Week or so ago heard a guy talking about adding some solvent to his tumbler media to help clean cases. Which, while solvents definitely have their place, I don't like messing with them more than necessary. But it did give an idea.
I've been using a case lube made of lanolin and 90% rubbing alcohol, it works well, and then I throw the sized cases in the tumbler to clean it off. Which works pretty well, though it's not uncommon to have some cases with media stuck inside that requires a brush to get out. And I had part of a bottle of alcohol left...
Started the tumbler, then added some alcohol, then a little more. The media clumped up pretty bad, but smoothed out a bit with a few minutes time, and I added the brass. It was moving pretty slowly, but left it running. By an hour later was moving faster, and a couple later at normal speed and the brass looked shiny and clean. Dumped it into the separator and cranked it around, and it looks good: all traces of lube gone, and so far haven't seen any media stuck inside. I've got to completely separate the cases, but so far it looks good.
Entirely possible someone else has tried it, but it's a discovery for me.
7 comments:
Well, haven't tried alcohol, but I do something similar. I use a wide tip Sharpie to put a wide colored band around the base of my brass to easily identify what's mine during a match or on the range. Also sometimes use different colors to identify the bullet used. And that Sharpie mark needs to come off so it doesn't build up so what I've been doing is using corncob media with whatever polish was cheapest last time I bought any, with a good glug of mineral spirits to remove the Sharpie. Run the tumbler long enough for the liquids to absorb and then add in the brass. If I'm in a hurry, stirring with a screw driver seems to help absorption.
Seems to speed things up quite a bit. Couple hours, the Sharpie marks are all gone and the brass is nice and shiny. Longer as the media gets old. And, usually the mineral spirits will last for two or three cycles if I keep the lid on and don't wait too long between batches.
I do this outside, certainly not something I'd do in a closed basement. So to recap, mostly I use mineral spirits to remove the Sharpie mark but it does seem to speed things up as well.
I run fired brass thru the tumbler first, to keep grit out of the sizer die then lube and resize and tumble again to remove the lube. I'm just too lazy to wipe down the sized brass with a rag.
Before somebody asks, I've not had problems with the Sharpie mark interfering with feeding or ejection with metal or most plastic magazines in a wide mix of gas and bolt guns but did have a problem with feeding from the factory plastic magazines of a Ruger Precision Rifle. No workie with those so you have been warned to try that little trick before adopting it for everything.
Another tumbler hack. Some media for vibratory tumblers (like walnut shells) can build up dust over time. To collect and remove the dust, toss in a couple of used drier sheets.
I'm surprised Sharpie is thick enough to cause a clearance issue. My understanding is that it's more of a dye than a pigment so it's very thin. I do use Sharpie on brass for load testing but I mark the base and primer and not the body so I have never noticed a feed issue. It also polishes off in the tumbler
Yeah, mineral spirits would work. I just happened to have that partial bottle of alcohol handy.
I've used the dryer sheet thing to get rid of dust, and you're right, it works
Some vibratory tumblers move the media slowly, putting a small funnel upside down at the base of the bowl speeds it up.
Slow Joe, I think the problem with the Ruger mags was added friction caused by the Sharpie marks, not the thickness. Hasn't been a problem with Magpul magazines in AR-15 or AR-10 so I'm thinking it was a peculiarity of the Ruger mags. I did notice the feed lips on those seemed quite wide in comparison to Magpul. It was a .223 RPR, by the way, not the big bore model.
That's interesting, hadn't heard that before
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