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Thread: Tumbler or Sonic Cleaner

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    Contributing Member CINDERS's Avatar
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    Cleaners

    I guess its horses for courses really depending on how thorough you want to be with cleaning the shells if your just varmint shooting the vibe is adequate if your wanting to get everything cleaned back to almost brand new inside and out the sonic is the way to go but a bit more effort.
    I have both using the vibe one until the insides of the cases look fairly carboned up (can alter neck tension) then bash them in the sonic cleaner to do the inside the case & it will do the primer pockets as well (Primer has to be out) you use distilled water for both the cleaning & rinsing but what I do is when the brass first comes out I wash it under a hose then rinse it in the distilled water (tap water will leave the brass stained).
    I then with the distilled water used to rinse the shells pop that back into another spare container and this I use in the sonic cleaner when doing another batch sorta preserving the water a bit.

    When your shells come out of the vibratory tumbler they have a very fine coating of walnut or corncob/carbon powder from the process this has to be wiped from the shells before they go anywhere near a re-sizing die either neck or FLS as when you lube your cases your just making a grinding paste that after a good while wrecks the sizer, its the fine carbon that will do it, also you may suffer a stuck case in the die not easy to get out if you do not have the correct gear to pull it from the die.

    With drying the shells I made up a peg base (see pic its behind the 303) and sit them neck down on the pegs (angled so the primer hole is not blocked by the peg) place them in the sun for 1/2 day to dry them completely out you can use a heat gun but be very careful not to get the shells too hot and of course never put the shells in an oven to dry them.
    Jim is correct Corncob is the best to use in the vibe the walnut I have tried and it seems to take ages, you can if you want knock the primers out before the placing in the vibe but be warned the kernal particles do get jammed in the flashole and primer hole bit tedious to get out better to leave them in and use a primer pocket cleaner.
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    Last edited by CINDERS; 01-09-2017 at 03:18 AM.

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    Advisory Panel browningautorifle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CINDERS View Post
    the kernal particles do get jammed in the flashole and primer hole bit tedious to get out better to leave them in and use a primer pocket cleaner.
    When this happens, I dump out the corncob green and run the empties in the tumbler for a few minutes. This rattles out most of the particles.

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve762 View Post
    stainless steel pins in soap and water
    I too have acquaintances using this method. It works 100%, except it's the messiest thing known to man.
    Regards, Jim

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