The old crushed walnut media finally went south on me,and needed to be changed.I have enough on hand to refill the tumbler.


On my way home from work I decided to stop at the pet store and pick up a bag of lizard bedding,-crushed walnuts-,and do a comparison between the two medias.

The results weren't even close.Tumbler media cases,after 2 hrs., were reasonably clean and shiny.

The pet store stuff was working,but at a much slower rate. Very much slower rate.

Should I sweeten the pet store media with something to give it a little more cleaning power,if so what do I use?

In the past I have seen posts from some of you that pet store crushed walnuts work great.Did you sweeten it or just use as is out of the bag?

Use a polishing compound to speed things up. I like turtle wax or nu-finish. I have used comercial tumbeler additive in the past but found that it worked only slightly better than the car wax.

You will notice that media sold for cleaning reloading brass is called "treated media". That means that it has had some sort of polishing abrasive added to it. (Fluffy and Fido don't need to have a polishing compound in their litter box) Find some polishing compound that contains no ammonia and mix some in with the crushed walnut hulls. For my money Flitz or Nu-Finish car polish work well. Make sure that you run the tumbler for a while to thoroughly mix the polish with the media before adding the brass to prevent clumping on the cases.

If you compare commercial walnut shells for tumbling against the pet store stuff, the pet store stuff is like mush in comparison and is dusty as hell to boot. It also soaks up a lot mor epolishing media (grit) than the commerial stuff. Wiping the dust off the pet store stuff after tumbling is also a royal PITA.
Using car polish may not be such a good idea s most, if not all contain ammonia which will attack the copper portion of your brass. Brasso is also bad. I'm not sure about Flitz. Not gonna be fun if one of your cases was weakened by the ammonia in your polish and the shell lets go upon firing.
Paul B.

I bought a 50lb bag of the commercial stuff 10 or 12 years ago and it was less than $20, way cheaper than the pet store stuff. I've got over a half bag left. And as Paul said, it works way more better.

I pesonaly prefer corn cob over walnut.

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In the past I have seen posts from some of you that pet store crushed walnuts work great. Did you sweeten it or just use as is out of the bag?

I use the pet store stuff plain, right out of the bag. I usually run the tumbler an hour. They come out really shiny but a little dusty, like you mention. Good way to get that dust off is to roll the cases in a slightly damp towel. If you have a lot of them-- as in .223Rems-- you might want to pull the four corners together making a bag out of the towel and just bounce and roll and fling 'em around in there. Gets the dust right off...

FWIW; I have not checked out the MSDS for Flitz but I know that Nu-Finish markets their car polish as having no ammonia or alkalies and will not attack brass or copper.

I bought a big bag of Grit-O-Cob 20 years ago. Still working on that same bag!

Walnut hulls are used in turbine engine cleaning and as a blasting media. They come in 40 pound bags by the pallet anywhere you can buy sand blasting media.

Longshot

Tumble your brass in hot water and dish washing detergent. Rinse with water. Air dry or oven dry under 170F. No hull dust to get in your sizing die.

I use pet store walnut hulls because it works fine and is much cheaper than the stuff from the gun shop.

Try the 25-lb box of walnut tumbling media sold at Harbor Freight and Tool. Sometimes you can catch it on sale at a price that will beat even the pet store stuff. It comes in two different "grinds" and I'm not sure which is preferable for case cleaning, but the box I have does fine and looks like it will outlast me.

BTW -- I avoid tubling media treated with jeweler's rouge like the plauge. You can't get that junk off of anything it touches and imagine what the INSIDES of your cases look like! Jeweler's rouge mixed with IMR 4895 can't be good for either ballistic performance or for your bore.

Jeweler's rouge and hull dust drove me to find a "better way". No Rouge

Walnut hulls and mineral spirits works just fine.
Longshot

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Originally posted by Longshot:
Walnut hulls and mineral spirits works just fine.
Longshot

I'm curious about the mineral spirits. Tell me more, please.

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I'm curious about the mineral spirits. Tell me more, please.

I bought a bottle of it at Walmart for mixin' up some Ed's Red bore cleaner. The stuff is pretty cheap, like four bucks a quart. Haven't made the Red, yet. I'd like to know more about using it in tumblers, too. Anybody know if it would attack the plastic bowl? I think the stuff is polyethylene...

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I'm cleaning some brass right now. I poured maybe one ounce of minerals spirits in for a three-quarter full tumbler. It turned the crushed walnuts from a dusty beige to a dark walnut color. I did not put on the clear polystyrene top, fearing it might be attacked by the vapors. I'm doing the tumbling outside. Only had 'em in for about ten minutes. I usually tumble for an hour. We'll see how they look then..

Toss in a Bounce dryer sheet to keep the dust down. - dan