It does not pay

[KnotRight]

It does not pay to just tumble 50-9 mm brass. Usually when I get off the range I will tumble all the brass that I shot plus what ever I picked up. Could be a couple 100 cases.

Yesterday a friend dropped off 50 9 mm cases that he shot over the weekend. I put them in the tumbler by themselves for a couple of hours with new media. When I got them out, they looked like they were never tumbled. Usually they will come out shinny. I grabbed about 250 9 mm cases that have been tumbled and resized and through them with those 50. I bet they come out shiny.

All of my brass is tumbled and resized so those steps are out of the way when I want to reload.

 

[Toprudder]

When I dry tumbled, I always tumbled the brass immediately, I did not keep any dirty brass around. I do believe the more you put in the dry tumbler (to a point) makes them shine quicker/better.

Since I started wet tumbling, I save up enough brass to fill the tumbler at least 75%. There is a certain economy of scale when wet tumbling. It does not take much longer to do 1000 than it does to do 100.

The brass that I shoot goes into trays to save up until I have enough to tumble. Range brass that I acquire (did not shoot myself) goes into buckets that I will draw from as needed. The reason I do that is because any brass that I have already reloaded once have already been culled for certain headstamps, primer crimps removed, etc. They will take less attention than brass I have never processed before.

 

[dave33]

I do believe the more you put in the dry tumbler (to a point) makes them shine quicker/better.

I would agree with this. The weight of the higher brass pushing down on the brass in the lower part of the bowl grinds the walnut or whatever media you are using into the brass getting the soot, etc off and shines them up. The more weight the better, up to a point where it stops tumbling efficiently.

 

[KnotRight]

After adding about 250 additional brass to the 50 new ones, they came out so shiny that they were slippery.

There something in me (OCD) that I do not like having any brass that is not tumbled and resized.