Tumbling media

[imaguy3]

So I've been doing small batch reloading of my bolt gun for awhile, starting with a sonic cleaner and homemade solution. It was easy and did a good job but I could only do 50 cases at once. Since I decided to reload for the Grendel, I wanted to clean a lot more brass a lot easier so I picked up a tumbler...

I read all the articles about the different medias, including pins, but nothing really struck my fancy and I didn't like the dust from traditional media. Then I saw one article about using white rice and a cut up dryer sheet, and gosh darned if it isn't sweet. The article was specific about the size of rice, recommending this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1. The rice is small enough to get in and clean primer pockets, but I had some grains get stuck in the primer pocket, not many though.

I run suppressed and my brass comes out completely covered and super dirty. This was 250 rounds and about 3 lbs of rice. Tumbled for 3 hours, resized, then tumbled again for a cple hrs... They're so pretty I'm afraid to touch them...





an example of the best and worst looking primer pocket

[Mitdr774]

I have always just used crushed walnut shells and Nu Finish. Cheap media from the pet store and an inexpensive bottle of polish works for me.

[FLshooter]

I get Reptile litter that?s made of English walnut shells off of the Petco site.The Nu car finish liquid wax from wallyworld works.But,I like St Creed?s 4 starbrass finish better.
I have a Dillon tumbler plugged into a timer.I set it to run 2 hrs at night.Then 2 more hrs before work.My brass looks like new!I can even get the .223 range brass looking good.But,it takes longer.

[FRB6.5]

FYI the dryer sheet trick works with walnut and corn cob media as well to reduce dust. I do have to say the results in those pictures look fantastic though.

[imaguy3]

FYI the dryer sheet trick works with walnut and corn cob media as well to reduce dust. I do have to say the results in those pictures look fantastic though.

I had zero dust though, I had this running on my workbench next to sunglasses which had no dust on the lens, which is exactly what I wanted.. I was surprised though at just how well plain rice works.. I always read about people having to use polish in the other media (like above)...

[TreeTopFlier]

Kool find, another option in the tool box.

[SightedIn]

Hmm, never would of thought rice would work, being as smooth as it is. Will have to give it a try

[Bearcatrp]

Which tumbler did you use?
How much rice did you use?
How full (brass) was the tumbler?
Would love to get away from pins and water. My try regular rice just to see what happens. Just need an idea on how much rice to put it the tumble. Also, do you have to discard the rice after 1 cleaning or able to use it a couple times? Thanks.

[Kswhitetails]

To the guys that complain about dust in walnut media: Do you all not know that you can wash your media? Prior to first use, and periodically after? I used to wash mine as I re-newed it, letting it sit in the sun on cookie sheets to dry. It's a bit of work, but no dust, and it works as the rice appears to above.

[Bearcatrp]

Reread the post and see you used a vibrating tumbler. Was thinking you used a wet tumbler minus the water. Will have to blow off the dust from mine to try it. 5 hrs seems a long time. How did it look after 3 hours before you resized?

[A5BLASTER]

To the guys that complain about dust in walnut media: Do you all not know that you can wash your media? Prior to first use, and periodically after? I used to wash mine as I re-newed it, letting it sit in the sun on cookie sheets to dry. It's a bit of work, but no dust, and it works as the rice appears to above.

I sure didn't. Good to know. I don't use walnut much. Just when I have some cases that are really needing a long hard cleaning. Mostly use the old cheap corn cob media.

The rice is cool idea, i will have to research it more before I try it.

[imaguy3]

Which tumbler did you use? The hornady vibrating tumbler
How much rice did you use? Answered in my OP
How full (brass) was the tumbler? Answered in my OP
Would love to get away from pins and water. My try regular rice just to see what happens. Just need an idea on how much rice to put it the tumble. Also, do you have to discard the rice after 1 cleaning or able to use it a couple times? Thanks.

No you can reuse the rice until it no longer works... this isn't the first batch I've done, but this is the first time I've let it run to shine that much.

Reread the post and see you used a vibrating tumbler. Was thinking you used a wet tumbler minus the water. Will have to blow off the dust from mine to try it. 5 hrs seems a long time. How did it look after 3 hours before you resized?

Ehh, I guess it's a long time if you're in a hurry. Heck after 3 hours it looked clean just not quite as mirror like. I liked it at 3. There was no set time for 3 hours, heck for all I know it could have been clean after an hour. I dumped them all in and then started working on other things. I just noted the time I went back to them to check on them. It's just cheap rice, experiment with it and see how your cases look after certain times. My cases are filthy (running suppressed and picking them out of the dirt). I'm sure that had something to do with the time. I only threw it back in to get the little bit of one shot lube off and dress up the primer pockets after depriming/resizing, again, no set time I was just doing other things.

[Bearcatrp]

Thanks for replying. I’ll be trying it soon.

[Kswhitetails]

The more I read this thread, the more I like the idea. I'm toying with mixing rice and walnut and absolutely slathering it all in nufinish and letting it run with no cases for a few hours, then storing it sealed. The rice would absorb the polish to an extent better than the walnut does, and would impart the benefits of a sealed case on the tumble. I'd use it to final tumble loaded rounds, which I do now with walnut alone.

[lazyengineer]

Neat! I've not heard of using rice before, and it looks to work quite well! Very interesting. Since I tend to get a lot of open-field pick-ups (i.e. casings that tend to be coated inside and out with mud, natural detritus, etc), I tend to wet tumble with stainless steel chips, as that pulverizes and cleans out the inside of the casings quite well. But for dry media, this is a very cool idea.