Can you Overtumble Brass

[GameHauler]

 I am pretty sure you can but what would it take?
Say something came up and had to leave in a hurry.
Or a Friend showed up and you got to playing some shoes
and you had a sip of his beer and forgot to turn off the tumbler.
6Hours, 12, 24, 48, 96?
Just thinking to much again

Mike

[torpedoman]

think more in the line of days or weeks. real dirty range pickup brass i usually leave in overnight and sometimes 24 hrs.

[stimpylu32]

Mike

I have my Vib cleaner set on a timer to run for 4 hours , the power went out and the thing got out of sink with my work sced. long story short , it ran for 4 hours a day for over 2 weeks before I relized what had happened . 

Can you over tumble , sure but it takes quite a while . 

stimpy

[Graybeard]

Not in my opinion. I guess you could say you had over tumbled it if you went on vacation and left it running so long the tumbler gave up and died but I still don't think any harm would be done to the brass. I've left particularly nasty brass in for days.

[PanaDP]

Is tumbling media harder than brass?

[GameHauler]

No, But it is abrasive.
Look at some of the wonders of the world.
A little sand, little wind, little wave =
BIG HOLE in mountain side

Thanks guys.
I will not worry anymore when I play shoes by myself
and finish up the (Beverage) my friend left behind 

Mike

[Blackhawker]

I have a rather large batch of nickel plated Remington .45 Colt brass which I have been reloading for years and years.  I think I bought them in the late 80's or early 90's.  To be honest, I couldn't really tell you how many times over they have been loaded....maybe 10 times???  In any case, I've recently noticed that a small percentage of them are not looking so bright anymore.  Upon closer examination, it appears that the nickel plating is finally beginning to wear thin.  I cannot tell you exactly how many hours these things have been in my tumbler but if I had to guess, at an average of 4 hours each tumbling times ten (approx) reloads....that's 40 hours of tumbling and only a few (1 to 5 percent) are showing a bit of plating loss. 

Hope that helps.

[Hairtrigger]

No, But it is abrasive.
Look at some of the wonders of the world.
A little sand, little wind, little wave =
BIG HOLE in mountain side
 

The moral is do not leave your tumbler on for thousands of years!

I have put a penny in my tumbler the first day I used it. The tumbler has died and been replaced 5 years ago. The penny shows no wear to the untrained eye.. maybe a coin collector could tell but not me. The penny is in my tumbler as we speak waiting for the next batch of brass.
From what I have seen I would not worry about brass that has been tumbled for weeks

[davem270win]

I use a simple light timer on mine, and only use the 'off' pin in it, I set it for the number of hours, I want it to tumble, start it manually, and it will shut off automatically at the end, and never restart. Unless the brass is really dirty, 4 to 6 hours is usually plenty.

[lakota]

I read an article somewhere about excessive tumbling work hardening the necks on bottle neck cartridges.

I have tumbled .223 and .204 brass for up to 48 hours and havent noticed any problems though.

[45-70.gov]

i   tumble  4 hours with timer to protect my dies

then size and punch primers

then tumble over night  [but sometimes  forget for a day or 2]

i  have some  44 mag brass  been  loading for 30 years

had  one split last year

[Glanceblamm]

I really don't think so...The act of firing the cartridge then resizing and especially the belling & crimping would out weigh the tumbling by far. Even with this punishment, the head stamp remains to be sharp & clear for the most part.