Loaded ammo in Vibratory tumbler??

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i use a old lyman turbo 600...

i use a mix of "both of rcbs's" media, an cap of flizts. Clean my cases in it ,make the rounds and clean them again IN the same stuff...and i use it till its Black......it will just take longer as it gets dirty..20+ years and ... " no promlemo":scrutiny:
 
.....I bought some 10mm ammo from a vendor at a gun show. Ragged factory boxes, very clean ammo. First round fired blew the grips off my Delta, magazine on the ground etc., took a while to get the feeling back in my right hand and both wrists were sore. I have blown cases before with 9mm major in the 80,s and one .38 super in the 90's. Upon contacting the vendor, found out he had tumbled the ammo to clean it up for sale. This was factory ammo and the only thing we could surmise was that the powder broke down due to tumbling too long.
soooo...My opinion is that if your gonna advise someone its okay to tumble ammo....Have the empirical data to back it up.
I dont profess to be any kind of expert on powders, but I do know about reloading a little bit. I suspect different powders act differently when broken down. I just dont think tumbling is very wise or safe.

How long does it take to break down pistol powders?
how does this affect the burn rate?
what do the ammo manufacturers say about this?

These are all questions I would want on paper before I did it.

Just my .02 cents worth.

Still have the gun and ammo and will eventually spend sometime researching those questions.

Chuck W
___________
Click to expand...

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, eh?
 
One of my kids did her high school science project on this and found no evidence that tumbling affected the ammo. This was back in 02 or 03 I think and we were brain storming for something and I offered up this since, as was mentioned earlier in the thread, this comes up about ever other month. I had a whole bunch of Guatemalan 5.56 I had gotten from CIA on special, it was something like $69 or $79 per 1000 (don't we all miss prices like that) because it was tarnished. She had some that wasn't tumbled, and then tumbled batches of 100 for differing lengths of time and then shot them out of a DR-200, cleaning it the same way at periodic intervals.....she didn't get any variations on the muzzle velocity. She actually won first prize at her school, and some special award at regionals from the Naval Surface Warfare Center......she also learned a valuable lesson on the way the world works and politics....I told her not to expect to win anything at regionals since we live in Maryland and her project wasn't politically correct. But she got carried away anyway and when the judges got to her the first words out of the female judge's mouth was "Oh my, this looks dangerous", and they tore her down from there......she cried all the way home and said "you were right dad"......
 
Yep. Size and shape alter burning characteristics. Reloading 101.

Has nothing to do with does it degrade if tumbled, which it does not. It's still the same size and shape. ;)
 
Deterrents coat the exterior of the propellant granules to reduce the initial burning rate on the surface as well as to reduce initial flame temperature and ignitability. The coating also broadens the pressure peak and increases efficiency.
 
Deterrents coat the exterior of the propellant granules to reduce the initial burning rate on the surface as well as to reduce initial flame temperature and ignitability. The coating also broadens the pressure peak and increases efficiency.
Click to expand...

Yup, you're right. But how do you suppose those deterrent coatings are put on the powder to begin with? They're tumbled on!:scrutiny: So tumbling them inside a smooth casing is going to remove it? Where will it go?

Since the powder in our tests on the other thread, don't appear to have lost shape, color, or have any dust that would account for removed deterrent coating(s).

Now, I have target results AND chronograph readings that clearly show no changes occurred to the powder.
 
The quick way to find out for sure is to get one bullet and tumble it for a period of time and another on from the same load and open each one after tumbling and see if the powder has any visual signs of change
 
kelo4u2 said:
The quick way to find out for sure is to get one bullet and tumble it for a period of time and another on from the same load and open each one after tumbling and see if the powder has any visual signs of change
Click to expand...
See previous pages.
 
Reloading 101 again 243winxb, that you quoted from a manual somewhere.
Deterrents coat the exterior of the propellant granules to reduce the initial burning rate on the surface as well as to reduce initial flame temperature and ignitability. The coating also broadens the pressure peak and increases efficiency.
Click to expand...

Trouble is, tumbling is not damaging or removing those coatings.

How about if I tumble two rounds for a week and then take a pic of the powder from one and shoot the other one. The results will be the same as before. No damage, and the round fired will fall in between the high and low of the previously fired rounds.

How about two weeks? Do I hear three?

Besides, the whole point of this little experiment was to show that it was not dangerous to tumble rounds for a short period of time to clean them up. Case closed on that one. We tumbled them for 48 hours. Much longer than people tumble to clean em up. :)
 
***update**

A wellknown ballistics lab has performed some initial tests and are leaning towards it wont hurt to tumble ammo. I will update with more data as it becomes available.


Cw
 
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