Chapter 1
I be honest, I’ve never cleaned a piece of brass in my life. Maybe hit hit with a green scratchy if it was dirty enough. Well this tumbler was gifted to me at three years ago. I’ve never used because of the price of tumbling media. The other day I happened upon using rice as tumble media. So heck, thought I’ll try. I have rice from 2015 in in wine bottles I corked. It is getting a little long in the tooth. Everything was lining up for the perfect experiment. I have dirty brass, a tumbler and old rice….so what the heck…….Let’s do this!
Chapter 2
My gifted tumbler (see pic1). I tumbled for about 2 hours. The rice was dirty after it was done but not black [See pic 2). The only problem was that evey .45 had a nine or .38 jammed in it and it was stuck with rice (see pics 3 and 4). All of them pulled apart easily except for half a dozen. I had to use pliers to pull those apart. Of those only two 9mm were sacrificed on the alter of the reloading experiment. This whole problem could have been avoided if I were a smart man and would have separated my brass and ran by size rather than dumping them all in and running. Now for the payoff. the last pic is clean brass for about .25 cent of rice. Some Rice did jamb in some cases, but it never took more than a gentle tap on the side of the tumbler and it would evacuate easily. I purposely tumbled the brass with spent primer in so I would not have to deal rice getting stuck in the primer holes.
Chapter 3 (not illustrated)
I was on a roll, so I experimented some more. I placed about 100-150 or so 556 in the same rice. Let it run again for a couple hours. The cases are clean. Rice is much more dirty now. It has a peppered look. I do not have a media sifter. The cases were all full of rice. The inside was cleaned. However I had to shake the rice out of ever case because of the bottle neck on the cases it took some time to shake free. It took me about 15-20 minutes to clear every case. It was not hard but I think I will stick to straight wall cartridges or maybe some cartridge with a bigger caliber of bullet to make this easier.
Chapter 4 (also not illustrated)
Final thoughts. Never tumbled in anything other than rice so don’t know how it compares. It does leave a fine white dusting. I just put the brass in a cloth and shook it for a few seconds. 99% of the residue came off the cases. Would I use it again? Certainly. It is cheap enough. It cleaned the brass very well. Is there better? I’m sure of it but for my paltry reloading needs, it done much better than the green scratchy. Anyway I thought I’d share my experiment. I hope it helps.
I be honest, I’ve never cleaned a piece of brass in my life. Maybe hit hit with a green scratchy if it was dirty enough. Well this tumbler was gifted to me at three years ago. I’ve never used because of the price of tumbling media. The other day I happened upon using rice as tumble media. So heck, thought I’ll try. I have rice from 2015 in in wine bottles I corked. It is getting a little long in the tooth. Everything was lining up for the perfect experiment. I have dirty brass, a tumbler and old rice….so what the heck…….Let’s do this!
Chapter 2
My gifted tumbler (see pic1). I tumbled for about 2 hours. The rice was dirty after it was done but not black [See pic 2). The only problem was that evey .45 had a nine or .38 jammed in it and it was stuck with rice (see pics 3 and 4). All of them pulled apart easily except for half a dozen. I had to use pliers to pull those apart. Of those only two 9mm were sacrificed on the alter of the reloading experiment. This whole problem could have been avoided if I were a smart man and would have separated my brass and ran by size rather than dumping them all in and running. Now for the payoff. the last pic is clean brass for about .25 cent of rice. Some Rice did jamb in some cases, but it never took more than a gentle tap on the side of the tumbler and it would evacuate easily. I purposely tumbled the brass with spent primer in so I would not have to deal rice getting stuck in the primer holes.
Chapter 3 (not illustrated)
I was on a roll, so I experimented some more. I placed about 100-150 or so 556 in the same rice. Let it run again for a couple hours. The cases are clean. Rice is much more dirty now. It has a peppered look. I do not have a media sifter. The cases were all full of rice. The inside was cleaned. However I had to shake the rice out of ever case because of the bottle neck on the cases it took some time to shake free. It took me about 15-20 minutes to clear every case. It was not hard but I think I will stick to straight wall cartridges or maybe some cartridge with a bigger caliber of bullet to make this easier.
Chapter 4 (also not illustrated)
Final thoughts. Never tumbled in anything other than rice so don’t know how it compares. It does leave a fine white dusting. I just put the brass in a cloth and shook it for a few seconds. 99% of the residue came off the cases. Would I use it again? Certainly. It is cheap enough. It cleaned the brass very well. Is there better? I’m sure of it but for my paltry reloading needs, it done much better than the green scratchy. Anyway I thought I’d share my experiment. I hope it helps.
