The following is an attempt to respond to some of the responses posted about this experiment. Again, it is not meant as an attack, to belittle, or insult to anyone. I only intend to explain why I disagree with their position, procedure, or practice. The whole point of this experiment was in response to ammo being left in a tumbler for extended period of time and thinking it will be safe to fire. Not to indicate that tumbling for an hour would be dangerous.
The following responses are my beliefs and practices, it's your choice to agree or disagree. Hope you are not offended; I will not be offended if you disagree.
**Regarding manufactures tumbling their loaded ammo to clean, I just called Hornady. Their procedure DOES NOT INCLUDE TUMBLING LOADED AMMO! Brass and bullets are tumbled to clean, never loaded ammo. The gentleman I spoke with just laughed and said "Never!"
**It was suggested I try ball powder next time that would be an interesting experiment. I not sure if there is a can in my cabinet. I will check to see if I have any.
**Shooting unknown loads, could not agree more. That is a foolish and dangerous thing to do. There are only a few people on this planet I trust enough to shoot their hand loads. Buying loaded ammo, even factory stuff at a gun show is risky in my opinion.
**One statement on another blog I posted this on was 25 grains of powder will be 25 grains whether tumbled or not. Sorry but you really need to rethink your thought process. Powder manufactures go thru tremendous efforts to develop coatings and processes to control burn rates. If you disturb that coating and the construction of the grains, you will change its burn rate. Try crushing some, set it off, you will see a difference!
**A few posts defended tumbling loaded ammo for no more than half to 1 hour. I'm pretty sure you will not end with a dangerous round. But I do believe it will change the consistency of the burn rate of the powder, why would you be willing to do that? After hunting season, I will be doing some additional testing to see if run out, seating depth, and bullet nose damage occurs to any degree.
**Some have stated their procedure is to tumble to get the lube off, both before and after loading. As a bench rest shooter, we learned long ago a little lube left on the case is an advantage. The theory is the lube allows the round to push back against the bolt face more consistently. I've tested this shooting in an underground 100 yard tunnel, it works. Since I don't tumble or run BR cases with thin necks in a vibratory cleaner, I actually wipe my cases with a light coat of Kroil before heading to the line. So with cases that are cleaned, lubed, and sized, they are wiped off with a clean rag to leave a thin coat of lube. Never run through a tumbler or vibratory cleaner.
**One response was military ammo bouncing around in a truck. The whole point is to show that it can have an effect. I don't know what effect it has on ball powder, since I don't shoot ball powder it's not on my radar.
**A few posts addressed cleaning lube of cases after loading in a progressive press. I have never loaded a single rifle round on a progressive press and never will. If I was to use a progressive press, the cases would be sized on a single stage, wipe the cases off then head to the progressive press. If you are loading pistol cases, you should be using carbide dies that don't require lube.
**I read the article from NRA American Hunter that was linked. The end of the article stated the following:
"Both scientists felt that tumbling was a safe practice within the bounds of reason. The Ruling;
We are calling BullShooters on this one. While extended tumbling could, at some point theoretically cause a problem, a reasonable amount of tumbling to clean up loaded ammo is not dangerous."
The key in this whole article is the operative words "REASONABLE AMOUNT"
**One response was indicating that because of light conditions the results did not show up. I clearly stated the photos from my phone camera did not show the results I seen. If I take this any further, I will break out the good camera. I am not a good photographer, never claimed to be. I actually had my high school photo teacher pull me to the side and say "Tidwell, if your quality ever matches your enthusiasm, you will go far. As it is, find another profession!"
**I was asked what did I prove. Don't think I proved anything, but wasn't trying to prove anything. I don't have the scientific background to prove anything. All my experiment did was show that the powder can be affected by tumbling.
