Tumbler, Vibratory Cleaner or Ultrasonic Cleaner?

Which is your preferred method and why?

  • Tumbler with what media

  • Vibratory cleaner with what media

  • Ultrasonic cleaner

  • No cleaning


Results are only viewable after voting.
Tumbling in rice is superior to every other method I've used, and I've used them all. If shiny brass is the goal, other methods are better. If accurate/precise brass is the goal, there is nothing better than my method with rice.

Totally in agreement with using long grain rice. Used it for several years now and found it to be the best process so far. Cheap and Amazon will deliver to your door. Shiny brass is pretty but doesn't help put rounds on target.

I have seen several problems fixed when people switch from over polishing their brass. The chamber needs a slight amount of friction from the brass to effectively seal the chamber and prevent gas/powder blow-by. This also can cause a build-up of residue in the chamber between the shoulder and neck. If this residue is not removed during the cleaning process with a chamber brush, it has been known to cause stuck cases that can be mistaken for over-pressure signs.
 
Totally in agreement with using long grain rice. Used it for several years now and found it to be the best process so far. Cheap and Amazon will deliver to your door. Shiny brass is pretty but doesn't help put rounds on target.

I have seen several problems fixed when people switch from over polishing their brass. The chamber needs a slight amount of friction from the brass to effectively seal the chamber and prevent gas/powder blow-by. This also can cause a build-up of residue in the chamber between the shoulder and neck. If this residue is not removed during the cleaning process with a chamber brush, it has been known to cause stuck cases that can be mistaken for over-pressure signs.
Long grain typically will plug flash holes. Medium grain, and specifically the rice I specify in the article... was the best I tested regarding it's ability to absorb lube, clean the cases, and not build static charge or cling to cases.




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I dry with a large sieve and a hair drier. I takes about 2 minutes for 50-100 rounds. They get hot, so careful. I then spread them out on a towel or in the case of bottle necks, put them in a media separator (tumbler) to get any pins held inside by the water to fall out. Sure cut my time down.
Thanks. I'm thinking of getting shorter pins since they get stuck in 6MM cases.
 
I bought a 10 liter Ultra Sonic cleaner. They take us a lot of space and I didn't feel it really did that great of a job. I have switched to a rotating tumbler with Stainless pins. I use dish soap, and Lemi Shine. I rinse twice very thoroughly, blow the cases out with compressor when done and put them in the sun to dry. I don't get in a hurry. I anneal every loading as well. This works best for me.
I lube my bullets before seating them.
Wow, that is a lot of work to get a clean case!
 
All processes have end goals, and accuracy (or rather precision, meaning group size) improvement isn't always that goal.

Sometimes you have to clean as part of a process, like removing sizing wax or other lubrication at different stages of neckturning or wildcat case forming.

Long term storage, putting damaged or dirty range/once fired brass into service, processing new brass, changing brass from one rifle to another ( :eek: ), all of those can be reasons to clean cases differently. There's about as many reasons as there are rifles.


I use all of the above options depending on the situation.
  1. Some precision loads go chamber-press-box-chamber with zero cleaning.
  2. Sometimes I completely "reset" brass with a long SS cleaning and dunked in alcohol after to remove everything - carbon, oil, etc
  3. The resets are usually when I change something big or restart a load workup. Sometimes just because after 5+ firings they're grungy and I just want to measure them, check the pockets, case web, shoulders, stuff like that I don't want to get covered in carbon doing it.
  4. Usually I toss brass in a vibratory tumbler either before depriming or after sizing. No reason other than it's the easiest process and shooting suppressed the cases can get so dirty I don't want to run them up into the die like that.
  5. I use ultrasonics on parts more than brass, but very stubborn primer pockets get the ultrasonic. Mine is very small so I can't do big batches.
  6. Walnut is basically magic at polishing anything, I do more not-gun stuff in walnut because it's just a plain handy tool to have for around the house and garage stuff.

TL: DR time: Y'all just move along if you don't want to read a musing on precision and case cleaning.

As far as impact on precision, it's part of a bigger process. You can eliminate case cleaning as a variable in multiple ways - doing it the same way every time, not do it at all, even completely scrubbing the cases to bare raw metal each and every firing might be a good option for someone. All that matters is that it does not show up on the target.

I make a lot of assumptions around my cleaning methods (I think we all do) and center my logic in making those assumptions around them not creating a negative impact - if I can still shoot well after what I do or don't do, ipso facto what I did is not bad, or to go one step further instead of "bad" I'd say it's not my limiting factor. That's a negative confirmation, which amounts to saying that something hasn't happpened ..... yet. Not saying that it can't happen still.

I won't make a positive statement correlating cleaning and precision on target. To make a positive statement correlating the two there would need to be a whole lot of evidence to support even practical experience. Unless the test is structed all experiential evidence is merely anecdotal.

My experiential evidence is that case cleaning doesn't show up in my targets. That mean's it's not my limiting factor, but it could be for others.

I do have hard data via the AMP press showing there is a measurable impact to seating force resulting from different cleaning and neck lube methods. But what does that extra seating force mean? So far - nothing.

I cannot correlate increased seating force to anything. I'm starting to gather data about this - so far only one test of 100 rounds from a 6.5 CM. The first test is showing better consistency in seating force results in a smaller group size - groups match by seating force shot very slightly better than unmatched groups (intentionally varied), but not in a robust statistical and quantifiable manner because it's a small number of shots. Also, matched groups shot as well as each other, even if the seating force varied considerably between the two groups. Interesting, but nothing there yet. I'm more likely to change how I quantify group size than change a loading process based on what I've seen so far. Mean Radius is a much more involved comparison than simply looking at the two shots apart furthest or greatest distance from POA, but it's much more informative.

Even if groups do shrink with more consistent seating force - that does not imply neck lube or case cleaning being causative to the reduction. Could be hardness or spring back in the brass, could be lighter force happens when bullets seat straighter, could be inconsistently high or low force is due to neck thickness variations. Case neck state is a variable and might make an impact, but there are a large number of variables that probably matter more.
After reading, I don't think QuietTexan fits.
 
I've used all three for some period of time. Eventually, I gave away my vibratory system and sold the ultrasonic. Guess what's left 😁

BTW - most people that I know of who had bad results when tumbling in SS pins were tumbling wayyyyyyy too long. Sometimes, less is more. It's not necessay to get every spec out of a primer pocket. But if you like them that way then a quick twist with a pocket uniforming tool will get it done.
 
Vibratory with walnut shells and a squirt of Flankford brass polish, for very dirty cases.
Not every firing, only when they start looking really dirty.
Quick and easy - no pins to remove, no rinse, blow drying or heating.
Get the crushed walnut shells cheap from the pet store (for bottom of reptile cage)
 
Wet tumbling with stainless steel pins and burnishing compound in a cheap ebay tumbler. Rinse in hot water, pat dry and into the oven at 60deg C for 1/2 hour.
 
For years I used a MidwayUSA vibratory tumbler with walnut media. But I still had to do some cleaning of the primer pocket AND check inside for stuck media. During those operations, I became more aware that the inside of my cases wasn't getting as clean as I liked (spotless), and started wondering how much capacity I was losing by the insides not getting clean and how that affected groups, etc.
So, when I smartened up, at the first opportunity, I purchased a Lyman Ultrasonic cleaner. It's quicker than the vibratory tumbler, cleans the insides and primer pockets better, (spotless), and there is no concern of media stuck inside.
My procedure is to:
deprime using a universal depriming die
clean in the ultrasonic cleaner using the solution from the manufacture.
dry the cases using a Frankford case dryer (looks just like a food dehydrator I use for jerky).
I then burnish the inside case neck (one pass in-out with 0000 steel wool wrapped on a nylon bore brush in a drill), resize, trim (if necessary),
If they are fired factory rounds, I will deburr and bevel the inner flash hole like I do with new empty cases.
Then before loading, IF I want to impress someone, (HA HA), I will put the cases in the vibratory tumbler with corn cob for a higher polish. (But I don't do that very often as then my inner Adrian Monk kicks in and I wonder if any media is left inside the cases prompting me to go over them with light compressed air).
 
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