Need some help! I might have screwed up!

[poppy42]

If you tumbled 15 pounds(!) of buckshot, could that be lead residue you are seeing? Isn't there some sort of lead wipe available you could use?

No it’s not lead residue, it’s graphite.

[poppy42]

Howdy Poppy. I've never tumbled buckshot with graphite, but... I think removing the bowl and washing would probably get most if not all of it out.

I think just putting it back into service would wear it off, but it might cause your media to bite the dust sooner.

Sounds like a slick trick to get the Lee buckshot polished and lubed, thanks for the tip.

Hey Bazoo! Sorry I didn’t respond to replies sooner, my email is supposed to notify me when someone replies to my thread but it didn’t! Yep it did a real nice job on the buckshot! Today I ran some scrap brass and some corn cob media that I got by mistake through the tumbler. This corn cob is way to big, it gets stuck in every flash hole in any brass I tumbled! It’s even clogged up the entire 5.56 case! But between the scrap brass and the junk corn cob it cleaned about 90% of the graphite out! I guess I was worried over nothing!

[poppy42]

I just wanted to thank everyone for the replies! Crisis averted! As I posted in a reply to Bazoo between washing it out and running some scrap brass and some corn cob that wasn’t much good for anything for a couple hours about 90% of the graphite was removed! I was quite relieved! I’m telling ya it looked like I moly coated the bowl of my tumbler lol! I thought it was ruined for cleaning brass! It wasn’t like it was a lot of graphite, about the equivalent of about 3/4” of lead out of a carpenters pencil! Anyway I guess it isn’t as big of a deal as I was afraid it was! Lesson learned! Anyway thanks for all the helpful replies! Greatly appreciated! Great forum with a great bunch of members!!!!!!!!

[Sasquatch-1]

If this is something you are going to do on a regular basis, you should look into getting a dedicated bowl for this. You may want to post a "Wanted To Buy" request. I have seen a lot of post about burnt out tumblers on the forum.

[Gobeyond]

Use some SOS.

[beagle]

Won't hurt anything. I tumble #4 buck in mine all the time with a dash of powdered graphite for locks. Then throw in "Lizzard Litter" pecan shells and have at it. Never noticed the difference. Been doing it for years in my RCBS Sidewinders./beagle

[trapper9260]

I use a hand roller that is use for round balls for ball and patch. I use it on my buckshot and takes care of it all . Some years ago I did a test with shooting 00 buck shot in a 410 . First test without roll the shot and the spread is no pattern , then I rolled the shot in the hand roller and use the same data and I had a pattern . Just for those that dose a small amount of shot and dose not want to put it in your tumbler. I use the cheap dryer sheets with my media to take care of the dust when I tumble my brass. I like the idea to use a cloth with mineral sprits . It got me thinking is the old cotton socks or anything like that would do a good job on this too for dust .