can one tumble bullets to achieve a good looking finished product.not the loaded case just the bullet portion. recently received my 154 gr sst bullets.will tumbling in anyway hurt the plastic tip or hurt accuracy in anyway. i know that there may be some damage to soft lead tipped bullets. just wondering if anyone else tumbles there bullets for a really good looking end product.

Hey Swampfoot,

I got tired of having polishing media stuck in flash holes many years ago and started doing my polishing after the cartridges were finished. I just stick up to a hundred or so 30-06 cartridges in my big Lyman Turbo Tumbler, and, before long, the brass and the bullets are bright and shiney. I do it with soft nose bullets and with cast bullets, and the process does not harm either. I have never used any bullets with the plastic inserts, so I do not know whether it would hurt them or not. My suggestion is to try a few of the plastics in with twenty or thirty others and see what happens to the tips. And, no, I have never had any cartridge fire during the polishing process. Never.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile

Swamp,

Tumbling bullets in media or using brass cleaner on them is perfectly fine. (It doesn't change the performance one way or another it just makes them look good)

However, I would be very careful tumbling loaded rounds! Modern gun powder is coated with agents that control the burn rate (slows it down) of the powder. If this coating gets rubbed off it can significantly change the burn rate of the powder. (Much faster than it should be) This can cause dangerous over pressure situations!

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J.W.
Hero of the Hapless
Master of the Obvious

I've seen warnings in reloading manuals that you should NEVER tumble loaded ammo. I know that I will never try it.

I've tumbled thousands of Nosler balistic tips in "untreated" corn cob media to remove the polish/oil/fingerprints prior to coating with Danzac (similar to Moly). I use the RCBS sidewinder tumbler, and I don't think that the tumbling affects the tips or accuracy at all. During the actual Danzac coating process, the bullets are tumbled with 1/4" steel ball bearings, and again, I don't think it hurts the tips or the accuracy.

Bill