I find that my 45-70 brass is too big to tumble well. If I leave it in with walnut media for a few hours longer than normal it tumbles to pretty clean, but mostly it's big and heavy enough that they just sit on the bottom of the tumbler vs. rolling around in it.

Is there a better trick for cleaning these up?

I tumble 308 brass. Are you overloading your tumbler?

RMD

It's possible I suppose. The most I've had in there at a time is 20.

I'm thinking that they are just too heavy.

How old is your media? I have two vibratory cleaners and even the small one will handle 20 rounds easily. When the media has degraded and looks like soot it is past time to change it.

Brand new media.

That's strange. My little tumbler will clean up 338RUM brass just fine. I use corncob with a little piece of paper towel with a dab of NuFinish.

I can relate to this,and I solved this by tumbling a mix bag of brass.
223 and 06 works well for me.

My old Lyman 1200 can tumble only 25 50BMG cases at a time and does a decent job but my Dillon CV 2001 12 quart machine will do 100 in a shorter amount of time. One thing I've found is that overloading with cases they don't clean as well or as fast and just a few cases isn't ideal either. Seems they need the right amount of cases to vibrate and rub against each other.

You could always stainless tumble.

What tumbler? I do 45-0 all the time, walnut or walnut & cob mixed. I don't over load but certainly more than 20. Are you using enough media? Put the cases in & add media until it starts moving well. Too little media, not enough action inside the tumbler.

quote:

Originally posted by 45 Cal:
I can relate to this,and I solved this by tumbling a mix bag of brass.

That did the trick sir, thanks.

I mixed in some 45ACP brass and they are all rolling around in there just fine now.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by 45 Cal:
I can relate to this,and I solved this by tumbling a mix bag of brass.

That did the trick sir, thanks.

I mixed in some 45ACP brass and they are all rolling around in there just fine now.

Glad to hear that,
Question on your bee colony's.
How did you do.
I had bad luck with mine.
G D county officals sprayed for Zeka and it killed 13 in my yard and 4 I had a mile away in friends back yard.
I am down to two and I will not buy any more .
These assholes sprayed malathion ,kill everything except the mosquito

quote:

Originally posted by 45 Cal:

Glad to hear that,
Question on your bee colony's.
How did you do.
I had bad luck with mine.
G D county officals sprayed for Zeka and it killed 13 in my yard and 4 I had a mile away in friends back yard.
I am down to two and I will not buy any more .
These assholes sprayed malathion ,kill everything except the mosquito

I had mine abandon the hive back in November. I believe they call it absconding. Everything was gone seemingly overnight. No dead bees, no live bees, no brood, no honey, no pollen, no nothing. The hive is completely empty except for bare empty comb.

I have a buddy about three miles away from me who had the same thing happen to three of his five hives. No idea why.

Just ordered up another three pound package this week and they should be here the end of April. I'm hoping that they'll have a good head start in the hive with all of the comb already built. We'll see.

Still contemplating adding another hive or two.

Since "large brass" is typically tumbled in smaller batches, would cleaning them in an UltraSonic Cleaner be an option??

Funny you should mention that. Just last night I was looking at the Hornady ultrasonic cleaner and wondering how well they work.

I have a Lyman Turbo Pro 1200.
I used mixed Walnut and Corn Cob media.
Last night I tumbled 75 cases of .280 Remington with no problem.
I doubt weight should be an issue.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Funny you should mention that. Just last night I was looking at the Hornady ultrasonic cleaner and wondering how well they work.

Gustofer...here's a review of the RCBS Ultrasonic Cleaner presented by Gavintoobe of Ultimate Reloader. Gavin is the go-to guy for all things reloading, IMHO. I've purchased the RCBS Ultrasonic Cleaner for myself, but I can't give you an objective review, as I have yet to use it. Here is Gavin's review:



The only thing I would do differently than what Gavin did is to actually deprime and clean the brass before sizing, trimming, and prepping so that my dies don't get dirty. But if the dies are dirty, hey.....just clean them in the Ultrasonic Cleaner with weapons cleaning solution, which is what Gavin did with his first test/video of the RCBS Cleaner (he cleaned some dies).

Hope all that helps!!