Anybody here use a cement mixer to tumble brass???

[MET1]

I have recently been cleaning quite a bit of brass. My Dillon 2001 just gave up the ghost. I need something with a lot of capacity and have read that some people have had good success in using cement mixers. The cost to replace the motor on my Dillon is going to be just north of $100 and HF puts their 1 1/4 foot mixer on add every now and then for $100. Anybody here have any experience with something like this???

[Kali Komrade]

They mainly do .50 cal brass in those cement mixers... FYI Are you sure the motors give up I had one from Midway that was the Frankford arsenal brand and I found out that the walnut media dust worked its way into the bearing cleaned em out and was as good as new... Just a thought on the later... It really wasn't worth the time fiddling with it but might be a project for a rainy day... If you do go the mixer route I'd get the kind with the plastic drum it would muffle the clink clink clink sound...

[MET1]

My fifty is a single shot bolt, so it would be a long time before I could use it for that. I like the idea of a plastice drum, however they cost twice as much. The mixer would mainly be used for pistol calibers and .223. I heard that it could handle up to five gallons of brass at a time. Any reason it would not work for small caliber brass that you can think of? Thanks for the imput.

[Kali Komrade]

Nah should be fine... The only issue I could forsee with the smaller brass would be the blades possibly damaging the case necks... The plastic ones cost more... Wow... I got one from Lowes a few years ago by the name of Red Lion and it was cheaper than the steel ones...

[mrkubota]

I've used mixers ever since starting to shoot/reload for my .50 cal guns.

sand blasting supply companies will have a good selection of media.

I use a 3:1 mixture of fine to coarse walnut shell with a tablespoon of jeweler's rouge added. The Dillon brand case polish works well too.
I've also heard of people using 'NuFinish' car polish, but I haven't tried that yet myself.

Doing 200ea quantities of .50BMG brass:

I first wash the brass for an hour in a small plastic mixer filled with water and a 1/4cup of the orange citrus based de-greaser from Home Depot. That cleans a lot of the dirt and softens any carbon build-up. It cuts down on any lead styphnate particles left floating around too.

Then they get rinsed/drained and immediately dumped into the bigger mixer for polishing and drying for at least another hour.

http://www.daplane.com/50bmg/brass_mixers.jpg
http://www.daplane.com/50bmg/brass02.jpg
http://www.daplane.com/50bmg/brass01.jpg
http://www.daplane.com/50bmg/brass00.jpg

[MET1]

Thats what I was looking for!!! Thanks for the info. Have you ever tried doing any pistol caliber stuff?? Any "issues"? Did you remove the blades from inside the barrel?

[Dan Wilson]

I have seen other people using this method for pistol and rifle brass as well, they say it works great.

I don't think it will work if you take the blades out, you wont get a whole bunch of movement out of the media and brass if you don't have them in, I have the large Harbor Freight cement mixer but unfortunately I use it to tumble cement in so haven't tried it on brass.

Dan

[patriotpa]

I use a Big Cat mixer from Lowes for all my brass. Works great. The media comes from the pet store as animal bedding. Lots cheaper. a 16" pizza pan made a great lid for the tumbler, with latches purchased from Lowes.

Someday I may even use the mixer to make a pair of shoes.......

[mrkubota]

Thats what I was looking for!!! Thanks for the info. Have you ever tried doing any pistol caliber stuff?? Any "issues"? Did you remove the blades from inside the barrel?

The smallest cartridge cases I've done are 5.56. They seem to take longer in the fine media than a heavier coarse mix.

I tried without the blades in at first, but didn't get a good tumble. I ended up putting just one of them back in to keep things stirred up.

You can wrap the paddle blades with some of that pipe insulation foam/tape to keep from beating up the brass too much.

[patriotpa]

I left the blades in after I deburred them. No probs with case necks getting deformed as long as there's enough media in there. I use mine for everything from 9mm to 50BMG with no trouble.