Vibratory tumbler and loaded ammo..

[H&Hhunter]

I really appreciate all the great info that is coming forth on this thread.

Thanks!

 

[mdi]

Anybody ever tumble 22lr to clean it up?

Yep, I had some 22 lr plain lead bullet cartidges, with lightly corroded bullets, so I tossed them in my wobbler with my normal media (50-50 walnut, cob w/ a touch of auto polish). I relubed the bullets (just the exposed part) with JPW and they all, mebbe 100, shot fine.

 

[Nam Snake Flyer]

The other i was talking to a guy out at the range. He is a high volume competition pistol shooter. I asked him what he is using to polish his brass with. Long story short he told me that he lubes sizes and loads. THEN he tumbles his loaded ammo....

I'd never heard of that before and it kind of raises the hair on the back of my neck a bit. Am I being weird about this or does tumbling loaded ammo seem a bit dodgy to you folks as well?

Read in a post that some may be concerned about powder in loaded rounds being affected by tumbling. If you are loading match ammo you may be concerned but you loaded them very gently right...

If you are just shooting for fun or storing for the terrorist I bet you have never seen metal ammo boxes in many calibers (2.23, (5.56) .40mm, .50 Cal,.30 Cal etc. being kicked out of a helicopter door at 10 to 15 feet above ground while the chopper was being used for target practice by the VC and NVA crowd. Bet you have not seen pallets of ammo in boxes dropped from c130's with a parachute and the load smashing to the ground destroying the wood pallet and breaking the steel bands letting the ammo boxes fly all over.
Just a long way for a guy that has been there to say if you have load of Sniper rounds, be nice to them. Otherwise, quit worrying about it. Ask some Grunts that have been in a few bad fire fights in the Nam.

Letting your concealed pistol show is a great way to insure that you are the first to get shot.....

 

[Nam Snake Flyer]

I made the mistake of spraying a lot of .22LR with WD40 many, many years ago when I THOUGHT like many others that WD40 was a lube. It feel slippery but it penetrates into the rounds ruining the powder. WD40 is not intended as a lube no matter how many uses it does have.

Read this somewhere... A liberal gun hater would rather see a raped strangled woman laying in the street than a smiling woman with a nice pistol standing over a dead would be rapist and murderer.

 

[WestKentucky]

I tumbled some old lake city 308 I got from an army buddy. It had been in a belt at some point and was very dark with tarnish. I plopped a hundred rounds at a time into my tumbler and ran it for 24 hours each batch (swapping batches while home for lunch) they cleaned up REALLY well. No belt link marks, no tarnish, just nice clean brass. The copper jacketed bullet turned a pinkish red copper color rather than the orangey color I expected but it shot plenty accurate. Gave all that ammo away as christmas presents. I have since ran a lot of milsurp 5.56 and 45acp through just to clean it up. Never had a thing happen that I would consider to be "bad" in fact one of the best things about tumbling loaded ammo as a reloaded is that it checks neck tension for you. If neck tension isn't acceptable you may not know it by your loading process, especially when loading high volumes on a progressive. Loose necks allow bullet setback inside the tumbler and it's really easy to pull the rounds apart and apply a better crimp. Found this out with old reloads in .270 win.

 

[HKGuns]

I post load vibe tumble for every batch, both rifle and pistol, there is nothing wrong or unsafe in post load tumbling.

 

[kostner]

This is an old and often hotly debated subject. Some say don't do it; the motion/tumbling will change the characteristics of the powder and you'll blow up your gun. Some say a round will fire by being hit with another cartridge. I have not read any reliable reports verifying either of these statements.

Have notice a characteristic change in my wife after twenty-five years of tumbling. Boy can she blow up if not handled correctly.

 

[RuggedAK]

Ever since I started reloading which wasn't long ago I have dry tumbled my loaded rounds. I put 200-250 in the tumbler with a huge amount of nu-finish and let them go for several hours sometimes overnight and I've never had a problem the brass comes out looking like factory ammo.

 

[rondog]

Jeeze, hasn't this been covered at least a hundred times already?

 

[herrwalther]

I tumble my loaded rifle rounds just to get off any resizing lube left on and polish up the round a little bit. I put in a bit of brass polish and tumble for about 15-20 minutes as the polish works quickly and well. Never had any issues. I have seen crates of ammo pushed out of aircraft that went through more turbulence than what my off the shelf tumbler can dish out.