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- Sep 26, 2010
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- 9,807
I have two Dillon CV-2001 dry media tumblers that I have used for many years with great results, but they never quite clean the primer pockets. For my varmint rifles, I always true the primer pockets by cutting them to depth and back boring the flash holes before I load them for the first time which makes the manual clean up of the primer pockets easier, but it still take some time. I have a friend near me who bought a Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler and though it works very well, I shoot substantially more than he does and I would either burn it up or have to wait and do many small loads.
I searched around and found there are quite a few examples of home built wet tumblers that are much more heavy duty than anything you can buy and while it was somewhat expensive to do, I did not have any of the pieces lying around as some of you might so I had to buy it all--except for the base which was some scrap ¾" plywood I had leftover from building my last reloading bench. I built this for the long haul and the time savings on the extra clean-up will be my ROI.
I split the ½" PVC lengthwise and glued it inside the 6" PVC at 90° positions. The heater hose covered rollers are on 5.5" centers and the board size is 24" x 24" x 1-1/2" thick. The cylinder turns at 75 RPM and will hold two gallons of water and the one in the photo will be used for rifle brass (the cylinder is 12" long without the cap or reducer) and I will make one a little shorter for pistol brass at some point. While other examples I saw had "washing machine feet", I chose to use casters so that it would be easy to move around. They are lockable so it stays put, but it really does not move even when unlocked and running. The average time that I see is people using online is about 1 hour of tumbling and I will have to experiment to see how that works out. There are a few things I did that are not totally necessary (such as having both rollers driven instead of one drive and one coast) and having 1 cylinder would be sufficient, I just wanted options. Eliminating some of those extras will reduce the cost, but I am happy with the results despite the price.
I picked up 12.5# of GunTap stainless steel tumbling pins (.047" x .255"). I will be using ArmorAll Ultra Shine Wash & Wax for the soap (which leaves a little wax on the cases so they do not tarnish and it does not contain ammonia). I will also be using LemiShine Dish Detergent Booster (which is essentially citric acid) to clean the brass.
Here is a photo of the finished tumbler:
Here is a photo (before clean up) of the internals of the tumbling cylinder:
Here is the parts list with the prices and as many links as I could find (some of the Home Depot small fasteners did not have links online):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aoCO_5zDwF7IGzk8ngUD3PHEz_PFs_k03kyOMPqMjlg/edit?usp=sharing
Enjoy!
I searched around and found there are quite a few examples of home built wet tumblers that are much more heavy duty than anything you can buy and while it was somewhat expensive to do, I did not have any of the pieces lying around as some of you might so I had to buy it all--except for the base which was some scrap ¾" plywood I had leftover from building my last reloading bench. I built this for the long haul and the time savings on the extra clean-up will be my ROI.
I split the ½" PVC lengthwise and glued it inside the 6" PVC at 90° positions. The heater hose covered rollers are on 5.5" centers and the board size is 24" x 24" x 1-1/2" thick. The cylinder turns at 75 RPM and will hold two gallons of water and the one in the photo will be used for rifle brass (the cylinder is 12" long without the cap or reducer) and I will make one a little shorter for pistol brass at some point. While other examples I saw had "washing machine feet", I chose to use casters so that it would be easy to move around. They are lockable so it stays put, but it really does not move even when unlocked and running. The average time that I see is people using online is about 1 hour of tumbling and I will have to experiment to see how that works out. There are a few things I did that are not totally necessary (such as having both rollers driven instead of one drive and one coast) and having 1 cylinder would be sufficient, I just wanted options. Eliminating some of those extras will reduce the cost, but I am happy with the results despite the price.
I picked up 12.5# of GunTap stainless steel tumbling pins (.047" x .255"). I will be using ArmorAll Ultra Shine Wash & Wax for the soap (which leaves a little wax on the cases so they do not tarnish and it does not contain ammonia). I will also be using LemiShine Dish Detergent Booster (which is essentially citric acid) to clean the brass.
Here is a photo of the finished tumbler:
Here is a photo (before clean up) of the internals of the tumbling cylinder:
Here is the parts list with the prices and as many links as I could find (some of the Home Depot small fasteners did not have links online):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aoCO_5zDwF7IGzk8ngUD3PHEz_PFs_k03kyOMPqMjlg/edit?usp=sharing
Enjoy!