Brass Cleaning

[mr surveyor]

I finally reached the point of realization that I needed to do something to clean my brass, other than just trying to wipe it off. I started to pick up a small tumbler and media, but wanted something less prone to leave crud in the flash hole, and wanted the inner case to be cleaned a bit better than the tumblers normally do. One of my "mentors" that's been reloading for about 40 years suggested I try the liquid chemical cleaner (made for the purpose) that only takes a 20-30 second dip, swirl then rinse with clean water. Well, I have also seen the ultra-sonic cleaners advertised quite a bit. Finally the danged lightbulb in my cobweb filled head lit up. I HAVE an ultra-sonic cleaner.... retired it in 1993 when I finally retired all the drafting pens and went solely to auto cad drafting. It is rather small, and only held 40 dingy 9mm cases, but a 15 minute wet massage (used the old pen cleaning solution) had the cases clean and shiney in about 15 minutes. Clean water rinse and let dry. I think I'll just do about 30 at a time, sort out the few rejects, and have a totally clean batch of 50 with two dippings. The .357 brass will certainly be slower as only 15 or so at a time will fit, but dang....they come out soooooo clean

I just hope the cleaning solution has no effect on the brass itself, but since some of the old pens had some brass in them, I'd doubt it should be an issue. If so, I'll just get a small container of the "real thing" made for the purpose.

surv

[plinkertoo]

Cool idea! I only normally do about 100 at a time in a fairly inexpensive Frankford Arsenal tumbler, but I do have to check each primer hole as I'm going afterward.

[mr surveyor]

yeah, it' seems to be working great. Now I can't seem to stop myself from taking the shiney brass out and putting the dirty brass in until I run out of dirty brass.

I bet it's gonna be a whole lot easier resizing now

[Midiman]

Resizing dirty brass is a great way to ruin your dies.

[sharps_74]

Hope you do not mind my asking, what is the name of the cleaner you are using?

[Midiman]

I usually use plain corn husk based media with no additives. I put all the brass in a large spaghetti strainer when I'm done and rinse it quite thoroughly with hand agitation. I lay the wet brass in single layers on cookie sheets covered with paper towels after wringing the water left inside of them by hand shaking them out. I process about 800 rounds of .223 a year. Doing any more than that would require some alternative methodology. I hand measure each powder load and basically hand measure every aspect of every case and bullet in the quest for the utmost accuracy for competition shooting.

[Axeman]

You probably already know about this, but I think a word of caution is in order just in case anyone reading this thread doesn't know. Just make sure there's no ammonia, none at all, in any compound you use to clean brass cartridge cases. Ammonia weakens copper, and any alloy containing copper, by attacking it at the molecular level. It eventually leaves brass, bronze, or any copper alloy porous and weakened because some of the copper molecules are dissolved out of the alloy. At least that's what I was told 30+ years ago by an experienced handloader, and I'm not willing to be a guinea pig to prove whether or not he was right. After I learned about this I had to destroy several boxes of WWII 7.35 Italian rifle ammo that I had cleaned with a household brass cleaner that contained ammonia. Even way back then Italian military ammo was very scarce and cost an arm and a leg if you could find any, and it really hurt to crush it so it couldn't be fired.

[banana380]

You probably already know about this, but I think a word of caution is in order just in case anyone reading this thread doesn't know. Just make sure there's no ammonia, none at all, in any compound you use to clean brass cartridge cases. Ammonia weakens copper, and any alloy containing copper, by attacking it at the molecular level. It eventually leaves brass, bronze, or any copper alloy porous and weakened because some of the copper molecules are dissolved out of the alloy. At least that's what I was told 30+ years ago by an experienced handloader, and I'm not willing to be a guinea pig to prove whether or not he was right. After I learned about this I had to destroy several boxes of WWII 7.35 Italian rifle ammo that I had cleaned with a household brass cleaner that contained ammonia. Even way back then Italian military ammo was very scarce and cost an arm and a leg if you could find any, and it really hurt to crush it so it couldn't be fired.

Good input, I'm sure there are plenty of brass cleaners out there that contain ammonia. Always safety first, even if it hurts the pocketbook as it did in your case...