How long?

[Pittsburghunter]

How long should the medium last in your tumble? Is it an age or amount of rounds thing. Do you look for other things color?

It will quit working after a while. New corncob will clean them in an hour or so. But after a while it will take much longer.

[Pittsburghunter]

I have an old fashion one that you let run for hours and seems to still work good but the cob is turning colors a bit.

[quigleysharps4570]

When a heavy black ring starts forming around the edges of my tub is when I change media. When that occurs I notice it taking a considerably longer time to clean them.

I tumble in quanity. Some people like to in sets of 20, but I usually prep a whole order of brass, and load and shoot all of it once, and then tumble all 100. If I do this 4 times, I usually change the media. If youput brass polish in it, it will wear it out quicker also.

[rick_reno]

I tumble 400+ cases at a time, the walnut media I use lasts a long time.

[WVHunter129]

That is a good question. I too wondered how long the media would last. I just got my tumbler about 2 weeks ago. I have already cleaned 200 rounds of 9mm brass and 100 rounds of 357 brass. I am using the walnut media to clean my brass, I figured it would last longer that the corn cob media. Not for sure about that though, but I have gotten some real clean looking brass...looks better than factory ammo.

[Charley]

When your tumbler media begins to load up with dust and grunge, cut some strips of paper towel about an inch wide and six inches long. Put four or five strips in with the brass and media and tumble a while. You will be amazed at all the gunk that sticks to the toweling and can be removed. Keeps the media cleaner longer.

[driftrider]

My media lasts a surprizingly long time considering I tumble the tar out of my brass (I like to see my reflection in the brass when they're done). I use a 50/50 blend of whatever fine ground walnut and corncob media my local petstore has on sale. I use two capfulls of Iosso polish for a new batch of media, and then recharge it with a capful every other tumbling session or so. I have been using the same media for at least 10 tumbling sessions and it still works well enough for me not to change it. The corncob isn't black yet either. One thing I do after every session after I dump the brass and media into a separator is wipe all the black nasty dust and crud out of the bowl before I pour the media back in. That seems to keep the media in better shape and speeds up the next tumbling session.

Mike

[johnch]

I use just the 1/8" corn cob pet beding with nothing added . A 50 lb bag is $16-18
I have a low nap carpet square that I lay on the floor to place the tumbler on .
I have a 12 hour timer ,I set everything up and tumble brass while I am at work.
I don't worry if the brass is not shinny ,just clean.

My medea lasts ,depending how dirty the brass was ,between 12 and 20 uses.

Clean and shinny brass are 2 different things.
The more you take off the shorter time it lasts.

Johnch