6.8 Brass vs. concrete mixer

[lmfd20]

Here is the results of my stainless pins/concrete mixer setup for brass cleaning. I love it. This is about 2000 cases. So much quicker than my vibratory tumbler and no dust! I can run about 1 1/2 five gallon buckets at one time. 3 hours later, the come out looking new.

65832
I guess I'm gonna have to figure out how to post to youtube to get the video up.

[John Allen]

How many pounds of pins are you using in it?

[lmfd20]

15lbs right now. Appears to be plenty. I plan on ordering more and trying about 25lbs to see if it makes a difference. The concrete mixer has a 285lb capacity, so I got room.

[John Allen]

That has got to make one hell of a racket when it is spinning with that much brass in it.

[lmfd20]

I think it is about the same as my vibratory tumbler was. The water kinda kills the noise. I could be wrong though. I run this outside and I ran my regular tumbler inside in a small room while reloading.

[yooper]

You can get a concrete redi-mix truck and go all over the country, cleaning brass as you go. This might launch a new career for you.:kidding:
yooper

[lmfd20]

You can get a concrete redi-mix truck and go all over the country, cleaning brass as you go. This might launch a new career for you.:kidding:
yooper

Hmmm... The local rental company has a concrete mixing trailer. You rent the trailer, buy the mix from them. It mixes as you drive home and is ready to go. Bet I could clean up at the gun shows. Minus the concrete of course!

[Chicken-lips]

I've heard the pins flow right through the flash hole. Have you tried with de-capped brass?

[Love Life]

Wow I am impressed. 1 1/2 5 gallon buckets is a bit over 2,000 308 cases (40 lbs per bucket). So you used 15 pounds of pins to about 50 lbs of brass? I have pins and this looks legit. What did you do for media separation? A giant cat litter dookie scooper? Scoop out with a bucket and dump in the media separator?

Inquiring minds want to know. Do you have a metal or polymer drum?

[W.R.Buchanan]

Yes, is this a plastic drum mixer?

Randy

[lmfd20]

I haven't tried with no primers yet. Once I size what you see in that pic, I will probably run it again to clean the primer pockets and lube off. It is a plastic drum. I use my RCBS rotary media separator to separate the pins from the brass.

[lmfd20]

66035
This is the separator I currently use. I will probably build a bigger one because the size of this one slows my production down.

[Love Life]

I have a metal cement mixer and I am concerned the pins would take the paint off and deposit into my brass. Hmmmm. I'll give it a try this week with a small batch, but then I would have no use for my Bigg Dawg tumbler.

Dang new ideas.

[Racenviper]

You should be very careful about using pins without removing the primers. You can get pins jammed into the flash hole and you will not know it until you deprime your brass.

[VintageRifle]

Why not just use water, dish soap, and some citric acid? I use it in 3lb rock tumblers to clean brass. Just wondering.

Thanks.

[lmfd20]

Why not just use water, dish soap, and some citric acid? I use it in 3lb rock tumblers to clean brass. Just wondering.

Thanks.

I might do this on my next run of brass that I sell. That would do away with my most time consuming step. The stainless media works so good, I might not be happy with it any other way.

[lmfd20]

I have a metal cement mixer and I am concerned the pins would take the paint off and deposit into my brass. Hmmmm. I'll give it a try this week with a small batch, but then I would have no use for my Bigg Dawg tumbler.

Dang new ideas.

My original plan was to use a metal mixer and I had the same concerns. I was going to spray it inside and out with bedliner material. But I found the one with the poly drum cheaper than I could buy a metal one of the same size and do the bedliner.
Since you already have the metal one, it might be worth it to have it sprayed or do it yourself.

[Love Life]

Hmmm. I looked for a poly drum mixer, but none were available locally and they cost more than the metal mixer at Home Depot and Lowes. I may get the poly one any just to do this. This way I can keep the metal one filled with corn cob and polish to run the brass through to keep it from tarnishing. If one cement mixer is good, than 2 are Mo' better.

[W.R.Buchanan]

lovelife: That's the spirit! More machines!

As far as finding a plastic mixer try Lowes or Home Depot online. You can order one and then have it shipped to your local store, usually for free. Local pickup better.

You could get four kids running 4 little Lee presses with depriming dies to do the depriming operation,and then some Dillon primer pocker swagers,,This would get you going until you could afford some automated Dillon 1050's.

Then you'd have a real factory going, and you'd be producing a real quality product.

Deprime, sized, primer pockets swaged, clean with pins, polish with cobs and nufinish, package, ship.

Ready to Load Product!

You could get .20 ea easily for this product, and sell all you could make. It's called "Value Added," and it is what you are trying to do.

Just a matter of working up to it. This is how all the big guys got that way.

I just bought 1000 rounds of OF cleaned, sized, trimmed, and primed, ready to load5.56 brass. All LC headstamp, for .23 per round From Top Brass. That was $230+$20 tax or $250 for the thousand Really .25 ea at my end.

I add 25 gr of BLC2, a bullet and crimp. Ready to shoot for .37 per round!

Randy

[Love Life]

I'm slowly getting there W.R. Buchanan. With just one cement mixer, some 30 gallon totes, 80 lbs of corn cob, 2 pounds of citric acid, 2 bottles of Nu-finish, and some mineral spirits I was able to clean and bring 1,500 lbs of 308 brass to market in 2 weeks...by myself with no end in sight. I work 5 hours a day AFTER I get home from my real job. No complaints as it is the American way. Work hard and you are rewarded.

Right now I am running an 85% keeper rate because some brass has stubborn spots the corn cob doesn't remove. That is where the SS tumbling comes in. 99% keeper rate and well worth the investment. I just need to run some testing to see if SS tumbling is acceptable if the brass is not de-capped and what the drying time would be so people don't end up with water all over their presses. As for the the Super 1050 I have been all over looking for one, but I'm not paying current market prices for one. I may just put an order into Dillon and wait...

At this time all my sizing is done on a Lee Classic Cast and all trimming done on a RCBS power trim pro. While the Dillon won't reduce the number of handle pulls it WILL add convenience with the auto index and case feeder. Trimmer wise I was looking at a Gracy or Giraud. The Dillon trimmer doesn't provide the quality chamfer and debur that I want in my brass and expect from prepped brass I buy.

So right now I am getting along with what I have, but some equipment upgrades will increase both productivity and quality of my finished product. I am eating this elephant one bite at a time.

On a side note if anybody has a spare Dillon Super 1050 with case feeder just collecting dust I would love to take it off your hands...

[lmfd20]

Hmmm. I looked for a poly drum mixer, but none were available locally and they cost more than the metal mixer at Home Depot and Lowes. I may get the poly one any just to do this. This way I can keep the metal one filled with corn cob and polish to run the brass through to keep it from tarnishing. If one cement mixer is good, than 2 are Mo' better.

I guess I got lucky at my local Lowes. The only one they carried was the larger poly drum model.

[Love Life]

That is what I originally wanted, but none were available locally when I needed one. I got the pro force from Home Depot. It has been a great tool, and I did not have SS tumbling in mind at the time. I'm still looking into it. I would love to see some videos of that beast at work!

[W.R.Buchanan]

I would suggest using crushed walnuts hulls instead of cobbs simply because they are a little more abrasive. You can get them at pet stores in 25lb bags for snake bedding.

I run all my range pickup brass in a vibratory tumbler for 24 hours and 99%+ come out perfect. Ocasionally there will be one or two with excessive stains that don't clean up completely, but normally all come out perfect.

It's hard to translate how long it would take in a mixer to duplicate my process. Most people here never run 24 hours at a time. I guess they think they will kill their machines. I reply with "rock tumblers run for days and weeks on end and they live long lives!" After seeing the Plastic Cement mixers I see no reason why one couldnn't be ran for extended periods. They are made really nice. I do think you'd need to come up with a cover of some kind for the mouth of the thing to keep any dust generated inside.

Another benefit to running longer is that the tumbling action deburrs the case mouth for you after trimming.

I do like your idea of the two stage cleaning process with wet pins first and then polish and wax.

As far as the pins getting stuck in the flash holes I wouldn't worry about that too much. The pins are .041dia and flash holes are .062 dia so one won't stick and two won't fit.

You're doin' good, and you'll get better as you learn the tricks of handling quantities. Do you have a counting scale yet? I have a vintage Toledo counting scale that would work well for what you are doing. I used to use it for counting screw machine parts in the shop.

Randy

[Love Life]

Give me a lever...

[lmfd20]

I'm thinking of adding a second mixer with walnut shells now. That is a good idea. I hate the dust generated from cleaning with the media. I bet being already clean when they go in would cut down on 3/4 of the dust and make the media last longer.
I bought a shipping scale that reads to 150lbs. Works good for the bulk stuff.

[Love Life]

The media lasts longer for sure, but the dust is not reduced. At least with corncob.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Walnut hulls do generate less dust, but there is still dust. To contain it come up with some kind of cover for the mouth of your mixer bowl. It could as simple as visqueen with a bungee cord wrapped around it.

Randy

[Love Life]

Contractor trashbag+bungee cord= Done

[lmfd20]

Walnut hulls do generate less dust, but there is still dust. To contain it come up with some kind of cover for the mouth of your mixer bowl. It could as simple as visqueen with a bungee cord wrapped around it.

Randy

My small tumbler has a top. My dust issue comes from pouring the media into the separator and actually separating the media from the brass. I bought the RCBS separator I posted above to solve that but it didn't help enough. I was thinking that if I put some window screen material over the front of the mixer, it would let the dust that I hate so much blow out through the screen and keep the media in.

[Liberty'sSon]

How about adding dryer sheets to the tumbling media. Would the tend to grab onto much of the dust?

[lmfd20]

I don't know, never thought of that. Cheap enough to try.

[Love Life]

Have you had a chance to make a video yet? How much of a 5 gallon bucket does 2,000 pieces of 6.8 brass take up?

[Guardian]

Regarding the media separator for you guys doing large volumes, ever seen a grain cleaner? http://www.usagnet.com/dealers/20/SNOWCO-41220-1.JPG

A similar setup with a trough under it to catch the media would allow you to dump the brass/media into one end and get a pile of each in separate locations. The incline could be varied to control the time the brass moves around inside the machine. Shouldn't be hard to construct such. Just a thought.

[lmfd20]

Have you had a chance to make a video yet? How much of a 5 gallon bucket does 2,000 pieces of 6.8 brass take up?

I've got my 6.8 in a square frosting bucket. I think it is 3.5-4 gallons and is about full. I have 1850-2000 pieces or so.

[lmfd20]

Regarding the media separator for you guys doing large volumes, ever seen a grain cleaner? http://www.usagnet.com/dealers/20/SNOWCO-41220-1.JPG

A similar setup with a trough under it to catch the media would allow you to dump the brass/media into one end and get a pile of each in separate locations. The incline could be varied to control the time the brass moves around inside the machine. Shouldn't be hard to construct such. Just a thought.

Thanks for the pic, that is kind of what I was thinking. Something like an old bingo cage.

[lmfd20]

Updates and Corrections:

It turns out my buckets are more like 4 gallons. I was using frosting buckets from a local bakery that I got for free. I had to buy a few more buckets yesterday and when I stand them next to the old ones, they new actual 5gal buckets are taller by a couple inches. Sorry for the misinformation. I should have done the math.
Also now that I have my new brass sorter, I'm not out in the yard using the sifter method with the 3 pans on top of a bucket. If I fill the mixer up with 8 gallons of brass and leave it for 2-3 hours, about 1/2 of the water splashes out. I did not realize how much I was loosing before, because I was constantly playing with it when I first started using it. That being said, It's not that bad. I go out about once an hour and hit it with water hose for a few seconds and its good for another hour or so.

[Love Life]

So do you completely cover the brass in water? Are you still using dawn dish soap? How many bubbles build up and flow out?

[lmfd20]

So do you completely cover the brass in water? Are you still using dawn dish soap? How many bubbles build up and flow out?
Yes I completely cover the brass. A 2" foam will build up and I add water until it starts to splash out. I noticed today that the foam keeps the noise down. When I left it for 3 hours and came back, half the water was gone but the brass was still covered. The water had turned green and had no suds. I could tell that it was louder than before. On the next run, when the suds died out it was louder again and i added some more soap. As the foam built up the noise cut back. The bubbles will keep building as long as the soap is working. It is not enough to build up in the grass. It dissipates rather quickly.

[lmfd20]

I will tell you another mistake I made. When I first got it, I didn't have enough dirty brass to run individual batches. I let my excitement get the better of me and dumped all the brass that I had in it. I will say this. IF IT CAN NEST, IT WILL. Every piece of 9mm was stuck in a 40, a piece of 45 was stuck in every 50ae, and any 40 was stuck in a 45. Everything that could stick in something else did. I will say it again, EVERYTHING that could, DID! I don't know if it is the slick water and dish soap or the weight of the pins that makes them do it.

[Love Life]

I had that problem with just dry tumbling. I have a large box full (about 60 lbs) of 9mm stuck in 40 S&W stuck in 45 acp. I have been avoiding that box for going on 4 years now.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Tumblers are the fastest way to experience random chance that there is. If it is possible, if there is some combination that is possible, it will occur shortly.

I once tumbled some small parts I had made on a screw machine. they had a 4-40 threaded hole in them. The media I was using was .09 ceramic BB's. Every hole was plugged within 15 minutes! and I had to scrap the entire run of 3000 pieces that were worth .50 each.

This was a costly lesson. Unfortunately it was not the last one either.

Tumbling brass is not a real tough project relatively speaking, however I have made more than one mess and only thru trial and error will you figure out what works and what is a disaster.

There are lots of varibles in the tumbling game. Some matter some don't.

Randy

[lmfd20]

Wow. This one didn't cost me anything but some time pulling cases apart. It did give me a lesson on patience.

[woody13]

Not sure if this will help but I have been using a large cement mixer from Harbor Freight for going on two years now and I think I paid $189.00 for it five years back. Used it for cement but used it more for tumbling. I know they have a small one as well looks like a kids one to me. Well I mix a five gallon bucket in with half walnut from petco and the other half crushed walnut from Harbor freight. Got pissed off one day threw both in and tumbled for four hours and the. 308 came out looking better than new. So kept it that way and just keep on plucking away at it my mixer runs 5-6 hours a day for 5-6 days a week and some days I run it 8. Yes my neighbors hate me. Oh and I use a bit more than a cap more like three caps of Nufinish and I take all the dryer sheets my wife has used and yes it cuts the dust way down. I throw 8-10 of those in and reuse them till the third time and add to them it does help. I am going to go and add another small mixer to do SS next week just to clean the black tarnished ones I get in my bulk brass..

[Love Life]

I use 40 lbs of corn cob, 1 cup of mineral spirits, and 9 caps of Nu-Finish. Let tumble empty for 20 minutes for a good mix. Then add brass. I got the metal mixer from home depot.

The problem is the mixer with cob gives me about a 95% clean up. The other 5% is brass I would not sell due to cosmetics. Now if just doing a 1,000 pieces then tossing 50 is no big deal. When doing tons that 5% adds up to big cheese. SS cleaning is the only way to go. You get less dust, the media doesn't disappear, and in 2 hours your brass looks as good as new. 100% of it. You can charge more for that (SS cleaning), but I don't.

So while I am not disregarding the corn cob or walnut cleaning, the SS is better and more efficient. I still use the corn cob to put a nice polish on my brass to prevent tarnishing. Once again I do not charge more for that.

So it all depends on your volume and what you want to bring to market. I sold 30,000 pieces of brass only cleaned in cob, but I have never regretted buying the stainless set up.

[1006]

What do you do with the old used water and tumbling media?

[lmfd20]

What do you do with the old used water and tumbling media?
With stainless media, it just gets used over and over. The water runs through a bucket strainer with miners moss.

[Silver Eagle]

Wonder if an old dryer (gas or electric) could be adapted for drying the brass? Would make one heck of a racket while running!

[mold maker]

Stretch a piece of heavy plastic over the opening of your cement mixer to cut down on the loss of liquid,. Mine (HF) has a lip that allows a string or heavy rubber band to all but seal it. It will cut down on the dust problem also by retaining it.

[RoGrrr]

Where do you get your pins and how much do they cost ?
What size and shapes are they ?

[lmfd20]

Where do you get your pins and how much do they cost ?
What size and shapes are they ?

I ordered mine from midwayusa when they had them on sale. $35/5lbs. They are like little pieces of wire cut to 1/4" lengths and a diameter that allows them to go through the flash hole without getting stuck.

[lmfd20]

UPDATE

Do not start the mixer with it full! I know it says not to do it in the manual but I did this once or twice while giving it an assist. Problem this time is that my hand slipped instead of the drum turning and I believe I fried my motor. I hope it is just the capacitor that fried but that is usually not my luck. Just a word of advice from someone who is paying the stupid tax. Don't start your mixer with 80lbs of brass, 15lbs of stainless pins and another 35-45lbs of water.

[lmfd20]

Well $13 for a capacitor and it is up and running again. Got lucky on that one. At least I can get the capacitor here local.

[Chilmonty]

You can get a concrete redi-mix truck and go all over the country, cleaning brass as you go. This might launch a new career for you.:kidding:
yooper


^Haha! He could call himself "Johnny Tumble-Seed"! That is a sweet setup though!