I’m new to reloading and a bit anal about it. I 'm un sure how long to leave my brass in my tumbler. It’s a Hornady (110v) w/ corncob media if that matters. Any Info would be appreciated.I have been tumbling 100 rounds at a timeof .45 ACP
I tumble brass for about an hour. If you’re really anal, get an ultrasonic cleaner. You can get the inside of the brass and the primer pockets shiney clean.
I tumble my brass after the U/S cleaner to get it dry and give it a final polish.
I’ve been doing 3-4 hours or till I remember or get home… and my brass has been coming out nice and shiny…
Thanks for the help guys. The ultrasonic sounds cool but that will take some saving:D Take care and my best!
You can get the cheapo 70-80 dollar U/S cleaners. That’s what I have. It has its limitations, but it’s pretty handy.
U/S cleaning is much faster than tumbling, by far… but it’s harder work for you. You can have brass a hundred times cleaner than leaving it in the tumbler all night in just 3 or 4 minutes.
Interesting how much more work is it?
Well…
there’s several ways to approach the job. Most people quickly find that you can’t just dump a couple hundred pieces of 45 brass into the unit and expect it to work good.
You have to keep the weight off of the bottom of the unit so you don’t hurt the performance of the transducer.
Some people fill freezer/plastic baggies with brass and lemishine/water and suspend the bag in the water that’s in the cleaner. Other people hang the load from the sides of the cleaner to enable them to load more brass per cycle.
Right now… I’m setting like 20 or so pieces of 45acp on the plastic grate in the bottom and running it for 3 or 4 minutes. Then I pick out the clean brass and rotate more brass in and continue the cycle. It’s not like a tumbler where you can turn it on and forget about it for a few hours. But the results are not even in the same ball park. The big difference is in the primer pockets and the inside of the brass.
One hour or so for the first go around to clean it. If you can use walnut.
Two-three hours for final polish. Use corncob, w/brass polish additive, to this batch.
Maybe use a light timer to turn off the tumbler at the right time. You won’t hurt the brass if it sits in there for hours/days on end.
I like the Idea of cleaning the inside of the case and the short amount of time it spends in the machine. Ouch 20 cases at a time Ok I see you point about it working you more.
Any Idea how many a bigger SC would do I notice that UniqueTek is carrying a bigger one that is also heated.
http://www.uniquetek.com/site/696296/product/T1357
Yeah. Most guys rig up a system where they can do more at once. It can be a pain, but I can do a tumbler full in half the time it’d take to tumble it, and they come out 10 times cleaner.
You don’t really need your brass that clean… but once you start reloading with really clean brass, it’s tough to go back to loading tumbled brass.
Have you tried cleaning a suppressor with the sonic cleaner yet?
Yep. It’s a real pain in the ass. Getting all the air out of a baffle stack is a pain when you need to put the silencer in the tank sideways to get it submerged.
You also have to be careful not to drop a heavy can into the cleaner because it’d damage the transducer(s). I’ve gone to just holding the can with the blast chamber in the cleaner. It gets the ACME threads really clean.
Getting the whole can clean inside and out is too much hastle.