Darn, my media went bad!

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Even though I use Dillon Case lube, the spray on stuff, I'm usually still very anal about getting the brass as lube free as possible before tumbling. But I noticed tonight that although my brass is very nice looking as usual, it has this tell tale hard build up right above the case heads, letting me know my media is contaminated with lube. I can always tell when I've gotten sloppy with wiping my brass down well enough before tumbling. There was a time when I would absolutely get all the lube 100% clean off, thus getting years of use from a single bottle of media, but I've since gotten lazy.

The good news is I have plenty of fresh new media on hand to use while I clean the old used stuff up. I usually soak the dirty media in a 5 gal. bucket of light soap and hot water solution in. Then after about 15 or 20 minutes I pour it through a screen, then rinse it with lots of clean hot water, spread it out on a couple of my wife's cookie sheets, hidden from sight of course, and then when dry, I dump it back into the media bottles to be used again for another year or so before it gets washed again. Call me cheap, but it works and allows spend more $ on powder and other components, instead of media.

GS
 
O.K.

You are cheap!

Media is too cheap to wash it & dry it when it is that dirty.

By then, all the sharp edges are worn off round anyway.
And it will no longer clean as fast or well.

So it isn't worth the trouble to wash & dry it.
Toss it, and replace it.

You will get faster results, with WAY Less time & effort spent.

rc
 
My kids think I'm cheap. I'm going to show them this thread. Makes me look like a spendthrift.
 
Just my 2 cents... I use TurtleWax chrome and metal cleaner (ammonia free) and like it better than the Dillon polish. If I'm doing brass that is inclined to have higher friction and more stickage, I'll toss in some Mothers car paste waz... just a bettor sized pat. Also ammonia free.

I toss in frequent used dryer anti-static sheets and they absorb most of the dry fine dust. And , it helps keep the media clean.
 
Wow, I'm also considered cheap but I won't wash media. I don't fault anyone for doing it but like RC said, when the sharp edges are gone it doesn't clean as well.

I add a cut up used dryer sheet to each tumble and that keeps the media clean for a good long time. When it starts taking too long to clean it gets dumped!
 
LOL this is funny. Washing media-Whodathunkit!!

Reminds me of a story...Walked in on my (now deceased) grandfather washing used ziploc bags in the sink...I laughed and said "man, times must be tough"....Grandaddy (a very large ex marine of Guadalcanal fame), not so kindly put me in my place!
 
Why are you using Dillon case lube if you are so cheap? You know you can make that stuff yourself with lanolin and alcohol. If you were really cheap, you'd use the excess drippings when you change your motor oil. Just tip the bottle over and let the last drops collect in a jar over a day or so. 4-5 bottles worth of dripping is enough to lube many many cases by hand. Wipe the cases after sizing and there is no need for tumbling.

Cheap is one thing. Thrifty is another.

A 50 pound bag of crushed walnut should cost less than $20 at a feed store (I got mine for $17). If you don't pollute it with additional liquids and simply add used dryer sheets to collect the soot, it should last many months while tumbling several batches a week.
 
This is one aspect of reloading that has always left me scratching my head. I consider myself pretty cheap but I toss my media after about 10 loads have been through it and don't even think about it twice.

I bought one rather large bag of lizard bedding for like $20 two years ago and still have more than half of the bag left. Personally, I would be far more worried about exposure to all kinds of nasty stuff while trying to clean it than I am with the cost of replacing it.

Having said that, I spend all kinds of time and effort squishing down undersized bullets on an arbor press and resizing them, hand polishing my .44s before casing them and powder coating low pressure rounds like .38s just because I like race car red bullets... We all have our quirks.
 
When I first started out reloading, I did try washing walnut media to see how it would turn out. Walnut shell is very hard and it would get dirty/grimy long before it would lose sharp edges. I washed the dirty walnut media in a 5-gallon bucket with dish soap and hot water. After rinsing, I dried out in the sun. Once dried, the washed media looked like new and cleaned brass just as well.

But after prolonged use, as rcmodel posted, once the sharp edges wear I would think walnut media's ability to clean dirty brass would likely decrease and extend the time it takes to clean brass and use more electricity which would negate the cost savings from not having to buy new media (it's the sharp edges that do the actual cleaning of brass).

If you really want to be frugal, I guess you could set aside worn walnut media to do polishing of brass perhaps mixed with some corn cob and use new/fairly new walnut media for cleaning brass.

Many people post they run their vibratory tumbler for hours. Using Harbor Freight fine grit walnut media and NuFinish car polish, Berry's tumbler takes only 20-30 minutes to get dirty range brass clean/shiny enough to reload with the bowl loaded to 80% capacity. I haven't done the cost calculations but the hours of tumbler use must add up eventually. ;)
 
gamestalker said:
Even though I use Dillon Case lube, the spray on stuff, I'm usually still very anal about getting the brass as lube free as possible before tumbling. But I noticed tonight that although my brass is very nice looking as usual, it has this tell tale hard build up right above the case heads, letting me know my media is contaminated with lube. I can always tell when I've gotten sloppy with wiping my brass down well enough before tumbling. There was a time when I would absolutely get all the lube 100% clean off, thus getting years of use from a single bottle of media, but I've since gotten lazy.

The good news is I have plenty of fresh new media on hand to use while I clean the old used stuff up. I usually soak the dirty media in a 5 gal. bucket of light soap and hot water solution in. Then after about 15 or 20 minutes I pour it through a screen, then rinse it with lots of clean hot water, spread it out on a couple of my wife's cookie sheets, hidden from sight of course, and then when dry, I dump it back into the media bottles to be used again for another year or so before it gets washed again. Call me cheap, but it works and allows spend more $ on powder and other components, instead of media.

GS
Click to expand...
You should submit your name for the TV show called "Extreme Cheapskates".
 
I run my media until it flat does not clean any more. Then I replace it.

Life is too short to fiddle with washing the old stuff.

Coincidentally, I have one tumbler whose media just pooped out. I will be replacing it if i can remember where I stored the new stuff.:)
 
Nice tip Jake!

Free shipping on $50+ orders too. :D

Do you prefer the coarse grit (14-20) or fine grit (20-40)? I just realized you are polishing bullets and not brass so media size probably won't matter to you.
 
I guess I am really an El Cheapo. Some of the cleaned stuff gets mixed with new corn cob, roughly about 50/50, and I usually tumble my handgun brass with it. And since I don't load lead, only jacketed, my handgun brass is in pretty good shape after firing, thus easy to tumble.

But there is no way I would consider 10 uses to be the end of the road. I couldn't do it, I would feel terribly wasteful. Then contrary to that, I only load with jacketed bullets, and use only full tilt slow burning powders for all my shooting needs.

GS
 
Gamestalker, remind me never to eat any of your wife's cookies!!

Seems like a recipe (no pun intended) for accidental lead poisoning.
 
bds said:
Nice tip Jake!

Free shipping on $50+ orders too. :D

Do you prefer the coarse grit (14-20) or fine grit (20-40)? I just realized you are polishing bullets and not brass so media size probably won't matter to you.
Click to expand...
I wondered the same thing B...and came to the same conclusion you did..Jake, ever tumbled brass with it? Howd it do , and what grit?
 
I REALLY hate to say it, but I will..!!!
I have washed my walnut shell media a few times. Usually because I forgot to order more or it's a tight month.:eek:

It always seemed to clean as well as before, maybe a little less. I use Nu-Finish and a splash of Mineral Spirits and they always come out good.

It's not something I'd do all the time, but it does work.
Only difference is I'd never use anything for cooking to clean my media. Even if it was washed when finished. Not a good idea.
Keep food and reloading separate, and no sticking your fingers in your eyes or nose....:D

TxD
 
LOL, Gamestalker has all the "media washers" coming out of the closet! Who's next?
 
For brass we use the fine grit. It won't get stuck in the flash holes like coarse does. If you use the coarse stuff, you can expect every sing flash hole to have a piece stuck in it. That said, the coarse stuff seems to clean faster.
 
I also clean my corn cob. What I do is to put it in a plastic bag, pour a cup or two of hot water in it, then twist the top and mash it around for a bit. Then I squeeze the bag of media-water-dough to force most of the now-black water out through the twist, before pouring it out in a shallow dish. When it's sorta damp, rather than soaking wet, you can run it in the tumbler, outside, for a couple hours with the lid off to thoroughly dry it out.

I really don't see any difference in performance compared to new. I don't think the "sharp edges" of the corn cob make any difference if you are using a little Nu Finish.

After washing it comes out really clean. It looks like corn cob that has been used once or twice, and it works as such, AFAIC.

I keep my media clean by washing my brass in water before tumbling, and I don't do a super high volume. So this is only done maybe once a year. It's more convenient for me than to store and reorder bags of media like a commodity.

Gamestalker, I have a great method for removing outside case lube. Put a couple layers of paper towel into the bottom of a metal cake pan. Pour in enough alcohol to completely saturate the towel. Then dump in only enough cases to not completely cover the bottom in one layer. Move the pan around to make the cases roll around, and they are clean in no time. Dump, add next handful of cases, repeat.
 
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I've used the 20/40 corn cob grit for years. Bought 2 40 lb bags from Drill Spot or Grainger for $20/bag delivered. I do NOT recycle it except in the garden. It's too cheap - even at ~$26/bag, it's a great deal. I put ~8 lbs in the big cat litter jugs & after selling a bunch to friends at cost, I have enough to last me until the next century...

One of the guys who posts here, Don, AKA USSR, has a signature that always cracks me up (I may identify just a bit ;) ):

"Never underestimate the amount of toil and angst a cheap SOB will put himself thru to save 50 cents."
 
rsrocket1 said:
Why are you using Dillon case lube if you are so cheap? You know you can make that stuff yourself with lanolin and alcohol. If you were really cheap, you'd use the excess drippings when you change your motor oil. Just tip the bottle over and let the last drops collect in a jar over a day or so. 4-5 bottles worth of dripping is enough to lube many many cases by hand. Wipe the cases after sizing and there is no need for tumbling.

Cheap is one thing. Thrifty is another.

A 50 pound bag of crushed walnut should cost less than $20 at a feed store (I got mine for $17). If you don't pollute it with additional liquids and simply add used dryer sheets to collect the soot, it should last many months while tumbling several batches a week.
Click to expand...

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-To...Lubricant-1-Qt-Squeeze-Bottle-51010/100647746

Best case lube ever..... Cheap too.

This media washing thing is cracking me up. Stainless pins don't need washing..... ;-)
 
Drillspot used to be the place to go. They raised their prices and started charging shipping. Now Zoro is the best place I can find.
 
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