brass tumbler

[meancoyote]

today my brass tumbler stoped working, the motor froze and wont turn anymore, cant find any motors laying around that will work , so im gonna buy a new tumbler. anybody got any reccomendations?

[shadowwalker]

I used a 2 1/2 lb. thoms rock tumbler for over 14 years I then got a chance to buy a Vibrateing tumbler from the bargain basement of Cabela's. I really like it. It's easy to get the cases out of and easy to clean and holds alot more shells.

[meancoyote]

i got one from cabelas

[Star1pup]

i got one from cabelas

Me too. I got the vibrator and it works great. I use a universal decapper die first that doesn't size the brass and then the vibrator helps clean out the primer pockets.

[Nickathome]

I bought an inexpensive unit from Frankford Arsenal from Midway.com. So far its working well. I only need to tumble a few dozen shells at a time and so far have had no problems with it. Cost for this unit was less than $60.00

[Win-12]

After burning out 3 Lyman vibrating tumblers, I bought a "Ultra-Vibe 18, Thumlers Tumbler" made by Tru Square Metal Products in Auburn, WA. I think Cabelas still has them in there reloading catalog for about $130.00.

It's the best and most quiet vibrating tumbler I have ever seen or used. The motors are thermal protected and are designed to be easily replaced.

I sell brass at gunshows and have many hundreds of hours on the original motor, with no signs of stopping.

[jajbellsouthnet]

Somewhere on the internet there are plans for a homebuilt tumbler for rock polishing which I thought would work great for cleaning and polishing brass. It utilized a wide ATV tire, a couple wood dowels and an old electric motor, all mounted on a piece of 2x12 about 2 ft. long. I will look for the link and post it if I am successful.

[762xIan]

After burning out 3 Lyman vibrating tumblers,

Win-12, Which model did you have? I have a Lyman 1200...reload maybe on average 500-1000 rounds a month, bowl holds 50 rifle or 100 pistol cases easy...maybe 20 hours of run time per month in my use.

Thing is still running strong over a year now. It cost about $65.

Hope I didn't buy a problem tumbler. ???

[Win-12]

7.62, I had the Lyman 2200 with auto flow. The auto flow leaked constantly and the motors kept burning out or the weight on the shaft would fall off and bust the fan blades. Lyman always replaced the tumbler, so no complaints with customer service or standing behind there products.

[HPshooter]

I took a commercial hopper vibrator ($40.00?) and mounted it to the bottom of a 5 gallon plastic bucket. I hung it in the garage from the ceiling with a doubled bungee cord. I fill it 1/3 with corn media or walnut (walnut is much faster) and dump in as many shells as I want so long as I stay below half-way. (Keep in mind that the level goes down once the shells fill up with media.)

After a while the bottom of the bucket began to crack from fatigue so I started over and put a round disk of 3/8" plastic in the bottom to spread out the stress. This worked great. I've used the same rig now for several years.

If you don't de-cap before tumbling, you really foul your media quickly. If you do de-cap before tumbling, you end up with media lodged in the flash hole. If you have a progressive press, just "decap" again and you'll either knock it out or you'll get resistance or not complete the stroke. Either way, you find it and fix it. Decapping again is the best way.

Another problem is media powder inside the empty cases. This is not good for your gun barrel. I put my cases in a laundry bag and send them through an agitation cycle in the washing machine. That gets rid of it. (Don't let it spin "dry"! The tub will be unballanced - for me that means a washer walking around the laundry room :o )

[LaunchPad]

My Hornady vibrating brass tumbler started making a horible racket so i don't use it much anymore. The poor thing ran nearly contiuously for years.

Instead of using the Hornady tumbler anymore i dumped ~50lbs of NEW walnut shell blasting media from my sandblast cabinet into my 3 1/2 cubic foot electric cement mixer. I can now do a whole years worth of tumbling in one day for me and several friends. :D