Tumbeling Media

[j6161]

Is their any way to clean w/o using water

[jimbires]

are you asking how to clean your media ?

[meatmachineman]

Originally Posted by jimbires

are you asking how to clean your media ?

Not terribly sure either, sooo... here's some tricks I read about. I have seen some positive results, but I am not sure how positive. As far cleaning your media itself, Throw some strips of paper towel in with your brass and media. The paper towel tends to pick up quite a bit of crud. For cleaning the cases of media, try throwing a fabric dryer sheet cut into strips in with your brass and media. For the inside, try compressed air with a small tip down by the flash hole... just watch your eyes. For small quantities, a can of compressed air wouldn't be a bad idea cost wise.

If you are really worried about cleaning your media, I would assume it arises from the cost of replacing it. It may be easier for you to look for cheaper alternatives for sources. Crushed walnut bird litter from a pet store is a cost effective alternative as is crushed corn pet bedding. As soon as a product is labeled to be used for anything firearm related, the price soars to stupid levels.

[ARduxnbux]

I use Lyman's treated walnut shell media and it works great for cleaning and polishing brass. It's treated with jeweler's rouge, it gets the cases clean to the point that you can see your teeth in them, and the only downside is that I have to wipe off the cases individually with a shop cloth after removing them. Other than that, I have nothing but good things to say about the stuff.

[meatmachineman]

Originally Posted by ARduxnbux

I use Lyman's treated walnut shell media and it works great for cleaning and polishing brass. It's treated with jeweler's rouge, it gets the cases clean to the point that you can see your teeth in them, and the only downside is that I have to wipe off the cases individually with a shop cloth after removing them. Other than that, I have nothing but good things to say about the stuff.

That's the stuff I use currently. I get great results fairly quickly. If I'm not in a hurry, After using Lyman walnut, I'll go for a couple hours with corn cob (generic stuff that came with my tumbler). That gets the cases polished up really nice, plus it removes that residue that is left by the lyman media.

One thing I forgot about finding alternate sources of media... I have used corn pet bedding from WallyWorld. It worked and for the price I was satisfied, butkeep it away from bottleneck cases. It wasn't ground too fine and I spent quite some time with a lap full of cases and a dental pick getting the media unpacked from the cases. My pistol cases were not an issue.

[Richracer1]

I use treated walnut media to initially clean my cases prior to resizing. After sizing, I tumble them again in Flitz treated corn media to clean off the sizing lube and give them a nice polish. Oh, I do have two tumbles to accomplish this.

[meatmachineman]

Originally Posted by Richracer1

I use treated walnut media to initially clean my cases prior to resizing. After sizing, I tumble them again in Flitz treated corn media to clean off the sizing lube and give them a nice polish. Oh, I do have two tumbles to accomplish this.

I haven't gotten that smart yet. Use one tumbler and empty it and refill it with the other media.

[tjen]

I also clean my brass before sizing and can not see why anyone would not do so. Seems there is only benifits and no down side that I know of ? One good thing is any media in the flash hole get punched out with the primer and the flash hole is now clean thou ya still have to clean the primer pocket.

I have not had any stuck case and have loaded over a thousend case easy and so far have only used one shot case lub which is not damaging to the powder so I haven't retumbled them after sizing but thats a good idea if needed someday. I did just get some graphite neck lub so I did not have to use the one shot for inside the case mouths where you get more on the outside than needed to get enough inside.

[Kingfisher]

I've used corn cob and pecan. The pecan is more abrasive, like walnut. Corn takes longer but they come out shinier. I've leave them in the tumbler for days at a time on occasion to get the high polish that I'm looking for. As for additives, I've used the midway/frankfort arsenal stuff that smells like citrus, and I like that the most. Flitz worked well, but it turned the media green straight away, and unfortunately I use color as an indicator on when I need to start thinking about changing the media.

[dubyam]

I'm with you, KF, on the media treatment. I started years ago with the citrus smelling stuff you mentioned, and have never had a reason to change. I've tried other cleaning methods once or twice (like Iosso and such) and have never been satisfied. What I normally do is deprime using my universal deprime die, then tumble a bunch of brass in what I call my "mid-grade" corn cob. This is corn cob that was new, had polish added to it, but has become dirty with some use. Contrast this with new corn cob (which is new or nearly new, and is used for final polish), and old corn cob, which is what mid-grade becomes after it's too dirty for even that step. I use the old stuff to tumble very dirty cases, like range brass I'm looking to clean for trading or brass that gets muddy or dirty at the range more than just powder residue. After initial tumbling, I lube it, size it, and tumble it in "new" corn cob, and then clean the primer pockets and get to loading the things. I've used walnut before, but I honestly can't find much better than good corn cob as far as getting things clean and shiny. Walnut is good for getting the dirtiest cases clean, but I don't generally let my cases get that dirty anyway.