I used to tumble only on nice dry days which in Central California is very common. When the air is dry I can put a couple hundred bullets into a 1 gallon Ziplock freezer bag with a teaspoon of HF Red and massage them around for 1-2 minutes and get beautifully coated bullets. Even at a rate of over 10,000 bullets per year, 1 pound of HF Red lasts for many years so the stuff I have is several years old and I still have 1/2-1/3rd of a pound left in this container.
With our wet winter, I've been having a tougher time PC'ing and while the coverage is adequate (full polymer coating seen after passing through the Lee push through sizer), the overall appearance isn't as good as my summer batches.
So the last time, I tried putting the bullets and powder into a Ziplock bag and put the bag into my HF 5# vibratory tumbler for 1 minute. The results were better but still not 100% but adequate enough to work perfectly at the range. The last batch of the day, I forgot about the tumbler and left it on outside for about 7 minutes. When I opened the bag, the bullets were perfectly coated but the powder was considerably darker than out of the container. To me that meant it was probably now a mixture of powder coat plus lead dust. I baked those bullets (they came out looking great) and dumped the bag and remaining powder. I don't want to risk any additional lead exposure.
This past weekend I tried again but went back to adding the black ASBB's to cushion the lead and the powder stayed nice and bright. I limited the tumbling to no more than 2 minutes followed by a few flips of the bag, then another 1 minute and the coverage was between good and very good even with super high humidity (sprinkles) and several year old powder. As an experiment, I ran one batch through another powder coat session and got even better coverage but IMO it's not worth the added effort since one coating gives 100% coverage on the driving bands once it gets sized and the polymer flows to cover any pin holes or uneven coverage.
Conclusion:
On super wet days, the vibe tumbler works far better than shaking and the ASBB's cushion the lead and prevents lead dust generation. The coverage may not look 100% out of the oven, but if you size the bullets, the polymer flows to completely cover the bullet where it counts.
Archive photos of less-than-perfect coverage, but fully adequate after sizing:
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