Skywalker Posted March 24, 2007 Share Posted March 24, 2007 Monte, rice used to tumble brass is usually broken rice that you can buy at a pet store to feed dogs and other animals. The one I use is same granulometry as normal corncob media. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traxman Posted June 13, 2007 Share Posted June 13, 2007 Maybe we need to sticky this thread. I've been following it for a while and it has really started to become one of the better threads on tumbling media. I've learned some more about this subject since reading the suggestions above. I process ALOT of brass. (i.e. typically 100-250 lbs at a time) I have really been searching for the best ways to easily sort and clean 1000s of pieces of brass. I get my brass from an outdoor range, and it usually comes mixed as 40, 9mm, 45, 223 and 308. Some of the 223 is often crimped. It is mixed with grass and dirt as well. Sorting is done by hand from 5 gal buckets into other marked buckets. (With gloves on in front of the TV) I tumble my brass in a large Dillon tumbler for now. I need one or two more though. I have a great local source for crushed walnut shells to the tune of $15 per 50 lb bag. I've been using a 12/20 grit grind, but will probably go one size larger when I buy my next four bags. The 12/20 generates a little too much dust. I have experimented with adding mineral spirits, Nufinish, and the Midway brass polish to shine up the brass and try to cut down on the dust. With such a high volume, it really seemed like I was throwing away alot of money on polish with a relatively little gain in shine and not much dust reduction. One thing I noticed, when I use enough polish to really cut down on the dust, the lifespan of the media really starts to shorten. It gets gray colored really fast. I have been using an old terry cloth towel to swish the brass around after tumbling to remove (most) of the dust. I haven't been real happy with it though. It's extra labor, and with tons of brass, I'm going through alot of towels. Finally, I thought I found a good source of some corn cob today. I tried it on some brass cleaned, but still dusty, from the walnut media. Wow! What a difference! The walnut shells cleaned alot of the dirt and scum from the brass, and cleaned the surface. The corn cob cleaned the dust right off of the brass, and put a beautiful shine on it to boot! The corn cob I got came in a 40lb bag for $16. But the kicker is, the smallest size I can get is 1/8 inch. I guess this stuff is used as bedding for small animals. I tried it on a batch of .40 S&W brass first. PERFECT. Secondly, I tried it on a batch of 223. Well, it's clean, shiney and dust free, but about 1/2 to 1/3 of the cases has corn cob media stuck in the mouth of the case. I'll have to really crank up my Dillon separator to see if I can knock it all loose. My guess is that I'm gonna have to find a source for smaller corn cobs though. Anyway. My $0.02 traxman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin c Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 (edited) ...about 1/2 to 1/3 of the cases has corn cob media stuck in the mouth of the case. I'll have to really crank up my Dillon separator to see if I can knock it all loose....traxman I might suggest a little caution with really coarse media and bottle necked cases. A piece (or even several) of media can get inside and not come out easily, and are hard to see in something like a 223. Bad if it jams up a progressive when depriming, worse if the case does get deprimed but the media stays in the case. Chunks of media in a case equals less volume for the powder and uneven powder distribution in the case, which may mean erratic burn and internal ballistics as best and a really overpressure round at worst. Man, you process a lot of brass... Edited June 14, 2007 by kevin c Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traxman Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 ...about 1/2 to 1/3 of the cases has corn cob media stuck in the mouth of the case. I'll have to really crank up my Dillon separator to see if I can knock it all loose....traxman I might suggest a little caution with really coarse media and bottle necked cases. A piece (or even several) of media can get inside and not come out easily, and are hard to see in something like a 223. Bad if it jams up a progressive when depriming, worse if the case does get deprimed but the media stays in the case. Chunks of media in a case equals less volume for the powder and uneven powder distribution in the case, which may mean erratic burn and internal ballistics as best and a really overpressure round at worst. Man, you process a lot of brass... It's not all for me.... But the media does need to be smaller. The size I have is too big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted June 14, 2007 Share Posted June 14, 2007 I made the mistake of buying some treated media, walnut with rouge, WHAT A MESS. I will cut it about 3:1 with untreated media. Generally i use small grit, but the comments above lead me to wonder about using large grit cob for .38 super, .40 & .45. I have also toyed with buying a large vibratory cleaner from McMaster Carr. the rouned top vs teh straight sides of the Dillon look like a cleaner design. Alternative would be an electric cement mixer. 5 gallons of brass, 5 gallons of media, turn it on and walk away, see ya in the morning. Cost is less for the mixer than the McMaster Carr unit Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milanuk Posted June 25, 2007 Author Share Posted June 25, 2007 Well, I've been using the long grain rice from Costco for cleaning a bunch of .223 and .308 brass over the last few months. It seems to work just fine; definitely requires vigorous tumbling in the separator to get everything out. Occasionally I still get a piece stuck in the flash hole as evidenced by the crushed remains of a kernel of rice in the center of a spent primer in the catch cup. No other major problems... about the only thing is that the big Dillon separator tends to fling rice all over the place. I'm going to build some taller sides to try to contain the mess somewhat. Otherwise... works great and way cheaper than conventional tumbling media around here. Thanks, Monte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deputy1199 Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Hello,I've been using ground walnut shell for years as a local gun store had bought a 55gal drum of some and was selling it at pretty good prices. Now they are about out, and the other store sells the RCBS media... ouch! Probably going to try the Costco rice next as I've see recommended here. I've had a lot of problems w/ getting a real fine dust all over my cases, inside and out. I'm pretty much at the point where I dump the bin from the tumbler into the separator (just got my new CV-2001 & CM-2000 from Dillon via BrianEnos.com today... gonna mothball the little Frankford Arsenal job for the time being), crank til no more media comes out, take the the air compressor hose and blow off the cases in the separator while stirring them up w/ my hand, then dump them in a clean bucket. I've been using Dillon Rapid Polish (couple cap fuls) in each load. Part of the problem may be that the walnut I was (am) using is *really* fine... as in about the consistency of 748 or TAC. The stuff pours right thru a flash hole, that's for sure! Maybe the problems will all go away w/ the rice or a somewhat coarser grind of media? Even going thru the whole process above, I've still been getting a lot of really fine dust on (and in) my cases (rifle only, at this point). When the cases are lubed, I end up w/ a nice little sludge both inside the die and on the expander stem after only a few hundred rounds. I have one Redding Type 'S' bushing die (.308) that is scratched all to heck as I didn't clean it in time. I realize I have to clean the dies sooner or later, but only being able to go two or three hundred rounds between cleaning, on a machine rated @ 500-600 rounds per hour... is a little frustrating. I've tried the 'trick' with paper towels, dryer sheets, etc. off and on. They help, but not a whole lot. Seems about off set by the PITA of fishing them out of my clean brass (as they 'release' that trapped dust all over the cases). I've seen people refer to putting a couple caps of mineral spirits in the tumbler to keep the dust down. How does this work? Doesn't see like very much relative to the volume of the whole tub, but maybe I'm missing something? Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks, Monte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milanuk Posted November 21, 2007 Author Share Posted November 21, 2007 Alrighty... I've been using this stuff for a while now, tumbing a variety of cases for rifle ammo... .223 Rem, .308 Win, & 6mm BR. It seems to work fairly well overall. Definitely learned *not* to decap the cases before tossing them in the tumbler w/ the rice. Sure-fire recipe for getting the primer pocket jammed full of rice kernels! Anyway... I was wondering if anyone else had noticed a build-up of some sort on the inside of the case, specifically the neck? I had run a batch of .308 cases thru the tumbler w/ rice before I put them thru the ultrasonic cleaner (the idea being to knock off the bulk of the nasty stuff first). One thing led to another, and the cases wound up in the tumbler for oh... a couple days (don't ask). When I went to US clean them, it seemed like they had a hardened glaze on the inside that was even *harder* to get off than the regular carbon fouling was. Great! I'm curious if anyone else has ran into this sort of thing. At this point I haven't had a chance to tumble more cases to see if it was the length of time they got left in the tumbler, the kind of rice, the additive I used, or what, that caused the glazing. If anyone has any useful input, I'm open to suggestions! TIA, Monte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 Monte, I think it's actually starch from the rice. Personally, I'd just load it up and not worry too much, but that's probably why I miss a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milanuk Posted November 21, 2007 Author Share Posted November 21, 2007 Eric, For most shooting, you're probably right. Hell, for most of *my* shooting, you're probably right. I was a little perturbed since I thought I'd found a way to short-cut or speed up the process of getting all the carbon gunk out of my long-range match cases. Monte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aedavis Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 I'm echoing what other people have already said in this thread, but . . . I have experimented a lot this year with different tumbling options. What I've settled on is using 2 batches of corn cob. I tumble brass in untreated corn cob for one hour and then I tumble the brass in corncob with either NuFinish or Frankford Arsenal polish for 4-6 hours for a high shine. I've used walnut (Kaytee Lizard Bedding) and found it too dusty, even with polishing liquid added. I've used dryer sheets to collect and pull out the dust; this helped, but I still got a lot of dust. I've also poured the walnut back and forth between buckets on a windy day to get rid of some dust; this didn't help a whole lot. I haven't really seen that the walnut cleans better than corncob so I'm abandoning the walnut altogether. As far as buying economical corn cob media: I have a Grainger store locally. I can buy 50# of fine corn cob (20/40 grit) for $30 and I don't have to pay for shipping when I pick it up at the store. I haven't purchased any yet because I am still working through my existing supply, but when I'm ready for more corn cob that's what I'll be using. I haven't called around to sandblasting places and probably won't as the Grainger stuff is a pretty good price. I've used the WalMart corn cob (sold as pet bedding) but it is too large for rifle cases and gets stuck easily. It works okay for pistol only. I've used Mini Cob pet bedding from Petco with good success, but they don't stock it regularly and I don't want to have to stop in every week looking for it. Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RePete Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 I've started using a 50/50 mix of Lyman Treated Corn Cob (green) and corn blast. The dust is much lower than straight corn blast and the brass is clean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddy_fuentes Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 I have tried everything under the sun. Most any combination will clean your brass enough for all practical purposes. However, if you really want a shine, Iosso's brass polish in corn cob media is the best. It makes brass look like glass. The Iosso cleaner uses two caps full per pound of media. It last and last and last and when your media turns black...add a cap full per pound and it keeps on cleaning. The best part is that it cleans brass in an hour to an hour and a half. A friend uses Brasso and mineral spirits. His brass is beautiful, too, but he has to tumble his brass for three to four hours to get it as shiny as mine. I buy 25# bags of fine ground corn cob from the pet store. It is ground finer than their regular stock so they special order it and it runs about $1 a pound. Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalker Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 Lately I've switched from rice to domestic rodents litter, namely Friskies Hygiene mais litter. It's very similar to Lyman green corncob media, except it's light brown. I buy it in local stores, it comes very cheap , cleans as rice but doesn't leave any white powder or gunk on brass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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