June 13th, 2015

Sinclair Product Report: Thumler’s Tumbler with Stainless Media

We know that many of our readers are now tumbling their brass in liquid media rather than dry media such as corn-cob or walnut shells. When done with STM stainless tumbling media (small ss pins), this system really does work, producing brass that is clean “inside and out”. The only down-side to wet tumbling is that sometimes the inside of the caseneck gets so “squeaky clean” that bullets take more effort to seat. This can be remedied with the use of a dry lube inside the necks. When cleaning with stainless tumbling media you’ll need a quality tumbler that is water-tight. The wet-tumbler of choice is the Model B Thumler’s Tumbler. Featuring a bright-red, side-loading drum, the Model B Thumler’s Tumbler is reliable and built to last.

A while back, Bill Gravatt, then President of Sinclair Int’l, had a chance to evaluate the Thumler’s Tumbler and the wet-cleaning process for cartridge brass. Bill came away a believer: “I wanted to share with you my experience using the Thumler’s Tumbler and stainless steel pin media to clean brass.

I used it for the first time just before the National Matches on some .308 Winchester brass. I just added water and some Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner and tumbled them for about 45 to 60 minutes. Wow! I have never had cases so clean both inside and out. The tumbler I used was the sample from our photo studio, and someone had left a 223 Remington case in there that was completely tarnished dark green. I left it in to see what would happen, and it came out just as clean as my .308 cases.

A lot of customers, and a couple of our techs, have told me about the good results they get with this tumbler, but I was still very impressed. At Camp Perry, I talked to a few shooters who had used it, and they all had only good things to say about the Thumler system. Of course, being shooters, they all had their own concoctions (recipes) of various cleaners. All I can say is that the Simple Green worked well for me. If you want to try something different for cleaning brass, you might want to give the Thumler system a tryout. The great thing about the stainless steel media is that it never wears out. Buy it once and never buy media again. We sell a kit of the Tumbler and 5 lbs. of media that will save you a few bucks off buying them separately.” — Bill Gravatt

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