Cheap but ingenious wife.

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With all due respect to your wife, once you use the Dillon media separator, you will see why its made and sold.

on the Dillon, in and out in 60 seconds!

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If a bucket with holes worked as good as a Dillon separator no one would buy the Dillon, but that's not the case.

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Like your wife's idea.  I stole my wife's kitchen strainer a few years ago.

I use the deluxe chicken coop strainer myself. Still working after all these years.

Now that is brilliant!

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I have the lyman with the rubber plug in the side. If I keep stirring the brass with my hand while it's vibrating and the media has drained, I get all the particles out.

Steve B wrote:Like your wife's idea.  I stole my wife's kitchen strainer a few years ago.

Yep.... colander..

Midway used to have a strainer type that inserted into a five gallon bucket, it was free if you bought a tumbler. You could stir, shake, and stir with your hand, but there was always media left in the brass. Same with the dollar store colander, I'm cheap, and tried that also.

Then I bought the Midway rotary separator, and it is one of those things that you wonder why you didn't buy it much sooner. Never have any media left in the brass, much quicker, only takes a couple rotations, and a little back and forth rocking. Now I have a Lyman one also. The Midway one was only $20 back when I bought it, probably more now, but well worth the money.

I used a collander for years to separate media. It was a tedious process. I bought a rotary separator recently for pistol use and was amazed at how easily it worked.

While I am cheap, I believe the rotary separator was worth every penny. 


Mike

Dillon is not a bucket, its a bin with a rotating hopper that opens up, dump 200 cases in and spin it and it removes all media, really 60 seconds was 30 to many, but whatever works is good

60 seconds ain't near enough with .30-06 cases!

I grew up with my Dad's rotary tumbler being put in service a few times a year for several years. The octagonal wood box had an expanded-steel type cover over a wood "door" on one side. Pull the wood door off, clamp the frame back on and run that sucker a few minutes.

Very quickly, as the media fell out into a home-built with tumbler maker's plans capture bin with an empty beer case cardboard in the bottom, it got very, very LOUD!!!

Earplugs loud for a kid.

We still sometimes found a kernel or three of corncob or walnut in a few cases.

When I'm feeling cheap with the vibratory tumbler, I put two colanders together and shake 'em up a bit. Works great for handgun brass. They are dedicated for brass, never for food use ever again.