Does anyone clean the stainless steel pins/media itself?

[xtratoy]

Interesting... I know ceramic is hard, but it is also brittle. I have broken ceramic knife sharpeners with a small drop before. The water inside the drum must buffer the impact of the ceramic and brass. How many pounds of media do you use and what size tumbler? My tumbler is made out of a 5 gallon bucket mounted inside a cement mixer. Will tumble 20+ pounds of brass. I wonder how much ceramic media would I need for that?

 

[Member 38805]

I also have a bag of just round ceramic balls that are about 3/32" diameter. They came with the wet tumbler when I bought it, but I thought the round shape looked less aggressive, so I've never even opened the bag. I did consider tossing some in as a mix, but thought if they didn't help I'd never get them separated agian in my lifetime!

 

[Member 38805]

Interesting... I know ceramic is hard, but it is also brittle. I have broken ceramic knife sharpeners with a small drop before. The water inside the drum must buffer the impact of the ceramic and brass. How many pounds of media do you use and what size tumbler? My tumbler is made out of a 5 gallon bucket mounted inside a cement mixer. Will tumble 20+ pounds of brass. I wonder how much ceramic media would I need for that?

My rotary has a 1 gallon drum, and I;ve never weighed the amount I used. I'd guess it's a little less than half the capacity. Ceramic is brittle, but the small size makes it very strong. I think of the little rods of media were twice as long they'd easily break, but the small size keeps them from damaging themselves.
Since I mostly shoot old 1800's single shot rifles, I never have huge amounts of brass to do at one time. Maybe a couple hundred rifle cases at most, as I also don't mix calibers when I clean. I only do one size so brass doesn't get locked together as they can when mixing brass.