tumbled balls

[M. De Land]

I use a home made tumbler made from a large coffee can with a plastic lid. I use dissimilar sized balls normally and an going to try adding glass marbles to see how they work. The two sizes of balls run for about an hour have worked well and it is hard to find where the sprues are on close examination. MD

 

[hanshi]

The sprues apparently get squashed flat as do any visible defects on the balls. Since tumbling makes them more uniformly round, there's no benefit to trying to position the ball any particular way; all ways are equal. If the sprue is really, really big it may not go away completely but will become tiny.

 

[dbutch]

Did these 18 balls shoot any different than the others?

 

[George]

Haven't shot them yet. I doubt I'll see any difference when I do, considering that I fool around with different loads so much. I didn't do them looking for increased accuracy, but just to make them simpler, quicker and less hassle to load.

Spence

 

[ian45662]

I do something similar. I will put 50 in a 1lb coffee can and shake them like a mad man for 30 seconds. I then put a THIN coat of lee liquid alox and allow that to dry over night. I shoot them out of a 69 call smoothbore. Balls start out at .678. I have no idea what they are after the shaking. 50 grains of goex 3F and bare ball give excellent results at 25 yards. 50 yards isnt to bad either but I have never shot that load past 50

 

[majg1234]

I use a vibratory tumbler for 45-50min with the same result as you Spence.No media in it unlike when I'm polishing brass for my suppository guns.I have a rather large tumbler and do about 200 per batch.I've found that mixing sizes doesn't matter except when it comes to sorting them out

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

cheap tumbler
Link

I use a small rock tumbler to tumble my balls. It has a black rubber liner that will give the balls a black finish but they come out looking like shiny black ball bearings. Tumbling time is critical. I have found that the balls need at least 30 minutes tumbling time but no more than 45 minutes ...

Well I tried the single version of that rotary 'rock or gem polisher' thmbler, also from Haba Freight ... and it didn't work at all!

Bill, how many do you put in? I tried it 1/3rd to 1/2 full (over the recommended weight capacity BTW) and it didn't work, even after HOURS!

Maybe I tried to do too many at once. I will say the black coating on them was horrible to remove from anything it touched or got on.

But, I also have a huge Thumblers vib-type tumbler, so I'll remove the media and try that too ... (FYI, I too also weigh sort my cast RBs, and find it does remove those w/ jnternal casting flaws. So then if/when I miss ... there's no question ... it was simply the 'nut' behind the trigger ...

 

[tomme boy]

Take a stick of lead out of the refillable pencils. It is graphite. Throw it in the tumbler. They come out really nice and shiny.

 

[hoochiepapa]

Wow, Robby, how many guns do you have in the works at a time??

 

[smokepole tc]

right now i dont cast my own balls yet i recently purchased 1000 50 cal from eddie may sprues are noticable but not bad so while sitting here took a small plastic container put in 25 balls shook em for 7 or 8 minutes came out slightly discolored sprues gone.

 

[Robby]

Mike, It seems that I have had two going at once for quite a while. The one in the background is a French fowler with a lot of glitz, and is being finished in bits and pieces. Very agonizing, as I promised myself I would never do that. One is a try-stock for patterns. The one on the bench is finished now, Post#1127764 . I keep tumbling along. :grin:
Robby

 

[catman]

Take a stick of lead out of the refillable pencils. It is graphite. Throw it in the tumbler. They come out really nice and shiny.

You got that right

 

[Billnpatti]

1/3 to 1/2 full is way too many balls for your tumbler. I only put in about 100 max at a time. Too many and the tumbler motor may not even be able to turn the drum. The black that gets on mine is just a color and not a coating. In my case, there is no need to remove the black. The balls come out of my tumbler just looking like nice shiny black ball bearings. If the lining in your tumbler is leaving a coating on the balls, it may just be too new and the rubber lining is too soft. My tumbler is pretty old and the lining does not coat the balls, it just discolores them. I also have a vibrator tumbler that I use on my brass but I have never tried putting any of my cast balls in it. I may remove the polishing media one day and run some balls in it to see if it works as well as my tumbler.

 

[sb 54 cal.]

Did mine yesterday and worked pretty good. About 40 min. Could use a little longer. Pappy