tumbler usage

[adam38654]

How many rounds of 9mm/38/45/223 should i do at a time in a fraklenarsenal/midway/harborfreight style vibrating tumbler.

[montana_charlie]

This was copied from a Frankford Arsenal owner's manual for one of their QUICK-N-EZE tumblers. I found the manual online at the Frankford Arsenal website.
http://www.battenfeldtechnologies.com/downloads/instructions/573331-Quick-N-EZ-Master-instructions.pdf

Instructions for Use:
1. Fill the cleaning bowl about 2/3 full of cleaning or polishing
media. Set the tumbler on a flat concrete surface and
plug it in. Add any amount of brass you desire, up to maximum
capacity. Capacity will vary with the size of the cases
being cleaned. In general, once the cleaning media is in
the tumbler, you can continue to add brass to your media
until you see the tumbling action of the brass become sluggish.
Obviously, with less tumbling action, you will get less
cleaning action. If you put too much brass in and the
action slows down, simply remove some of the brass.
2. Tumble your brass until it is clean. If you are merely cleaning
your brass, 30 minutes to an hour will normally
remove all dirt and grease. If you want to polish the
tarnish or powder stain from brass, you will need to use
treated media or add ammonia-free brass polish to
untreated media and then tumble for several hours. Just
check the brass periodically for progress.


If these instructions don't seem right to you, read the manual that came with your machine ...

CM

[1hole]

It really isn't all that hard or complicated or critical, that's why the 'instructions' aren't highly detailed. A couple of experiments will tell you all you need to know. ??

[adam38654]

That helps. The instructions with the HF Chicago vibrator wasn't much more specific besides the 2/3 media thing and upto 5lb and 30-60min. I want to go easy on loading it but not use too few cases that its running more hours to do such small batches.

I'm thinking 200-250 will be sufficient and leave enough media to do the job without the cases scratching each other, bogging it down, or having to leave it on for hours. I just want to knock the carbon off the insides. Not polish all of the tarnish off.

Will used drier sheets help catch the dust or are new ones best?

[Longwood]

I learned to use Nufinish in the tumbler here and could hardly believe the results on my first try.
Can you say New brass finish? I have been using the vibrator tumblers for years and have never ever seen the results I got.
One thing to never do is mix small brass with bigger brass because the small brass can get trapped inside of the larger ones by the media and can be hard to get separated.

[casterofboolits]

I have the Frankford Arsenal tumbler and usually do 250 45 APC , 300 9mm or 200 223 cases. I don't want to over load it. I did burn up one of the Harbor Freight tumbler of the same size in a month.

[August]

I have done this process with my tumbler. I found it very instructive. In other words, I got a better understanding of how the tumbler worked.

Just like the instructions above, I turned on the tumbler with the lid off and kept adding brass until the "action" of the media slowed down. It was very obvious when the limit was approached, as the movement of media and brass went from brisk, to slow, to not moving much at all in relation to the bowl.

I often have much more brass than one load, so I often load it this way as a normal procedure.

[noylj]

If you tumble brass as you come back from the range, you will almost NEVER be putting in too many cases. Just be sure you onle add one caliber at a time--9s like to get into .40 cases, that like to get into .45 cases.
I will still tell every newbie:
A good practice for me is to deprime, inspect, and sort my brass when I come back from the range. I then tumble in 20/40 mesh corn. The cases go into storage until poured into a case feeder.
This grit is small enough to not jam up in the primer pocket and too large to get into the flash hole. I add nothing to it, other than a used dryer softener sheet or paper towel or tissue to "collect" the dust. Even if a flake of something gets into the flash hole, it will be removed when I size the case.
30 minutes is clean
60 minutes is shinier than I need.
I don't compete on the international "shiniest brass" championships.

[milprileb]

NOYLJ has commented exactly how I do it.

I would only add that if you max out the capacity, you may short cut the
life span of your tumbler.

Unless the tumbler you buy has a factory defect and the motor canks out
early on you, chances are the unit will go on for years if you load it well under
max capacity.

My Thumbler tumlber is now 30 yrs old, My Cabelas (Berrys mfg) 45 dollar version is well into 4 yrs old. I use them all the time and but I don't over load them. That approach has yielded many yrs of service.

The Cabelas is far faster of course (newer technology) and the first 3 months that I had it, I cleaned 4 foot lockers of brass but I was careful to not over load the machine. This approach worked for me and the unit continues on with top notch performance.