Recently I got a Lyman 2500 tumbler. I've run a few batches of cases through it now and I thought I'd share some thoughts.
First of all, this thing does a fine job polishing large batches of brass. I've been using corncob media I picked up from DrillSpot.com as well as some RCBS corncob media I purchased from Bradis Guns. The RCBS media was way more expensive per pound did not seem to clean any better. I haven't really experimented with additives yet except the little packet of polishing compound that comes with the RCBS stuff, but to just clean your brass they aren't really necessary.
One of the big reasons I bought this tumbler was because I liked the idea of the auto-flo feature which is advertised to drain the tumbling media right out of the tumbler which eliminates having to buy a separate media separator. In reality, this feature isn't very well executed. The idea fails for two specific reasons.
First of all, the drain port is poorly executed. It isn't positioned far enough out from the body of the tumbler to prevent media from being thrown outside the catch pan - which is too small to handle a full load of media anyway. To correct this issue, I bent a spout from some thin sheet metal and screwed it to the drain port. It makes it harder to remove and replace the drain plug, but it resolves the issue of scattering media all over the place. I also put the whole tumbler unit up on a platform and let it drain into a 5 gallon bucket instead of the included catch pan. It wouldn't be hard for Lyman to include a spout extension and a deeper catch pan, but for whatever reason they haven't considered it a priority.
The second issue is that - with .45ACP brass anyway - as the media drains out, the brass all stands up primer-side down with a full load of cob. This issue is easily solved by removing the lid and agitating the cases as the tumbler drains. I'm not sure how rifle cases or other pistol cases would fare, but assume a similar solution would apply.
All told, this is a decent tumbler for processing large amounts of brass. Any larger and I'd say to build your own.
First of all, this thing does a fine job polishing large batches of brass. I've been using corncob media I picked up from DrillSpot.com as well as some RCBS corncob media I purchased from Bradis Guns. The RCBS media was way more expensive per pound did not seem to clean any better. I haven't really experimented with additives yet except the little packet of polishing compound that comes with the RCBS stuff, but to just clean your brass they aren't really necessary.
One of the big reasons I bought this tumbler was because I liked the idea of the auto-flo feature which is advertised to drain the tumbling media right out of the tumbler which eliminates having to buy a separate media separator. In reality, this feature isn't very well executed. The idea fails for two specific reasons.
First of all, the drain port is poorly executed. It isn't positioned far enough out from the body of the tumbler to prevent media from being thrown outside the catch pan - which is too small to handle a full load of media anyway. To correct this issue, I bent a spout from some thin sheet metal and screwed it to the drain port. It makes it harder to remove and replace the drain plug, but it resolves the issue of scattering media all over the place. I also put the whole tumbler unit up on a platform and let it drain into a 5 gallon bucket instead of the included catch pan. It wouldn't be hard for Lyman to include a spout extension and a deeper catch pan, but for whatever reason they haven't considered it a priority.
The second issue is that - with .45ACP brass anyway - as the media drains out, the brass all stands up primer-side down with a full load of cob. This issue is easily solved by removing the lid and agitating the cases as the tumbler drains. I'm not sure how rifle cases or other pistol cases would fare, but assume a similar solution would apply.
All told, this is a decent tumbler for processing large amounts of brass. Any larger and I'd say to build your own.
