Cleaning Media Once Again...

[Guy B. Meredith]

I've been reloading a few months now, began with Wal Mart corn cob media mentioned in posts here and Lyman Recharger. I also saw the posts on various polishes and decided to do some testing.

At the same time I moved into walnut media because the corn cob particles are large enough that they lodge in the brass and I wanted to see whether the smaller walnut particles would be easier to remove and whether the walnut media would clean the inside a bit.

I started using Meguiar's Gold Class All Metal Restorer (smells like candied medicine) with walnut media from PetMart. The brass comes out bright and shiny in a relatively short time. The walnut/Meguiar's combination seems aggressive enough to take off heavy stains that the corn cob did not seem to get.

HOWEVER, the walnut media seems to grind itself down as well and creates huge quantities of dust which settles on the center post of the tumbler and probably elsewhere, including inside and outside the brass. So my questions are:

How do you handle walnut dust? Frequent media changes? Wash the brass?

Is a corn cob media with smaller particle size available? Does it clean as well as the walnut and remove from the brass as well?

 

[WalterGAII]

I just used some of the Wal Mart corn cob "media" to polish some bullets that I moly'd last night. I like the large size, because it won't get in my hollow points. The large size isn't worth a flip for cleaning brass, however. Get some regular old corn cob media from Midway. I also use their polish. You want to be sure and not use any metal polish that contains ammonia.

 

[IK]

Corncob polishes better, wallnut cleans better.

My proven solution to your "dusty" problem:
Get the tumbler on the yard on a really windy day, put your brass in with that dusty wallnut media and turn it on without putting the lid on.
Stay away.
In an hour or 2 max. the dusty stuff is gone.

I use the same wallnut media for a total of about 25 sessions as average. No polish, just cleaning.

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IK

 

[Nukem]

Some fellas at one of the clubs I belong too said they put strips of their wives old dryer sheets (softener) in the corncob as it is running. I tried it, at the end of a cleaning the brass is clean and the dryer sheets are black.