Mass Brass Polishing(Help!)

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JGAreddog

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As you all know, ammo sales are through the roof. We are running about 200,000 cases in our vibratory dry tumblers per month right now and we need two things. 1 We need the cases cleaner! We clean the brass for 2 hours with walnut and 2 hours with corn cob but its just not cutting it(yes we use polish aids). 2nd we need something of larger volume. As in 10,000 223 cases per load.

I am leaning towards a custom made concrete mixer type machine along with wet ceramic type media.

Let me know if anyone has experience with this or maybe used to work for a large scale reloader.

Thanks.
 
I know plenty of guys that shoot .50's and use a cement mixer to clean their brass. I would imagine that if you're doing hundreds to thousands at one time a cement mixer would work for smaller calibers.
 
Military brass?, once fired military brass? or commercial brass?

The military stuff that hasn't already been polished before, I find it takes quite abit longer to get it nice, clean and shiny. After it's had an intial polish, then it cleans up quick after that.

I've used a rotary tumbler wet with hard plastic bead media and a powder type cleaner for brass, to clean up a large stock of 40s&w, 9mm cases that were really filthy.

That cleaned them quick, in around a hour or so, from badly tarnished to like brand new brass.
Rinsed them off and dried thoughly, Then tumbled in a vibratory case tumbler with corncob for several hours to polish up the finish.

I think you would be best served with a wet rotary tumbler for doing those quantities in short periods. Just my opinion, though.
 
Thanks guys. I'm going with the cement mixer and wet ceramic method. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.
 
Harbor Freight Tools has a small electic concrete mixer for about $100, on sale, and I've wondered if it wouldn't do a good job, for not much money, if you didn't instal the internal paddles.
 
I think the cement mixer idea would work , but the wet ceramic media might be a bit too agressive? You might end up with brass crumbs
 
I think the cement mixer idea would work , but the wet ceramic media might be a bit too agressive? You might end up with brass crumbs
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My thoughts exactly. Ceramic media is for grinding very hard materials. It will take metal off metal. Try out some ceramic media on a small number of shells if you must - I think you will ruin the brass. And anything nickel plated will come out no longer plated, I'll bet. One thing about ceramic is that it will act very fast compared to shells or cobs. But at best I'd expect brass to come out like sandblasting - a dull and not shiny finish.

I've been to an industrial facility that does this kind of thing. They use ceramic to take the burrs off of stainless steel parts and cobb/shell media for polishing.
 
There's different grit levels of ceramic, the stuff made for brass polishing is very fine and smooth. I have a bucket of 3mm spheres, and they're almost TOO smooth. But they WILL shine that brass up, if it's been done in dry walnut first.

Do some searching on Google for "ceramic polishing media" and "polishing equipment", things like that. You'll find a lot of sources.
 
If you want REAL volume, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to rig up a wheeled stand holding a 55-gallon drum that you could spin with a rubber wheel on a adjustable-speed motor. In a case like this, you might want to experiment a bit to see what sort of media gives you the best results, ranging from sand to corncobs, to cat litter, to nut shells, etc.
 
my experience is with vibratory cleaners, not tumblers...

I think a wet ceramic will work out pretty wel for you. the critical part is finding media that is the right size and shape, and in the case of brass, a media that will easily flow from the cases.

In the volumes you are doing, call the local abrasives guy. They should be more than happy to help you out, especially in this economy.

Rondogs 3mm spheres sound about right.
 
Cabela's and Sagebrush Shooter's Supply sell the ceramic polishing kits. Sagebrush actually supplies Cabela's, my kit from Cabela's has a shipping label on it from Sagebrush TO Cabela's.

But use Google, you'll find a LOT of info there, some large commercial suppliers too, with specialized machines for large loads. Both tumblers and vibratory. Big mothers.
 
Plastic-tub mortar mixer, a 50-lb sack of crushed walnut, add brass to fill, and a bit of mineral spirits to moisten. I add an old automotive speaker magnet screwed to the side of the drum to catch the steel cases that slip through (the S&B Range-Safe stuff looks like brass- and they make identical cases, some steel plated with brass, some actually brass, so you can't just throw out all the S&B cases)
 
Im with the cement mixer too! I'm trying to imagine 200,000 cases in a vibratory dry tumblers per month. Is this for the Nationail Guard or what?
 
A modified clothes dryer, perhaps, tilted back to keep the contents inside?
 
I would certainly NOT do it wet. If you're trying to cut the time involved, then the drying time AND METHOD have to be considered. Of course you HAVE to make darn sure they are dry!

If it were me, I'd do the cement mixer with walnut media and a brass polish additive. That should get you where you want to be.
 
Lizard litter from Petco. $10 for 12.5 lbs.
It is just the same crushed walnut you buy from the reloading places, just packaged for a different use. A heck of a bit cheaper too.

The link above the picture shows the specifics.
 
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