anyone use a vibrating cleaner out of interest? (Slower than u/s) with powdered media?
I bought a small US cleaner from Lidl a few years ago, but eventually gave up. It could only cope with a handful of cases, and the maximum setting on the timer (a few minutes) was so short that it had to be run several times to have any effect. So you had to stand over it and keep re-triggering. It also made a peculiarly irritating noise. I never managed to get the squeaky clean results others report. I tried various homebrew potions. The one that worked best used citric acid. However I found I got pretty much the same results just by soaking in the acid solution without any ultrasonic action.
I'm sure my experience was unlucky, and that a heavier duty US cleaner could work well. Perhaps I should try again with the "Sea Clean" solution.
So I bought a Lyman "Turbo Twin" vibratory tumbler for ISTR £70. This has a large and a small bowl. The large bowl copes with about 150 .308 cases, the small bowl half as much.
The small bowl can also be used with liquids e.g. for rock polishing, and if anyone would lend me some SS pins I'd like to see whether it could be used with them too.
You can get away with stuffing more in, e.g. I've tumbled some badly corroded .303 cases in batches of 200. An overnight run got them better than new.
I use walnut shell reptile bedding, which is very economical. The tumbler takes 2 pounds. Each load lasts for at least ten runs (I find it lasts much much longer). It works fine as-is, but I add a teaspoon of jewellers' rouge for a very high polish. Others suggest e.g. a dollop of brasso.
With reasonably clean brass (e.g. nicely polished previously) it only takes about 2 hours to run.
I de-prime before tumbling, and find the primer pockets do get cleaned sufficiently enough that it isn't really necessary to do any further brushing or scraping. No they are not pristine, but what remains is not enough to affect primer seating. Likewise the interior is not pristine, but all loose material has been removed and I see no need to scrape it back to bare metal.
The SS pin wet-tumbling process looks excellent, and if I could justify the cost (about £250 to get started) and was starting again, I'd be tempted. It appears to clean thoroughly inside and out, (which is nice if you are OCD, but not actually necessary) and gives a good surface finish, but not the high polish that can be achieved with a dry vibratory process.
According to the specifications, the 15 and 17lb rotary tumblers have much the same capacity as my Lyman 1200, and running times are similar. With the wet process there is also drying time required.
An alternative supplier to Spud is
http://jdreloading.com/ who is also a trade member here.