tumbling pins in the washer
- Thread starter schmiddy
- Start date
Yup. In a large Gatorade bottle. In the dryer too. Dryer was too violent and the brass was beat up. Washer wasn't bad. Then I got a 5 dollar rock tumbler at a flea market and it works much better. For what its worth I used stainless tig welding rods for pins too. I'm cheap but don't often admit it publicly.
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Well it works. Just use a separate sealed vessel entirely and throw it in with the wash. Few of the quart Gatorade bottles would work well. Then ask around for one of the kid's old rock tumblers with the red body and gray frame. Can only do about 50-75 rds of 40sw at a time or 20ish 30-06 but I have more time than money so it works for now.
Eventually ill get around to building a bigger one on a Saturday at work. $200 for a tumbler is 1500-2000rds I could have loaded instead you know?
Eventually ill get around to building a bigger one on a Saturday at work. $200 for a tumbler is 1500-2000rds I could have loaded instead you know?
What about using a 5 gallon bucket with something like a gamma seal lid or something similar that has gaskets and makes a watertight seal. I could see it working better in a front load washer.
I would be moderately concerned if it wasn't smooth sided about all that weight banging around. My dryer made a terrible racket even with just a Gatorade bottle. A new washer is a lot more than a thumlers.
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My washer's price was $300 new, about the same price as a new Thumlers. Its now 10 years old and still runs like Carl Lewis. My mom's washer cost $3k and has sensors. Its already been repaired 3 times. Not sure what its "sensing." Maybe the water level? Because people are too lazy to set the switch from small, medium, or large load. I'll take my 10 year old $300 machine.
Anyhow, This is what I picked up for 30 bucks. Runs perfect. Needs the seal on the door replaced and the chain need new grease. But otherwise I think it will get the job done and I can clean hundreds of cases at a time. Maybe Thousands. I don't know if it will work "wet" yet. Depends on what seal I come up with. but for those cases that I want to get super shiny I guess I can try the gatorade bottle method inside the tumbler.
Anyhow, This is what I picked up for 30 bucks. Runs perfect. Needs the seal on the door replaced and the chain need new grease. But otherwise I think it will get the job done and I can clean hundreds of cases at a time. Maybe Thousands. I don't know if it will work "wet" yet. Depends on what seal I come up with. but for those cases that I want to get super shiny I guess I can try the gatorade bottle method inside the tumbler.
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The builder ran a machine shop and has retired. It was a tumbler used to clean rusty parts or sand blast parts without actually spending the time manually sand blasting. It's a home built job made with a propane tank, motor, chain. Runs nice and slow, maybe 15rpm to 20rpm. Quieter than I had expected...at least until I fill it with brass. If anyone likes it, I can post up closer pics/specs/parts list and a video of it running. Most of it would be easy for the novice builder, but I think the door might be tricky to build. I suppose its not an ideal set-up. Has its drawbacks. But for the money I think its awesome.
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I'd be curious to know how you've got your reloading cost down to 10 cents per round. The primer alone is 3-4 cents. Add powder, bullet and factor in the brass and it's way more than .10
I look at my investment in the tumbler as just a part of the reloading process. That $200 will be amortized over thousands or tens of thousands of rounds.
