20 some years ago I started reloading and one of the first things I bought was a Lyman tumbler similar to this. What no one had considered for all the decades prior to that was that when you stuck brass straight from the range in those vibratory tumblers, you were shaking the leftover dust from inside the cases into your lungs. Largely from the primers (lead and mercury), but also powder residue. And anyone who has used those tumblers can tell you about the dust. It only took 50 or 60 years for people to think, “Hey you know we shouldn’t be doing that.”

Hence the rise of wet rotary tumblers and ultrasonic cleaners. Both using a cleaning solution that contains the lead and mercury so it just harmlessly goes down the drain. With the rotary type they used a stainless steel “media” (quarter inch pins) to act as an abrasive on the brass. Separating that from the brass afterwards has to be every bit as irritating as poking corncob from the primer pockets with a paperclip.

People recently have discovered you really don’t need the stainless steel pins. Good riddance. I have to wonder if the ultrasonic isn’t the way to go. Though I’ve found out myself the distilled water, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and a few drops of Dawn dish soap stirred in a bucket for 5 minutes does a bang up job. Plus the added benefit, if you then wanted to put them in a vibratory tumbler, it would be perfectly safe as the carcinogenic powders would have already been washed off.

Funniest of all, is that I and others have taken their own brass (not dirty range brass) straight to the reloading bench without cleaning them at all! A lot of the push for ultra clean brass is just marketing, and not a real concern with carbide dies. You could spend well over $500 dollars and into the thousands if you wanted to for the ultimate brass cleaning experience. But then something I’ve recently discovered, besides the fact I like clean brass, is that there are 2 advantages to having it bright and shiny. When your semi-auto ejects it to hell and back, it’s much easier to spot shiny brass on the ground. The other thing is that once you are getting ready to reload it again, before you stick it in the reloading press, its much easier to spot splits, cracks and other defects on shiny brass, then it is on dull and tarnished brass.