happen if you took a bucket or so of the dirty brass and put in in an open top 55g plastic barrel and then used a pressure washer on it. Might need some sort of shield / top that your power washer wand went though to keep from it being a big mess though...

  6. #6
    Boolit Grand Master jmorris's Avatar
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    I built some big wet tumblers for a local business awhile back, each drum holds 15 gallons of brass per batch. An over head crane takes them from the tumbling machines to the drying machines.


  7. #7
    Boolit Master
    44Vaquero's Avatar
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    My experience was the same as jmorris's it worked and worked well but was really to small (about a 100 .38 cases) for my needs. I could not see going to the expense and labor of building a unit with much larger magnets.

    It was fun to watch, I used a clear plastic bowel for my container.
    My hero's have always been Cowboys!

  8. #8
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Magnets coming from china.
    Taking kind of long.
    Magnet tumbler is suppose to be faster than the drum.
    I have a drum type. I found I have to run it an hour or more.
    Not that long, but If I can clean faster, more time for reloading.

  9. #9
    Boolit Bub Pilgrim Sojourner's Avatar
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    Would any of you successful builders consider posting a list of materials needed and construction instructions?

  10. #10
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    Mytmousemalibu's Avatar
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    I just did a run of 9mm brass last night through the rotary wet tumbler, approximately 3000pcs of deprimed brass in one batch! Some of it very nasty outdoor range brass found in mud/water/dirt. It was acceptably clean after about 45min but I let it go about 1.5hrs since I was busy doing other tasks and it came out like brand new as always.

    Looks like the magnetic tumblers are fast but sacrifice quantity by a fair margin. Interesting way of doing it but i'll stick with the rotary drum. If you can get a large batch(s) processed before you need it, that's the way to go.

    Since winter is here our club will probably be dropping the majority of outdoor matches till spring. I probably won't need to make another run of 9mm brass till April.
    ~ Chris


    Casting, reloading, shooting, collecting, restoring, smithing, etc, I love it all but most importantly, God, Family, The United States Constitution and Freedom...

    God Bless our Troops, Veterans and First Responders!

    Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas
    Accuracy, Power & Speed

  11. #11
    Boolit Grand Master
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    At the very most, I clean 60 rifle brass at a time.
    Largest would be 30.06.
    Kind of just want to try and see if it would be better.

  12. #12
    Boolit Grand Master In Remembrance
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    The result is that the surface becomes bright, shiny and work-harden
    Nope, don't need another step reloadng
    Regards
    John

  13. #13
    Boolit Grand Master jmorris's Avatar
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    Kind of just want to try and see if it would be better.
    Sounds like a plan, get to building or buying and post your results with photos.

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
    Mytmousemalibu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by abunaitoo View Post
    At the very most, I clean 60 rifle brass at a time.
    Largest would be 30.06.
    Kind of just want to try and see if it would be better.
    Might be pretty handy for small batches of rifle brass or the obscure stuff that you don't have vast quantities of, so I see the merits. I am actually surprised by the cleaning quality in short time after seeing the video (long as they are publishing honest results). The drum's contents in motion all swirling around has everything moving but it doesn't look like there would be much relative motion of the brass & pins to each other, just swirling the tub but the brass sure looked clean so must be more than meets the eye. With a rotary the agitation/action is very aggressive so its no surprise it cleans really well.

    First thing I thought seeing the magnetic was this looks like a giant version of a scientific/lab hot plate stirrer just without the hot plate. They use a magnetic drive to spin the little stir bar you see in the bottom of a lab beaker in action and this the magnet pucks are the "stir bar". Wouldn't surprise me if this is the inspiration of it. Scale a hotplate stirrer up and you are on your way to making one.
    ~ Chris


    Casting, reloading, shooting, collecting, restoring, smithing, etc, I love it all but most importantly, God, Family, The United States Constitution and Freedom...

    God Bless our Troops, Veterans and First Responders!

    Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas
    Accuracy, Power & Speed

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check