Tumbler recommendations for Stainless Needle media

I use the Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler (FART) with good results.

Separate the stainless media from brass using the same separator as I do for dry tumbling.

I use a Thumblers with two drums. One to use with pins and one to use without. I use the same RCBS media separator that I use with my dry setup.
It works well enough and I got it used pretty cheap. I have about $150 into it total. It works great.
The FART seems like a nicer setup but but I don’t know if it works any better.

Any rotary tumbler will do
I have the one from frankford arsenal ... great ...

But ... if i were still shooting IPSC i would go for a L.E.M.

Elmar

Bang! said:

I use the Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler (FART) with good results.

Separate the stainless media from brass using the same separator as I do for dry tumbling.

Click to expand...

Plan on upgrading to the Frankford Arsenal soon. I've been using the harbor freight dual drum for the past year and it has served me well. It's good for small amounts of brass, but I'm thinking something larger would serve me better with the amount of shooting I do.

Harbor Freights rock tumbler. Twin drums. Downside Limited capacity, 6 pounds, but ideal for pistol brass. Very quite. Decap and even the primer pockets look new. I have two the price is right and so far they’ve served well. Comes with extra belts which I’ve never needed to change.
Designed to polish rocks which takes continuous rotation for days so brass is a breeze.

I have used a purpose built rotary tumbler and one I built using a 12.7 gallon 100lb chlorine bucket. The one I made will polish over 2000 45 acp in one batch.

I was using the Harbor Freight two drum rotary tumbler for 9mm with outstanding results. About 1lbs of media and 100 cases in each will keep the weight below the tumblers max. The only problem was volume. 100 cases at a time is slow going... I watched the Franklin Arsenal Rotary Tumbler on Amazon using camelcamelcamel.com for several weeks until the price came down. I purchased the FART about two months ago. Obviously my volume picked up and I was able to wash 5,000 cases in about 6 runs at 90 minutes or so. (I store my 9mm in Costco cashew jars and about 800 fit in each jar.)

I recommend the FART screen straining caps for dumping the water and rinsing. Just an extra measure of protection from losing pins down the drain. I also use the Lyman Rotary Case Cleaner Sifter Set. I am able to get about 99% of the pins separated from the cases this way. After sifting out as many pins as I can, I split the cases between 2 dollar store oil drain pans for air drying. I use a home made media separator to get the remaining pins after drying.

The FART came with pins. I had used Gun Tap pins with my HF setup and noticed the Gun Tap pins had a larger diameter and were shorter than the pins that shipped with the FART. For some unknown reason, this just bugged me. I felt that the smaller diameter, longer pins had better chance of sticking inside 9mm cases. They probably don't and many people use them without issue. It just bugged me...I purchased another 2.5 pounds of pins from GunTap.

I use a shot Armor All wash and wax with a 9mm case-ish full of Lemi-Shine with 800 cases, 5lb of media and about ⅔ full of water. I am not sure if I am using enough of the AA wash and wax to prevent the cases from sticking on the powder funnel, (I am still having cases stick a little) I am still experimenting. The brass cases come out BRIGHT and sparkly. They don't shoot better, but they look GOOD. I know that the cleaning is cosmetic, but I like to complete the process for the result.

Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler (FART) for me also, money well spent!!

Frankfort for me, they make one about half the size of the bigger one I think I will pick up for smaller batches.
Since I bought the wet tumbler I haven't used the dry tumbker at all.

I have the Frankford Arsenal Lite and the Lyman Cyclone. The Lyman is bigger, does a better job, and came with 5# of pins and a pair of sifters to sift pins and cases.

I use the Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler (FART) for several years now. The kit comes with 5 # of pins. Get the magnet for separating the pins and to find any pins hiding in the brass that did not come out.

• I use a FART "Light" which is the smaller version. I mostly do pistol brass, so this is a great size for 200-600 9mm and 38Spcl cases. I have not had a single issue with the drum leaking or motor slipping. It's been perfect over the last 13 months.

• My son bought the larger, more expensive set up from Stainless Tumbling Media which uses a tub with 6 wing nuts. The physical tub and motor drive seem to be common to numerous other hobby tumblers, so you might want to look. He's not been happy with leaks or availability of repair parts. His friction surfaces went bad after 2 years and STM wanted to sell him complete new shafts for a price that equaled ~60% of the total cost of the original purchase price. He was not happy about that. He has been happy with the cleaning, but that's mostly the media, Wash&Wax and LemiShine.

https://stainlesstumblingmedia.com/

Hope this helps.

Franklin Armory works great for me! Do leaks, no mess, no errors. Just be sure to buy a Franklin Magnet to pick up the SS pins. Makes life much much easier.

This will do about eight hundred at 45 Auto at a time. I made it from stuff in the shop that was laying around.
Four hundred or so .223 fit in at once too.

Ten pounds of water, ten pounds of pins, ten pounds of brass.


A 52N Two inch magnet keeps pins from straying. It will also hold a full size AR by the barrel.
Two of them were like twenty dollars at CMS magnetic. Worth it!
(And watch your fingers!)

Gold for the win!


I like to build stuff, but I’ve heard great things about the affectionately named “Fart”, I mean, “F.A.R.T.”

F.A.R.T. here, if you watch it will be on sale fairly frequently. People say others may work better. I have only tried this one. With a little lemishine and W&W they come out perfect. Look brand new, primer pockets and all.

Russellc

I was able to purchase a used Thumlers rock tumbler. It works well and will process about double the FART's capacity. They are expensive but like a quality press it should last you a lifetime. I also use my small Dillon media separator. I just fill the tub about 1/2 full of water and spin slowly, and that gets ALL the pins out and in the tub as the brass is also rinsed in the process.

I have a Lyman Cyclone, quite happy with it.
I was going to get a F.A.R.T. But I got a good price on the Lyman.
A couple years old, quite a few hours on it (never thought to keep a count of about how many)