One of my tricks for new tumbling media is on a windy day tumble your brass outside with the lid off of your tumber. The wind catches all of the light dust that's in new media and blows it away and you don't have to deal much with dust in the future. I got mine outside now and it's blowing all the crud away. Just figured I'd show one of my tips for you.

Or, you can tumble with stainless media and never see a speck of dust and have infinate media life

Or, you can tumble with stainless media and never see a speck of dust and have infinate media life

 

I am suspecting Infinite media life = reduced brass life.

Thankfully i now shoot in calibers that I can pick up off the range floor (bye 10mm ), so I always have a fresh supply of brass. I have run my wet tumbler for too long a few times and found the case mouth buckling when using my powder die. I don't know if this is a cumulative effect of using steel media, or if it is just from me running too long. Maybe it will never happen if I just run the tumbler for an hour instead of 4-6.

I have no desire to go stainless so figured I'd post this for people that dont use stainless.

Same as you Chris, kept trying to reduce that after, I think it was you that you posted about that that the first time, I am down to about 1.5 hours myself, and have been doing 400 to 420 .40 at a time.

The guys over at snipershide thought the same thing but the weakening brass theory was busted when a guy tumbled a couple pieces of brass for something crazy like for a solid week and recorded their before and after weights on a lab scale. They didnt lose any weight, therfore, are no weaker.

 

Those guys on that board are crazy anal too, if it was a detriment at all to brass in any way they wouldnt be doing it. But I digress

I agree with the crazy anal part. I am not sure that something needs to weigh less to have less strength. As metal is worked it loses its malleability. I suspect that is what was happening with mine. I am not interested in annealing pistol brass, so I will just use shorter cleaning times and assume, if not accept, shorter brass life.

The guys over at snipershide thought the same thing but the weakening brass theory was busted when a guy tumbled a couple pieces of brass for something crazy like for a solid week and recorded their before and after weights on a lab scale. They didnt lose any weight, therfore, are no weaker.

 

Those guys on that board are crazy anal too, if it was a detriment at all to brass in any way they wouldnt be doing it. But I digress

 

Weight is one thing, cross-sectioning is another...

The guys over at snipershide thought the same thing but the weakening brass theory was busted when a guy tumbled a couple pieces of brass for something crazy like for a solid week and recorded their before and after weights on a lab scale. They didnt lose any weight, therfore, are no weaker.

 

Those guys on that board are crazy anal too, if it was a detriment at all to brass in any way they wouldnt be doing it. But I digress

 

That doesn't assure you that the case hasn't been weakened, just that it hasn't lost any mass. I'm not saying that steel media would cause thinning ina case wall, but it might peent he neck over a bit and increase the likelihood that the normal reloading process can damage it.

kinda a pretty good idea, i get flabbergasted by walnut shell smoke and detriments when open my tumbler