Before and after washing tumbler media

[Lorgar]

For anyone thinking about washing their tumbler media to get rid of the dust on your brass when tumbling...

Before washing my walnut media...

washing tumbler media

clean-water.jpg (17.76 KiB) Viewed 8724 times

After washing it...

washing tumbler media

tumbler-water.jpg (22.09 KiB) Viewed 8724 times

This was from less than a kg of media.

Worth doing, brass is infinitely cleaner after tumbling once I'd washed the media.

Happy reloading.

[Guliver]

And the wife is bitching about her dirty sink

[stevy]

Holy crap that's a lot of dust

[petemacsydney]

how did you pull it all out of the sink? pillow slip or something?

[Baldrick314]

How long had you been using that media mate?

[Sender]

Holy crap that's a lot of dust

That's what I was thinking

[Lorgar]

And the wife is bitching about her dirty sink

It actually took some serious scrubbing to get that crap off the sides of the sink

how did you pull it all out of the sink? pillow slip or something?

Yeah, I put all the media in a stocking and tied the end. Dunked the stocking in the sink and worked it all around to get the dust and lube out of the media.

To start with I didn't think it was going to do much... After a few seconds working it around literally nothing had happened, then the crap started coming out in waves.

After giving it a good slosh about I hung the stocking up in the sun for 2 hot days and it was good as gold.

How long had you been using that media mate?

It's probably done about 600 brass or so? All lubed and re-sized before tumbling so a bit of lube in there too as mentioned above.

[Hilux2003]

Another method is to use a bucket, dump the media into the bucket add a teaspoon of concentrated washingup detergent & give a good stirring with a hose. Just beware it will blow the stuff all over you if you get the hose jet & volume wrong. After that tip the bucket over a flyscreen to drain. The flyscreen will need to be supported, I use an old frame from a window with the netting attached, tip it out of the bucket slowly & hose out slowly. Once dry, dump back into the tumbler(s), I've got 2x Lyman 1200's & do a fair bit of brass.

This freshens up the walnut media, not sure of the corn cobb based stuff or the "little white stuff from Frankfort Arsenell".
Washed mine about 3x so far & into the 2nd year of use.

[5Tom]

I didn't know you could wash that kind of media, I use SS pins

[yoshie]

Yeah that's about what mine looked like, I've washed my media twice now in 3 years. When the cases take way too long to clean and don't get that polished look, best to wash it. The stocking works great.

[Skadoo]

I didn't know you could wash that kind of media, I use SS pins

Just the hard stuff like walnut shells I reckon.

Soft corn cob media or similar things I reckon would just go to mush.

[Kipper]

When the cases take way too long to clean and don't get that polished look, best to wash it. The stocking works great.

Just done it myself yesterday.

A definite improvement all round on the brass.

[Apollo]

The Corn Cob Media washes okay without any problems. Have done mine at least 3 times at least over the past half dozen years. Do also have Walnut Media but don't use it that often so haven't washed it as yet.

What I found is that reusing the media and lots of use it tends to loose it's effectiveness due to becoming smoother itself rather than the roughness of new media. just takes a longer time to do the same job.

With my Corn Cob once washed I add Lyman Brite polish to the now clean media and run the tumbler until all the polish is absorbed and there are no lumps. The Lyman Brite I found will give a high shiny polish finish but also leaves a coating that seems to protect the cases from tarnishing. I have some that were done a couple of years ago and they are still bright n shiny..

The main thing is to make sure the media is totally dried so I do mine in the middle of summer and take the tray/s outside in the full sun for a few days. I don't leave them out at night so they soak moisture up again. At the same time I wash the tumbler bowl.

Don't put your hands in the media unless wearing gloves as it contains some nasty chemicals, mainly from spent primer compound. Wash your hands if you do.

[Skadoo]

The Corn Cob Media washes okay without any problems. Have done mine at least 3 times at least over the past half dozen years.

Hmm, cool.

I didn't think the corn cob would hold up as well to the water.

[beepar]

With my Corn Cob once washed I add Lyman Brite polish to the now clean media and run the tumbler until all the polish is absorbed and there are no lumps. The Lyman Brite I found will give a high shiny polish finish but also leaves a coating that seems to protect the cases from tarnishing. I have some that were done a couple of years ago and they are still bright n shiny.

I think this point is up for debate, but I know a lot of people won't use polish because it cleans by taking a layer off the brass? Mega thin, but something still.

No concerns over that Apollo?

[Lorgar]

Don't put your hands in the media unless wearing gloves as it contains some nasty chemicals, mainly from spent primer compound. Wash your hands if you do.

There is definitely something to this IMO.

These days my centre-fire stuff is pretty much restricted just to hunting, so I don't tumble big quantities of brass. In the past though when my parter and I were target shooting regularly I'd tumble a batch or two of a few hundred cases in one sitting.

I'd hold the brass against the spine of the tumbler to shake out the media inside and have to do this a few hundred times. By the end of it my fingers and half my palms were just about black with the various residues.

By the time all the crap soaks into your skin and I guess you touch your face a bit or wipe your nose or mouth of whatever, I could feel a bit sick after doing it.

The most I do these days is 50 at a time when I need to load a fresh box of ammo, and I don't notice it then. But back when I was doing 300-400 at a time I did.

Really should start wearing gloves for the small batches these days anyway...

[Apollo]

I think this point is up for debate, but I know a lot of people won't use polish because it cleans by taking a layer off the brass? Mega thin, but something still.

No concerns over that Apollo?

Couple of points here, a lot of brass polish contains Ammonia and Ammonia attacks the brass. Actually the copper in brass and by doing that you weaken the alloy and make it brittle in the long run. To the best of my knowledge the Lyman Brite contains no Ammonia, but whatever is in it seems to add a coating to the brass that protects it from tarnishing.

Some people use Steel Wool to clean brass, that certainly takes a layer off the brass ever so thin it may be.

A lot of people talk about using Brasso to clean brass.... ever smelt Brasso. I know what it contains and what it smells like....5-10% Ammonia plus fine abrasive compounds. .

[Warrigul]

Any sort of polishing involves removal of metal, that is the nature of the beast.

There may be different degrees of material removal but in the end it is the same.

For those that are worried about it just wipe the rubbish off and resize, the only offence is to the eye when they are not as bright or sexy on the firing line.

As far as washing media in the kitchen sink goes when you think about all the deadly ****** and heavy metals that comes off a case it it is a very unwise choice. Especially around kids.

[Lorgar]

As far as washing media in the kitchen sink goes when you think about all the deadly ****** and heavy metals that comes off a case it it is a very unwise choice.

I was conscious of that.

The sink got a few fills and scourings with boiling water and detergent before it was used again.

[beepar]

To the best of my knowledge the Lyman Brite contains no Ammonia, but whatever is in it seems to add a coating to the brass that protects it from tarnishing.

Cool, good to know.

[Sarco]

I routinely wash my crushed corncob tumbling media probably 2 to 3 times a year.

I place it into a couple of laundry bags that women use to wash their smalls in (available, if I remember correctly, $4 for three bags from Spotlight). They have a zipped closure.

I then agitate them in the laundry tub with a bit of standard laundry detergent (what ever the wife has) and it is really surprising how much ****** comes off/out. The media is a completely different colour once cleaned.

I then lay it out on a towel in the workshop to dry over a few days.

While I wet tumble brass with stainless steel pins, rather than metho or whatever at the end, I toss them into the vibratory tumbler for a couple of hours still wet. This dries them and finishes off the polishing beautifully.