Do you tumble your rounds after you load them?

[DaveInPA]

I've read a couple of places about people tumbling their finished rounds after they're done loading them before boxing them up. Do you do this? Why or why not?

[BigJimP]

No, what I do is lay them out on a terry cloth towel - and roll them around under my hand to get any residual case lube off of them - and then I run every round in and out of a case gague before I drop them in a box.

I don't know that its patently unsafe to run a finished round thru a tumbler - but I wouldn't be comfortable doing it.

I use case lube on all calibers - even with carbide dies - it just makes the press run a lot more fluidly - so getting the case lube off is the only issue.

[mrawesome22]

I did it to some rounds I made before I got my tumbler just to pretty them up. All went well. No kabooms and they all shot great.

[thmpr]

I normally clean the cases after I resize and trim through the Vibrator unit. Once thats done, off to priming and full reload.

[WSM MAGNUM]

Yes, I have been tumbling 100-200 finished rounds all at once in my tumbler. Why? To get the last bit of lube off and for the final polish. There is no risk of any of the rounds going off because it takes a hard sharp blow to the primer to do that. The rounds rolling around the tumbler would not do that.

[DaveInPA]

Just to be clear I only load handgun rounds with carbide dies and do not use any case lube.

[swmike]

I tumble my finished rounds for about 15 minutes, 200 at a time, to remove remaining lube or finger smudges, etc. I use fresh corncob media and a little Nu-Finish Car Polish. Leaves the cases nice and clean. Also, they don't tarnish as quickly if they remain in storage for any length of time.

As for KaBooms in the tumbler or altered performance, I've done this for about 30 years now. No issues. Rounds that have been tumbled for a couple of hours (on purpose for testing) chrono the same (Same speed,spread, and SD) as rounds that were loaded the same way.

15 minutes is all I need to give a quick final clean and polish so I see no need for longer.

[Alleykat]

I only tumble bottleneck cases that've been lubed, and just for a few minutes.

[long rider]

Lyman instruction guide for turbo tumblers.
Important safety information.
Lyman says, under no circumstances should
live ammo or primed cases be tumbled.
well you guys who tumble live ammo must be
NUTS , you only make one mistake scary

[jamaica]

No.

[TexasSeaRay]

Lyman says, under no circumstances should
live ammo or primed cases be tumbled.

Five'll get you ten that a lawyer at or for Lyman wrote that, and not a reloader at Lyman.

So how do we explain Winchester, Federal, CCI, Hornady, Remington, PMC, et al, who all tumble and clean their freshly loaded factory ammo?

Are reloads somehow more unstable than factory loads?

Jeff

[Don H]

well you guys who tumble live ammo must be
NUTS , you only make one mistake scary

Well, since most of the manuals for the firearms I have say not to use reloads, I guess I just love living doubly dangerously by tumbling those reloads I'm not supposed to be using.

[Big Caliber]

Why? My components are clean before they reach the seating die.

[David Wile]

Hey folks,

I have been using a vibratory cleaner to clean shells for 25 years without any problems. I do not, however, use my cleaner to remove lube from the cases. Removing lube just shortens the life of the media too much. Instead, I take finished cartridges with lube still on them and wash them in gasoline, let them dry on a towell, and then clean them in the vibratory cleaner. Media lasts much longer that way. I never did like cleaning cases prior to loading; media gets stuck in the primer pockets. Take the finished rounds (after lube is removed) and put them in the machine for an hour or whatever it takes, and they come out looking like new factory ammo.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile

[CPTMurdoc30]

under no circumstances should
live ammo or primed cases be tumbled.

I just go with this. and I have only one rifle with a manual. It did not say a single thing about reload just said to use quality ammo. The rest of my rifles are either too old or did not come with it in the first place.

So I will glady listen to the pros on this one. I do not tumble loaded ammo. I just give the loaded ammo a quick wipe down before they go in the box. If I even do that most of the time I size deprim and from the press they go stright into the tumble for a 1 hour cleaning. This gets everything off and adds a little final polish to the case.

[10-96]

One of the reasons I don't tumble loaded pills is because of powder breakdown. I don't know how much jiggling around a ctg needs before powder starts to break down- I'm sure 10-20 minutes won't do it, but why take any chances that I might get distracted by having to run out and buy an ex-wife another car or house or something.

Hmm, now that I put it in writing- it looks like a ruther silly excuse not to tumble... but I'm still not going to do it.

[Alleykat]

Lyman instruction guide for turbo tumblers.
Important safety information.
Lyman says, under no circumstances should
live ammo or primed cases be tumbled.
well you guys who tumble live ammo must be
NUTS , you only make one mistake scary

Yeah, and don't shoot reloads through Glocks,don't tear tags off of pillows, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.!

[David Wile]

Hey 10-96.

The whole "powder break down" thing has been discussed and refuted many times before. It just does not happen, and loaded shells do not get set off in the cleaning process. It is simply a myth. And, yes, most all new firearms manuals state clearly that reloaded ammunition should not be used. That does not, however, stop most of us from reloading ammo safely. Don't worry about cleaning loaded ammo; try it, you'll like it.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile

[azredhawk44]

I have been using a vibratory cleaner to clean shells for 25 years without any problems. I do not, however, use my cleaner to remove lube from the cases. Removing lube just shortens the life of the media too much. Instead, I take finished cartridges with lube still on them and wash them in gasoline, let them dry on a towell, and then clean them in the vibratory cleaner.

Yeah, but my media costs me about $5 a year at the pet store, whereas gasoline would probably cost me a lot more!

I vibe-clean my dirty cases, then lube them for depriming and resizing, then vibe-clean the re-sized and unprimed cases to remove lube. After that is the primer, powder charge and bullet seating. If they somehow get goobered up during those stages, they will get a brief tumbling about 50pcs at a time.

That takes care of my dirty cases for me... after having my M1A gum-up from cases that I neglected to pull the lube off, I believe very strongly in clean cases!

[Alleykat]

If you ever have a static spark occur, while playing around with gasoline, buying new media will be the least of your worries.

[Sevens]

A couple rules we could probably all agree to live by:
--If someone doesn't want to do it because it doesn't "feel" right, then not doing it is absolutely the right choice for them. Much like some folks always clean primer pockets and some don't, not everything has a hard & fast rule.

--Not every thing recommended or suggested by a manufacturer of ANY product is always the gospel, but you usually won't get in trouble if you choose to follow their advice. They write it that way to cover their ass, and yours. Even if it is ultra-conservative.

And one more that we may NOT all agree on:
--Gasoline should be used to fuel gasoline burning engines. Using it for any other purpose is asking for a phenomenal amount of trouble and a ridiculous risk with little payoff. Some things out there introduce a greater amount of risk than others. Gasoline is one of those things that doesn't go easy on you when you screw up.

[Dlr8]

Isn't powder coated to control the burn rate, and then its coated with an agent that reduces static electricity to prevent explosion.. seems to me that removing these coatings in a tumbler is not a very good idea, you could in theroy change your burn rate not to mention the static problem . In answer to your question ... No I don't tumble loaded rounds. If they somehow need cleaned I use Never Dull, it does a great job.

Dave

[Shane Tuttle]

Isn't powder coated to control the burn rate, and then its coated with an agent that reduces static electricity to prevent explosion.. seems to me that removing these coatings in a tumbler is not a very good idea, you could in theroy change your burn rate not to mention the static problem .

If this is the case, where does the coating go...out of the cartridge? It's still inside and wont' go anywhere anyway. I don't believe the coating gets removed to begin with. How much vibration, shakes, jiggles does powder gets exposed to from the time it's made, SHIPPING, handling of dealers, traveling to a consumers' home, moved from shelf to shelf, and THEN used?

15 minutes in a tumbler is the very least of my concerns...

I did try tumbling after reloading, but it just isn't that much in time savings. Taking a large towel and rub down several at a time by hand seems quicker than tumbling, sifting, and then rubbing them down anyway...

My $.02

[Edward429451]

Sometimes I tumble bullets before I load them. I always tumble the brass before loading.

I see no need to tumble loaded ammo. I've accidently tumbled a round or three here n there but not as a rule. I just give them a wipe down with a clean cotton cloth before they go into the box.

To remove lube?

[Dlr8]

each granule of powder is coated much like a pill, if you somehow remove this coating it could change the burn rate in much the sameway as removing the time release coating on a pill.. If you think moving something around has the same effect as a tumbler then put your empty cases in a bucket add some media and drive around with them in your car ...... see how clean they get..... anyone can do what they want if someone feels good about tumbling live rounds then feel free, I am not here to change that ... my comments are to the poster... do I tumble loaded rounds ... why or why not ... Will a tumbler remove this coating ... don't know don't care, to me common sense would imply yes.. since that is what a tumbler is designed to do, clean by means of creating vibrations using media as an abrasive, it seems reasonable to expect the same thing to happen inside a case using the powder as a media, as it does on the outside using corncob or walnut as a media

This kinda explains what I am saying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder