AshesOfTheFall
Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2013
- Messages
- 3
After watching some videos and reading a lot of forums, I bought the 6lb double-barrel tumbler from Harbor Freight, a few lbs of .047 diameter pins, some Dawn dish soap and some lemi-shine. I'm cleaning .357 magnum (and .38 special) brass. I'm using 1lb of pins, 1lb of water (enough to cover all the brass and pins), just a few drops of dawn, and a finger pinch of lemi-shine. I've tried varying loads of brass under 1lb (50-100 brass). I've tried varying lengths of time (1.5 to 9 hours) and no matter what combo I tried I'm still ending up with some black gunk left in many of the primer pockets and often some gray buildup around the extractor groove. Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong? I think I saw a video or post somewhere suggesting that smooth walled drum tumblers don't get enough agitation for pin movement and that you want some edges (like a dryer drum or a cement mixer) or a hexagon shape like the big thumbler tumblers. Somewhere they mentioned modifying barrels by somehow attaching "fins" inside the barrel. I haven't been able to find this info again but I'm wondering if anyone has tried something similar and what they got for results. At this point I'm tempted to switching over to the harbor freight ultrasonic cleaner and see if that works better.
I forgot to mention that when I clean 9mm and .40 S&W brass with the same setup, it turns out great. For some reason the .38 special and .357 magnum aren't coming as clean...
I forgot to mention that when I clean 9mm and .40 S&W brass with the same setup, it turns out great. For some reason the .38 special and .357 magnum aren't coming as clean...
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