Harbor Freight sells a small (3 lb. capacity) "rotary rock tumbler" for $22.00. Has anyone tried one of these on cartridge cases? Except for the small capacity it sure beats the $261 price for the RCBS sidewinder tumbler.

I bought one from Cabela's $40.00,with media, 5 years ago..What more do you need?? Mine works great.

The least expensive rotary tumbler in the current Cabellas catelog is $150. The vibrator tumblers are cheaper (I use one now) but need a rotary tumbler for use with ceramic media.

For years I used a coffee can with a plastic lid and a bolt through the bottom. Chuck the bolt into a half inch drill then clamp the drill into a vise and tumble away. I used the handle that screws into the side of the drill because I was afraid of cracking the plastic pistol grip handle. Worked just as good as anything I ever used.

Thanks for the idea Dennis. I may just go ahead and try and make one myself.
Jon

Hmmm, any reason why that wouldn't work with a drill press set at lowest speed?

I was walking through home depot this afternoon and saw a plastic paint bucket they had 1 gal. cap. and noticed how good the lid fastened on it. I'm sure it would be better than a coffee can because its bigger and I don't think you would ever lose the lid if you overfilled it.
Don't know as the drill press would work because you need a little less than a 45 degree angle off of the horizontal to get a tumbleing action going.

I also was using a variable speed drill turning pretty slow

Judas Priest!, if harbor freight has one for $22 go for it. It's got to be worth the lack of BS factor in making one to have a dedicated piece already made for that cheap.

It might cost you that much in gas to get to the store and buy parts to build anything that would work--and probably not better than that one.

I just bought the harbor freight rock tumbler, for $19 on sale. Normally $29. It appears to be a good tumbler. I used cheap bird seed ($1/5#) as a media and it cleaned up 40 cases just like new (almost).

Ok that settles it! Off to Harbor Freight in the morning. Thanks...

Jon

Panzer

What if anything did you add to the birdseed

Nuttin. To be honest, I know jack about polishing brass, but I inherited butt-load of really tarnished and dirty .308, so I threw 40 rounds in the HF tumbler and filled the rest with birdseed, as a friend of mine suggested.

I left it on overnight, and there was only a couple cases that had that mystery "black stuff" on them, and I wiped that off with Goreham's brass polish. I'm going to experiment with time and see how long they really need to be in there.

Be advised, I wasn't trying to make the cases "pretty". I was just trying to make them "serviceable".

BTW, you need to follow the instructions on the HF tumbler EXPLICITLY! I consider anything I buy from there as a "kit". I needed to do some adjustment to the belt, and extensive lubing to the roller bearings before I used it. Otherwise, it would've burned up right away.

Jon,

Yes the HF Tumblers work well.

I saw one for 19 bucks sometime back and said what the heck. It's been clicking along ever since.

It even has some directions w/ it about tumbling brass cases. When I saw that, I knew it would probably work.

I'll admit that I don't tumble cases very often because I could care less what they look like as long as the are clean but, the little HF tumbler works fine when I do tumble. The main thing I do to my brass is turn them in my hand w/ 0000 steel wool wrapped around the shoulder and neck, that steel wool will make them shine. Also if you tumble your cases and some of them have dark spots that will not tumble off, the 0000 steel wool will polish it right off.

Panzerguy,

The HF will burn up if you don't start the drum. You have to turn the drum by hand for about 1/2 a turn and it will take off from there and run for hours w/ no problems.

Good Luck

Reloader

Model B Tumblers Tumbler Got Mine 1980 and it's still going had to replace belt only