[sdmc530]

Being I reload on a progressive I only touch my brass once. This is just after I clean it. I collect the brass at the range usually only my own but will pick up others if its what I do shoot. I put it in a mesh bag until I get home then in storage containers. Repeat with next trip to the range. I only reload in the winter so I save brass all year round.

Winter comes and I get to it. I hate this process the most because its very messy. I put media in my tumbler. I use the Lyman Turbo 1200 tumbler. I dump in my media and a cap full of Nufinish car wax. I use Hornaday media because it gives off less dust in my opinion. There are many makers and types of media but this is what I like. I store the media in a big tote and just put in and out as needed.

Then I take the brass from the containers and put in the tumbler with the media and the wax. I run my brass for about 2 hours. Seems good enough for me. I am not worried about getting it perfect but clean enough to be able to visually inspect the case.

After the two hours I use a separator pan and then one by one examine each piece of brass because this will be the last time I handle the brass. Then I place the media back in the tumbler and do another cycle. I don't pre-separate case size I do that after I tumble it.

Picture 1: Tumbler loaded
Picture 2: Tumbler working
Picture 3: Clean brass in separator pan
Picture 4: Media container and separator pan

Just a couple more thoughts: I never do this process while doing any loading or handling anything that might go boom. The tumbler creates static and don't want to risk shocking anything bad. Also I do this in a separate area then my press because the media gets all over. By all means I should really do this in the garage but its winter in South Dakota. So after I clean, inspect, separate the brass I then clean up all the brass prep stuff. I want it out of sight.

I only load pistol rounds so I don't worry about cleaning primer pockets and all that stuff. If I loaded rifle I would probably tumble, de-prime, then use a multi prep station that gets all the nook and crannies. But with pistol I don't believe that is necessary and have never had an issue that I am aware of. With less than 50 rounds per rifle that I shoot or less there is no savings for me to load rifle. Pistol well worth it because I shoot thousands of rounds per year.

Thoughts?

Next step for me is prepping the press area for reloading (hopefully soon)