Harborfreight Vibrator Tumbler question (reviewed)

[puma guy]

Anybody use one of these? 5Lb Capacity vibrator tumbler. They are on sale for $54.99 plus 20% off w/coupon. They also have an 18LB model that had better reviews but it was $149 less 20%.


Edit: Picture Added

[DocV]

One is running outside my door right now. It is an ok tumbler.

Pay attention to the gasket on the tumbler bucket, especially if you don't tighten down the lid as much as you should.

I buy my media from Pet Smart - a large bag ground walnut hulls sold as reptile bedding. Toss in some media, car wax and some mineral spirits into the bowl. Let it run for a few minutes. Toss in brass and let it run. shiny shiny.

[Bear67]

I bought one on sale a couple years ago and it does fine --except it is never large enough. It sits on an upper shelf in the machine shop until I need to run a small amount of brass of one caliber. I HATE to sort mixed brass and usually try to pre sort even though I have brass trays with the sized slots.

I am running 11 pounds of .223 brass as I type and ran .40 S&W earlier. This is in a older Midway vibrator tumbler that I picked up in a trade for a Dillon 350 and it runs big batches and is quieter than the Harbor Freight model. If you were close, I would let you have one for $20 or so. I have found walnut hulls cheap in 25 # boxes at HF before.

[FishInTx]

I bought the dual drum rotary rock tumbler. Works great so far. A little on the noisy side but have no others to compare it to. Bought the walnut media at Harborfreight as well. About the same price as the one you're looking at.

[puma guy]

I got a 25% off coupon from Harbor Freight so I got the 18lb model which can used with wet or dry media. The bowl on the 5lb was very flimsy and thin. The replacement bowl they sell for $22 was much thicker and sturdier and that tells me a lot. I'll give a review when I use it.

[puma guy]

I just got around to trying the tumbler with some surplus M1 Carbine cases I've had for years when I used to reload. I had them in a storage facility that got flooded. There were some cases that had green corrosion (see photos) and I threw in some .243 cases that were badly corroded just to see how they'd do. I used walnut shell media I bought at HF. The run time was about 6 hours. The .243 cases were too corroed to use but it took quite a bit of the corrosion off, only a few M1were too bad to use, but all the green was off.
The tumbler was not as loud as I thought it would be. I filled it about two thirds full. I have a bunch of Norma .357 unprimed cases that were flooded as well. I had planned to start reloading again but I'll have wait until the present "panic "run on supplies is over. I give it about a seven or eight, though I've no experience with vibrator tumblers to compare.