Sunday, June 12, 2011

A Tale of Two Tumblers

I've been reloading for nigh on 40 years and never felt the need to buy a tumbler. If my brass was dirty, I washed it with soap and water and let it dry. However, I don't think that I'm too old to learn new tricks, and the forums kept extolling the benefits of tumbling brass. But I'm frugal and didn't want to spend an enormous amount of money on something I might not like.

Then I was surfing around Midsouth Shooters Supply and came upon a new item, the Smart Reloader SR737 Nano. It cost only $23.48, and I was making a bullet order anyway, so I clicked it into the cart and paid for it. I figured I'd give it a whirl and see what I'd been missing.

Just about the time the order shipped from Midway, I got an email from a reader, we'll call him John, who told me that he had an old Dillon Reloader tumbler, a CV-500 that he hadn't used in a decade and he was sending it via the UPS truck. Gratis.

Well, hell, I thought. Now I'm going to have not one tumbler, but two. And in the space of a week both showed up at my door.


Let's talk about the little one, the Nano. It is touted as holding 300 9mm cases, and it might. I own no 9mm guns. As you can see from the photograph, it is considerably smaller than the Dillon and takes up a lot less space on the bench. It buzzes, not unpleasantly, but you can tell when it's plugged-in. It doesn't have an on-off switch so it's either plugged in or not.

As soon as it came in, I unpacked it and put it on the bench. Added a little media and some .38 special cases and plugged it in. I immediately noticed that with the light weight and the vibrating motor, it wanted to walk across the bench. I placed it behind my press and let it vibrate. Got busy doing other tasks and in about an hour, realized that I didn't hear it vibrating. I went out to check on it, and it had turned itself off.

Hmmm. The motor was warm, so I unplugged it and opened it. The cases were clean. Very good. The fact that it had turned itself off was disconcerting, but in another hour I plugged it in again as a test and it started happily vibrating. Okay. Whether through design or design fault, it turns itself off.

In another day or so, a big box arrived at my door. The Dillon! I also unpacked it and got some media. This thing is a hoss! Compared to the Nano, it's a monster. It's heavy, weighing about five times what the Nano weighs. When you plug it in, you notice it's got an on-off switch and when you turn it on it's heavy enough that it doesn't try to walk off the bench. It's heavy, solidly made, a tribute to the Dillon name. It also holds about three times as much media as the Nano.

I dumped in a gallon zipper bag of .223 cases and turned it on. This big tumbler isn't as noisy as the little Nano. I let it run for an hour and opened the lid. The cases were clean.

Now I've got two tumblers, and I use them both. For big jobs, or jobs that I want to run for more than an hour, the Dillon gets the nod. It's a beast of a machine and I like it a lot. For the small jobs, say 50 cases of .308 after decapping, the Nano gets the nod. I keep it on the bench and I'll drop in a handful of cases to clean the resizing lube off the cases before reloading.

I use lizard media that I buy from the local pet store. It's fine enough that it doesn't clog flash holes and it flows easily from .223 cases.

Many thanks to reader John, who sent me the big Dillon and taught an old dog a new trick. I like both tumblers and each of them has a place on my bench.

4 comments:

jon spencer said...

This stuff gets some good reviews.
http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com/

Old NFO said...

Dillon IS good stuff! :-)

Pawpaw said...

Yeah, John, that stainless tumbling media gets good reviews. It's little stainless rods and you've got to be careful that they don't get stuck in the flash holes, and everything that I've read indicates that they're best used in a rotary tumbler. Both of mine are vibratory tumblers.

I've seen tumblers made from 55 gallon drums, used to tumble electrical armatures. Those use wet gravel as media

Skip said...

My tumbler wanted to walk also so I duct taped the base to the floor in three places [the motor breathes through the bottom] and use walnut media with a touch of car wax in it.
100 .308s and 100 .357 and go whatch a ball game and I'm good to go.