I wonder if the tumbling medium that is left inside the case would increase the barrel erosion if it contained any polishing compounds in addition to just the plain medium.

Some guys I've talked to seem to think so and either don't tumble their cases or only use pure medium, being either corn or walnut.

What think ye?????

I tumble in treated medium to mildly clean the brass of all possible grit before sizing then lube and size. After that it is trim if needed and then I wash all brass in a rock tumbler with whatever dish soap my wife happens to be using and hot water for an hour. Rinse thourghly and let dry completely. It usually looks as clean as new brass.

rouge being forced down a bbl at 50-60k
can't be good for it.
if it will scrape carbon from a metal with contact i am thinking adding pressure to the equation will help it work even better

It also could raise the pressure of your handload to a potentially dangerous level.

Assuming the loader uses a proper size media grit I can't imagine leaving any inside a case at all. ??

If you are using walnut and not depriming prior to vibrating, the walnut will occasionally get hung up in the flash holes. This has yielded bent and broken depriming pins. roger

quote:

Assuming the loader uses a proper size media grit I can't imagine leaving any inside a case at all.

+1 I deprime before cleaning. I have found a piece of walnut in the flash hole a couple times. A quick inspection takes care of it.

I have been doing case cleaning experiments for weeks.

Some guy died. Hundreds of pounds of stuff sat in another guy's garage. Two months ago, I was given the stacks of storage boxes of presses, bullets, primers, dies, and lots of dirty brass.

The guy must have died from lifting all his dirty brass.

I have been watching youtube videos on how to clean brass.

I have been reading forums.

Right now I am trying car polish in one of the vibrators.

I think I can get the abrasive off in a secondary process with another vibrator or ultra sonic.

I hand polish each case for 15min just to give me something to do

Some of you make me wonder

quote:

Originally posted by Jim C. <><:
Assuming the loader uses a proper size media grit I can't imagine leaving any inside a case at all. ??

I guess I should have clarified that the concern was the leftover dust from the media being left inside the case and in particular if it had any polishing compound in the media, there would be some of the compound in the dust.

quote:

I guess I should have clarified that the concern was the leftover dust from the media being left inside the case and in particular if it had any polishing compound in the media, there would be some of the compound in the dust.

I think someone doesn't have enough other things to worry about.

Don't use corncob and keep the lid on your tumbler then you won't have crap in the cases !.

quote:

..dust from the media being left inside the case and in particular if it had any polishing compound in the media, there would be some of the compound in the dust.

I think the (proper) brass type polishes we use are far too soft and in too small a quanity to have any significate effect on steel, much less than normal powder flames do. I don't agree that the use of various household scouring powders while tumbling is harmless tho. ??

I strongly suspect most of the "dust" some people get up tight over is dry polish dust, not com, nut nor especially primer waste. It takes a LOT less polish to do the job than many seem to think.

The red walnut media sold by Lyman and others leaves a coating of rouge inside the brass. When the round is fired the rouge based residue turns to a coating of black ash that flakes off the brass when it is sized.

quote:

Originally posted by TEANCUM:
I wonder if the tumbling medium that is left inside the case would increase the barrel erosion if it contained any polishing compounds in addition to just the plain medium.

Some guys I've talked to seem to think so and either don't tumble their cases or only use pure medium, being either corn or walnut.

What think ye?????

NO

when taking brass from my tumbler i always slip each one up side down over the center lid fastener rod to knock all the media out of the case............. the running tumbler always does a great job of getting them emptied out.... i always tumble brass before i deprime and use a small screw driver to scrape the crud out of the primer pocket before i hand prime them.........

quote:

Originally posted by TEANCUM:

quote:

Originally posted by Jim C. <><:
Assuming the loader uses a proper size media grit I can't imagine leaving any inside a case at all. ??

I guess I should have clarified that the concern was the leftover dust from the media being left inside the case and in particular if it had any polishing compound in the media, there would be some of the compound in the dust.

I don’t use treated media because of some of the same concerns you have.

Media dust from untreated media hasn’t been a problem for over 30 years. I don’t worry about real shiny brass, just real clean brass.

If you want really shiny brass, Woods has that down, ask him, because no tumbler can make brass shine more than his method.

Shiny is an statement of optical characteristics and has nothing to do with the function of the brass.

Yup

quote:

I guess I should have clarified that the concern was the leftover dust from the media being left inside the case and in particular if it had any polishing compound in the media, there would be some of the compound in the dust.

I use corncob media and occasionally add a dab of Lyman or Dillon rouge to refresh. Tumble the brass before each reloading and never worried much about barrel wear.

Get an average of 7500 rounds out of my 30-06 target barrels before they start throwing a flier every now and then. Don't figure they owe me much at that round count.

Regards,
hm

quote:

Originally posted by TEANCUM:

quote:

Originally posted by Jim C. <><:
Assuming the loader uses a proper size media grit I can't imagine leaving any inside a case at all. ??

I guess I should have clarified that the concern was the leftover dust from the media being left inside the case and in particular if it had any polishing compound in the media, there would be some of the compound in the dust.

i have heard of guys putting a used dryer softener sheet in the tumbler to collect the dust and clean the media somewhat..... i've never done it and the only thing i worry about is getting the granules of madia out of the case.............. you could try the drier sheet thing to see how it works....

you wanna rip the sheet into about 3-4 strips.
it does pick up the fine dust pretty good.

The fellow that I was talking to about this is a Gunsmith and he voiced his concern over the dust from the polishing compound remaining inside the case. His thought, and it sounds reasonable to me, is that having that polishing compound shot down the barrel would polishing the barrel for sure and perhaps speed up the erosion in the barrel with those medias that use some type of polishing compound mixed in with them. He stated that he was sure that the outer case would be clean from the vibrations of the tumbler but recommended the use of media that was natural only with nothing added to it.

He also mentioned that clean brass was what was important not shiny cases. His thoughts were that clean brown stained cases were better in the long run than the shiny bright ones.

I now have one more thing that I never worried about to add to my worries.

Not realy.

My thoughts are that media/polish or both, left in the case unless it is a large amount that would affect burn rate or case capasity should not hurt anything.

But besides as loaders we should look inside each case shouldn't we?

If my barrels were all precision hand lapped to the last decimal of absolute perfection, I might be concerned. I however only have a couple of custom barrels in my safe, and combined with all the others, I seriously doubt that I will ever see any noted effects.

However do what you feel is comfortable for you. As mentioned, between cleaning, shooting, and normal fouling wear and tear, most can get plenty of shooting through a typical barrel before it actually needs to be swapped.

I doubt seriously that one could ever point to the specific use of polishing compound in media as a cause for excessive or premature barrel wear, over improper loads or cleaning techniques.

As mentioned, dryer sheets work but I take a half a sheet of paper towel and rip it into thin strips and put one or two into the tumbler. As mentioned it somehow collects all the gunk and keeps the rest of the media quite clean.

quote:

Originally posted by Mark:
As mentioned, dryer sheets work but I take a half a sheet of paper towel and rip it into thin strips and put one or two into the tumbler. As mentioned it somehow collects all the gunk and keeps the rest of the media quite clean.

The cut up paper towels work, Mark, but not nearly as well as the cut up dryer sheets. roger