I generally do about 250 pieces of 5.56 or 50 to 100 pieces of .308 at a time in my thumler with good results. I generally just give it a good squirt of Dawn and a .45ACP case worth of lemon shine powder along with hot water for about 3 hours at a time.
I just finished my last load of 223/556 brass that I have accumulated this year and it was 8 pounds of brass so I figure about 600 pieces. It weighed 24lbs so I had room for 6 more. So it should handle just short of 1k. 8 pounds of 223/556 is probably the most I will do. No need to push the limit on weight and 600 pieces is a enough to deal with.
If I run 150 pieces a few times a week, it keeps me sane and I always have 400-600 pieces of primed brass ready to go on the bench… ready to load for the weekend shoot, or knock out 500 for an ammo can.
Harbor freight dual drum rotary rock tumbler. Probably done over 3000+ cases with it and no issues to date. I typically run about 75-100 pieces of 556 per drum for about an hour.
That will certainly work, but with the Thumler, you get a the high speed motor specifically for brass tumbling. Rock tumblers run at a lower rpm.
I dont see how an hour would be enough to get the cases clean. Depending on how many case I do I run 3-4 hours and the frankford arsenal spins faster than the harbor freight model. I know people successfully using the harbor freight model, but the capacity was far to low for me.
For the guys like me that don’t do a lot of high volume polishing, there’s really no need to jump up to something full size like the Thumler’s. I’m not sure what the RPM differences are, but Thumler’s does state they’re rock tumblers.
Considering I’ve got less than $30 invested in my Harbor Freight setup, I don’t see any reason to spend several times more, when I can simply empty and refill the Harbor Freight model 2-3 times, and it does everything I ask of it.
In regards to only running it for an hour, my cases aren’t that dirty. If they were old, tarnished, and had been laying in the rain for several weeks it would take much more polishing. I’m simply picking mine up off the grass at the end of the range session after firing. So they’re already pretty clean.
Mine are the same way, but in order to get the pockets clean it take 3-4 hours for me. I dont use a thumler either. They dont handle enough brass for me. So I went with the franford arsenal, it will handle a little under a thousand 223 cases. Im probably going to add two pounds more stainless pins and cut the capacity to about 500-600 cases.
I’m the opposite. The 150ish pieces of 223 per load are just enough that I don’t go nuts sizing brass. If I had a thousand at one time, I couldn’t help but run it all. 
I was a little concerned about the lower capacity on the Thumler at first, but I kinda developed a system around it.
I size until im done or I get tired of it. I usually can do close to a thousand before im tired. I loaded on a single stage for so long, I got really proficient at running brass through a single stage press. I loaded on a single stage or turret for 15 years before I got a progressive press.
The Harbor Freight setup is perfect for anyone who is looking for wet tumbling on a budget, like I was. I use stainless steel media with 3 drops of dawn and 2 pinches of lemi shine and I have never seen cleaner brass. The benefit of the larger tumblers are definitely quantity and turnaround (and most like cleaner primer pockets and such). If I had the funds I would upgrade, but to be honest as long as the brass is clean that is all that matters. I have yet to see more accurate loads due to spotless brass . I still keep mine on the tumbler for about 3 hours and they come out looking perfect for my needs. YMMV.
I’ve been using a thumler set up for 2 years I start by decapping with a lee decapper then run 200+ pieces at a time for 15 mins then dry and size then back in for approx. an hour comes out pretty shiny I uselly fill a 223 case with soap and a pinch of lemi-shine
Couple of squirts of Nu Finish auto polish, amazingly it does fine work. Would have never thought that it could do so well, but it is now my go to formula.
bowietx are you saying that you add Nu Finish to the dawn and lemi shine ? or th polish all by itself ? I just got my tumbler and still use the dawn + lemishine. everything comes out so clean its crazy.
Thumblers tumbler with Lemishine, works wonders for my brass.
I use hot water with dawn and lemishine and rinse with hot water for the initial 3 hour cleaning and I run again the same way after sizing for about 45 minutes to get rid of the brass lube. Gets me some pretty clean brass with very clean primer pockets and a hell of a nice shine! It seems like everyone uses a dry cleaning for the 2nd cleaning and I always think “hmm… Am I missing something?” It gets me thinking about buying a vibratory cleaner but then I think I’d rather just buy another wet tumbler so I can run more brass at a time. Then I think “**** - I think too much about this!”
Are y’all not using dish soap?
Never tried dish soap, when my lemishine runs out I’ll give it a go.
I use a 2 second squirt of dawn dish soap.
Y’all are the first ones I’ve heard that aren’t using dish soap. You have me curious now… I’ll have to try it without the soap and see what kind of results I get.