markm Posted July 9, 2015 Report Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) Whilst raking thought eBay I found one of these second hand I thought it may make a good case tumbler, I watched the one right till the end of the auction and it went for over £30 with a number of different bidders. I started watching a few others and within a week I picked one up for £20 delivered, i thought if it doesn't work then I can sell it for what I paid for it. It arrived the other day and when opened this is what was inside, as well as a few stones and polishing powders, which I put to one side incase it didn't work. I was only interested in the machine. I was ordering dog food from amazon and I needed to spend £4 more to get free delivery, I ordered a 5Ltr bag of corn cob which took me just over the £20 so the postage was free, so the corn cob was the postage. So I set it off with 75 x .17 hornet cases and the corn media inside, I would think you will only get around 20 x .243 size cases in the machine, but thats more than enough for me. After an hour I opened it up to have a look at a case, they are not finished yet, but about half way there. The photo below shows a once fired case (left) against a case I took out the machine (right). For sub £20 its looking good so far..... Edited July 9, 2015 by markm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1066 Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 I'm all for trying something new and it looks like your machine will work well for small quantities or small cases. Normal vibratory or rotary tumblers using corncob, reptile bedding or pukka walnut media usually take 3-4 hours depending on the media, how bad your cases were and how blingy you want them (and how many cases you are doing at once) These rock tumblers are designed to run for days on end, day and night so will not be over loaded with a few cases, but you might be missing a trick here. Rock tumblers are designed to run wet, therefore you could easily use Stainless steel pins and water and get stunning results. I know the pins would be quite expensive to start with but they don't wear out. You could experiment with other types of wet media - what about a handful of fine gravel (pet shop?) or sand? Yes, I know you would have to carefully check you cases for any media stuck in side. I use a rock tumbler with SS media and wouldn't do it any other way now. Here's my machine in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcyAkj-LzA8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markm Posted July 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 Just watched your video. Looks fab. The unit I have is really just a toy. I had to turn it off last night as the kids were off to bed as its also a little noisey. I will have a read of the instructions to see if I can run it wet. I have 15 .243 cases which I plan to do next. I will be interested to see the outcome..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Livefast123 Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 Looks ideal, how many .44 mag cases do you think would fit? How much is stainless media? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markm Posted July 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 Not sure how big a 44 case is but I could easily do 30 .243 cases. It takes about 2 hours to get them to their best so 100 cases is only an afternoons work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1066 Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 Looks ideal, how many .44 mag cases do you think would fit? How much is stainless media? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1kg-1mm-x-8mm-Stainless-Steel-Media-Cross-Pin-Shot-Tumbling-Tumbler-Polishing-/351379316262?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item51cfd6de26 This will do the job for you. It will only take 45-50 minutes a batch so a lot quicker than dry media. If you de-prime first your primer pockets will come out like new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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