Lortone or Thumlers

[varmint22man]

Does anybody use either the Lortone QT12 {12 lb} or the
Thumlers A-R12 [12 lb] tumblers for their brass cleaning?
Are they any good and do they do a good job?
Pros and cons is welcomed advise.
Thanks

 

[loadedround]

I can't anwser your question since I have not used either tumbler. Most of us reloaders use a tumbler made by Lyman or RCBS or several others. These tumblers were made specifically for reloaders and do an excellent job.

 

[RippinSVT]

I had a brand new Thumler's. It caught on fire, honestly. Ruined a bunch of brass and generally pissed me off, in addition to being a mere 10 feet from my powders. Thanks goodness for concrete floors...

 

[ReloaderFred]

I have two Thumler's UV-18's. One I've had since about 1979 and the other I bought used about 10 years ago. I also have a Berry's tumbler. I can highly recommend both the Thumler's and the Berry's, since all three are usually running most of the time.

I have no experience with the Lortone tumblers.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[X-Rap]

I didn't know Thumblers wasn't made for brass. I have had mine for about 25 yrs and have had it run for many hundreds of hours without a hitch.
All I can say is buy bigger than what you presently need, you will grow into almost any upgrade in reloading equipment so my rule of thumb is to buy bigger and better than I need at the moment.

 

[Wilburt]

I have a Thumler's UV-18 Industrial. Only ran it a couple of times so far. It looks to be made very well. I like all the steel and bolt construction. My lyman was plastic with hot glue. It died in 2 years. So far so good on the Thumbler's. However it's about 4x as much as the cabela's/berry's. I might opt for a cabela's ~$40 if I had a do over. If it broke, just buy another.

Oh and Thumblers tumblers are made for brass. The Thumblers industrial tumblers are made for wet rock polishing (light work). I bought the industrial b/c I found it for a good price and the motor is slightly stronger than the regular.

 

[RippinSVT]

I must have gotten a lemon. Mine was an older 1970's or 1980's model still in the box and it worked great for about 24 hours before it went up in smoke. It's like anything else I guess, you could drive a Ferrari off the lot and spin a bearing in a freak occurrence.