Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First the good... The kit is complete. All you do is supply the brass and electric, and you're cleaning within minutes. The in-line power switch is a nice feature and the unit is surprisingly on the quiet side for something inherently noisy. The media separator kit assembles in a snap, literally (more later). Once you've tumbled your brass hang the separator over the bucket, open it up, pour the media and brass into the separator, lock it, spin it roughly a dozen times until you don't see anymore media coming out... and presto, clean empty brass. The vibratory tumbler works great. I have no reason to suspect it won't last years and it really cleans well. The vibrations keep the media moving at a steady pace so everything is rotated throughout. I was actually surprised how much cleaning action there is yet the lid is almost unnecessary. In fact I didn't even use the lid for the first batch and no media bounced out. Speaking of the lid, I agree with others that a nicer knob is needed instead of the cheapo wingnut. Some also suggest placing strips of used dryer sheets and quickly found they can slow down the cleaning process. If you intend to use them, try cutting them into squares that will move with the flow instead of resisting it. I also find the included polish to work well. I haven't looked at refills because I assume there are other products more cost efficient, just stay away from anything with ammonia in it. Options I've read about include citrus and car finish products. The shortcomings are on execution of the separator "hardware"... ie plastic parts. The separator cage itself is plenty heavy for doing it's job. The cage strength is on par with the sturdiness of the plastic bucket. It's a normal 3-gal bucket which is more likely to crack due to drying out than actually breaking from abuse. The real problem is with the lighter weight brackets and shields. They snap onto the bucket and while providing enough strength for an empty separator cage, it quickly becomes apparent they're borderline inadequate once you add the weight of brass and media. Because there is no way to lock the brackets positions things tend to slide around the lip of the bucket a little. However, I have a solution below. The shields have the same issues. They just snap on so they're easily misaligned and allow gaps to open up between the bucket while you're pouring media and it goes all over the place. My advice, and this may not make sense until you actually experience the leaking but when you pour, aim for the far side of your target. That way, if the shield (acting like a spout) becomes loose and a gap opens between it and the bucket, the media escaping from the bucket lip might still end up in your tumbler instead of on the floor. Now for my modifications... I solved the "sloppiness" of the plastic bucket clips by simply pop riveting each clip to the bucket being careful everything was lined up so the cage clears all sides. I used 2 pop rivets for each axle clip and 1 pop rivet on the center tab of each shield with a spacer between the bucket. You can also use some small nuts and bolts if that's what you have laying around. Obviously you need to drill small holes for each rivet or bolt which takes literally 2 seconds to drill through a plastic bucket. The downside is you won't be able to use the bucket lid. But I'm guessing not many people use the lid because you have to remove all the clips first and that will just weaken them more. I suppose if I just wanted to keep dirt out of the bucket I could cut the lid to fit over all the clips but it won't be air tight. All that said, I feel the kit still deserves a 4 star rating. The reason being, it's completely usable right out of the box. I just think my modifications will add years of use to those plasic clips. And the tumbler itself works great with enough corn media and polish included to clean a lot of batches. When you need new media (corn or walnut) go check out the local pet stores, it's cheaper than gun shops. I hope this review helps someone like the others did for me. Time to get loaded!