Tumbler Media

[3.5mag]

I have stolen everyone's idea on here and went to Petsmart and bought some walnut shells and some corncob for my tumbler. The corncob seems to have have pretty good sized pieces. Everyone talks about it works better when it is fine ground, so do I need to grind it to a smaller size orwill it work good enough the size it is? Also what is a good polish to use that I can get locally? I don't want to have to place another order to Midway if I can get something locally. Also is it better to mix the mediait or tumble individually?

[johnny2]

3.5

Seems if your media is cleanwhy would you need a polish added...All the years I have loaded I never added anything except some clean material..I like the corn better than the walnut...I just do..

[popumm]

3.5 Heres my 2 cents worth.I tried some fine walnut didnt like it at all. Now i'am back to corncob from the pet store.

[mike bell]

why dont you like walnut? I have a 55 gallon drum offine walnutI got from work a couple of years ago and was going to use it. I dont have a tumbler yet as I'm new to reloading. Which reminds me I need to check it out its been setting in the back of my shed fror a few years....

[Pavomesa]

3.5 - I think you'll have a mess on your hands if you try grinding your ground corn cob. UNtreated corn cob doesn't polish but it will clean. That's a big difference. Which one are you trying to do?

If you're tryingto polish your brass, you will need a treated media and you can buy it as treated corn cob or treated walnut shells. There are some polishing solutions you can pour in and tumble until dry with just the media in there. Don't add it with brass in the tumbler or you'll end up with cases full of goo. I once used brasso by pouring it into the media and running it until the stuff was dry and then tumbling my brass. It worked fairly well, or you may have to go back to Midway etc for something else.

Simplest thing is to just buy treated media.

[johnny2]

I think the walnut scratches the cases..I used to use a mandrel in a drill press and 000 steel wool
for a while..It really shined up them cases good.No matter what,I like to wipe the cases off good before resizing..I tumble before depriming...I hate the media getting into to primer pockets,etc.....

[Briman]

I use the $3 bag of walnut bird bedding from Walmart. Does a very good job of polishing and doesn't need anything added to it.

[Pavomesa]

ORIGINAL: johnny2

I think the walnut scratches the cases..I used to use a mandrel in a drill press and 000 steel wool
for a while..It really shined up them cases good.No matter what,I like to wipe the cases off good before resizing..I tumble before depriming...I hate the media getting into to primer pockets,etc.....

I agree. Tumble.........THEN deprime. Media in the primer pocket is worthless.

[SJAdventures]

I just switched to nothing but the walnut media from Pet Smart. I just got tired of digging out the stuck corncob media out of my primer pockets and also got tired of having to shake out the bigger chunks of stuck corncob media inside the cases, I really like the walnut betterso far. I use Lyman's Turbo Brite brass polish with the walnut. 3 capfuls per pound of media mixed in while the vibrator is running. Let it run after adding polish for about 10-15 minutes to mix them together good before adding your cases. Every once in a while refresh yourmedia with a couple of capfuls.

[deerjackie]

if you live near delphi in theres an andersons cob mill there with 6 different sizes in 50 lb bags for 10 bucks or less. they also have a warehouse in maumee< toledo area> oh on west side . hope this will help and they are good people to deal with in oh and in.