Cleaning brass

[rbhargan]

I know that this is an old topic that has been beaten to death, but bear with me.

I have been using a Harbor Freight wet tumbler with two 3 lb drums. I add 1/2 tsp of Dawn and 1/4 tsp of Lemishine and top off with distilled water. After tumbling for 4 hours I rinse the brass with distilled water, spread out on a towel and wipe off the excess water. The brass comes out sparkling clean - and almost immediately begins to oxidize and darken.

Instead of using Dawn, I switched to Armor All Ultra Shine Car Wash and Wax. It cleaned just as well and the oxidation rate was greatly slowed, but was still noticeable.

I next tried running my cleaned brass in a Lyman vibrator with corn cob media and 3/4 tsp of NuFinish. The corn cob did an excellent job of buffing the brass and it now seems to be much slower to show oxidation. The downside is that the primer pockets and hole become clogged with media and have to be cleared by hand. Since I prefer to deprime before cleaning, this is not a viable option.

My primary concern is getting the brass clean with a minimal amount of effort. While keeping it shiny would be nice, it is not something I am willing to expend much work on. I am wondering if there is a larger grained polishing media I could use instead of corn cob that would not clog the primer pocket. Can anyone suggest a media that would polish and *not* clog the primer pocket?

 

[straight-shooter]

Only differences i see in your process compared to mine is I use regular tap water and as a final step I put the brass either in a dryer bag and hang over the dryer door, run on medium heat for a half hour or I place it in a old food dehydrator for 20 minutes to dry.

When I dry tumbled I never removed the primers and just put up with the dirty primer pockets.

 

[Gluemanz28]

Must be something in the water. Mine always comes out shining good and last a long time.

 

[Dosproduction]

anyone use anything that is manual to clean there brass? Im trying to go no electricity route with everything I can.

 

[NIFT]

Hot water, laundry detergent, tumble 1-2 hours, rinse, drain, and put on towel-covered table (garage) to dry for a day--longer in colder weather. Plenty clean/shiny for practice reloads. If I want high polish, I put them in dry tumbler with media (almost never do this.)

I will use the same water-detergent for as many as three batches of brass. By then, it is quite dirty, but it still cleans the cases.

Edit:
Those three batches add up to about 1,200 dirty 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 acp cases.

 

[ROLEXrifleman]

Man, your making me feel bad! 7"year old media, no polish liquid added, four hour tumble done!

 

[padawan]

What I have learned is the amount of Lemishine is very important to a good cleaning process. To much made mine a dull pale brass. I found that a single .22 lr casing of Lemishine was plenty. I got caught in trying to use to much Lemishine to get a 'brassy' look when the instructions were very clear on the package- To much is not good. We use hot softened well water and dawn platinum to begin the process along with ss pins. Run for 30-45 mins, drain, rinse with cold then place in dehydrator dryer.

YMMV.

 

[Old Bear]

Dry tumble +crushed walnut shells + Nu Finish = clean, bright shinny brass that doesn't tarnish for months. When is takes more than a couple of hours to clean my brass, I toss out the old walnut shells and replace with new.

edit: I clean my brass before and after de-priming.

 

[Bennettjh]

I use corncob media in a Lyman tumbler with primers still in. After they're deprimed, I use a primer pocket cleaner. It is a little tedious but that way I don't have dirty brass in my dies.

YMMV.

 

[t-squared]

Try backing WAY off on the Dawn and Lemishine.....I use the HF tumbler too. and with 1 lb of media and 1 lb of brass I use only a dab/splurb of Dawn and the tiniest of sprinkles of Lemishine. Add enough hot water to juuust cover the brass and tumble for 1 hour. Rinse well and let it dry overnight.

 

[1911ly]

I use Lyman's Turmbo green corn cob media. I cut up a dryer sheet in to one inch strips and toss them in. It collects the carbon and crud. I add no chemicals at all. I have turned some pretty nasty dirty and black brass to shiny as new after a few hours. I am still using 90% of the original media. I have poured on a little to make up for spillage.

My tumbler is a Lyman Turbo. I have tumbled probably 10k plus various cartridges. When I think the media is about shot I toss an extra dryer sheet in it and it starts to look a bit green again.
Don't get hung up on adding stuff. I re-tumbled some stuff for a buddy that he used walnut with some Brasso I think. What a Mess. The stuff was stuck to the inside of the cases. It took a dental pick to dig it out.

 

[oldpink]

I use an RCBS universal depriming die before anything else, then dump the newly deprimed brass into a generic (PAST brand) vibratory tumbler.
I use pre-treated Lyman tumbling media, either the ground corncob or the crushed walnut hulls for around three to four hours, with the tumbler plugged into an electronic programmable light timer.
This gets the primer pockets cleaned out a little bit, albeit not quite as well as using a pocket brush, but enough to make them acceptable to load.
There will be some tumbling media in many of the primer pockets, but that's no big deal at all, since the brass isn't resized yet; so once it's tumbled, I either go right ahead and resize all of it, at which point the decapping pin ejects any media from the pockets, or I just put the brass in a Sterilite plastic tub with a lid, preferably in a plastic bag before going in the tub.
The brass doesn't oxidize very much at all, but oxidation is greatly decelerated in the tubs, more still if in plastic bags, and any media in the primer pockets of the brass stored in there will also be forcibly ejected in my resizing die whenever I get around to loading it.
This has worked for me quite nicely for well over the last twenty years, so why go through all the aggravation when this is so much simpler and works so well?

 

[Broom_jm]

Clean a primer pocket? That way lays madness! Seriously...I haven't cleaned a pistol case primer pocket in 10+ years. I've had virtually zero FTF's and never have any difficulty getting the primer to easily seat to the correct depth. No offense intended to any others, but a lot of old-time reloaders don't fuss with actually cleaning primer pockets. For accuracy, you may deburr the flash-hole on new brass. Processes like cleaning primer pockets and wet tumbling are mostly about aesthetics; they add complexity and time to the process without adding any real value.

For pistol cases:

1) Place cases in vibratory tumbler with whatever media you like, for whatever time you like. I often include half a used dryer sheet and a tiny "dribble" of Nu Finish car wax.

2) Remove clean (modestly shiny) cases and place in RCBS media separator. Close lid, turn handle, allow dust to settle for a minute or two, then dump into a bowl.

3) Load cases on press of your choice.

4) Go shooting again, instead of wasting hours/days cleaning primer pockets and waiting for brass to dry off before you load it.

With media that is relatively new, this entire process, from shot cases to fully reloaded rounds, takes as little as an hour. I sometimes tumble no more than 20 minutes, because clean is clean and shiny is shiny. I only need cases to be clean so I can reload them without buggering up my dies. I frequently tumble the next batch of brass for no longer than it takes to load the previous batch. Some folks go on and on about how shiny brass is easier to find in the grass or at the range. Given how cheap and available most semi-auto pistol or rifle brass is, I'm just not going to spend a ton of time looking for it. Bolt-actions, single-shots and revolvers result in brass that is always easy to find, so no worries with them.

I've seen the process and the results of wet tumbling, and the brass sure does sparkle...but I simply do not get it. Why spend all that extra time when the end goal is to load 'em up and SHOOT!? I like reloading and I like shooting...I don't like sitting around watching grass grow or brass dry. I can maybe see wet tumbling on a large scale, when you're trying to turn the nastiest range brass back into something you can reload, but for the home reloaders like us, it's just a lot more fuss than it's worth.

IMHO, YMMV, n' all that.

 

[Doublehelix]

Clean a primer pocket? That way lays madness!

[Snip...]

Why spend all that extra time when the end goal is to load 'em up and SHOOT!?

Ahhhhh... come on! Spoil sport!!! Shiny impresses your friends and enemies alike!

 

[1775usmarine]

I'll add my polish and let the tumbler run a few minute before adding my brass. It helps cut down on things getting gunked up.

 

[craigkim]

I had the same problem. I found that it happened less when I used cold water to tumble and cold water to rinse. I would suppose that my cold water is not softened, whereas the hot is, but I am not sure. Either way, I look at tumbling with pins as mostly a mechanical process, so see no need for hot water. I also feel like the lemishine (an acid) contributed to the oxidation, so I cut back to very little to no lemishine.

I have found much better results with cold water for a few hours with a few granules of lemishine and a squirt of dawn followed by a few different "rinses" with plain cold water. So, after the first tumble cycle, I just dump the water and add more cold, run for another 15 mins, then do it again until the water runs pretty clear. Usually I run 3 quicker rinse cycles. This means less contamination from the soiled water ends up on your brass during drying. then I put mine in the FA dryer, which is just a food dehydrator relabeled.

As others have said, if you REALLY want it to look new, in my experience, it has to go into a vibratory tumbler even after the wet rotary tumbler. At that point, plain walnut/corncob does pretty well to impart a "buffing" action on the oxidized portions of the brass.

 

[rbhargan]

Thanks to everyone for their observations and suggestions.

One comment did jump out at me and got me wondering whether one of my preconceptions is actually valid - is it really necessary to deprime before cleaning?

Currently, I deprime each case prior to cleaning. Skipping that step would save a lot of time since I could just deprime on my LnL progressive press during the loading process. It would also eliminate the problem of media becoming lodged in the primer pocket.

Oldpink made an interesting observation that during the reloading process the deprimer would dislodge any obstruction in the primer hole. My only worry is that I had media lodged around the primer pocket, but not necessarily in the hole. I don't believe that the depriming pin would have dislodged those pieces.

Again, my primary interest is getting the cases clean enough to not gunk up my dies during resizing/reloading. Sparkly cases that retain their shine would be nice, but are not (in my mind) worth much additional effort.

So, what are the downsides to NOT depriming prior to cleaning?

 

[1775usmarine]

Thanks to everyone for their observations and suggestions.

One comment did jump out at me and got me wondering whether one of my preconceptions is actually valid - is it really necessary to deprime before cleaning?

Currently, I deprime each case prior to cleaning. Skipping that step would save a lot of time since I could just deprime on my LnL progressive press during the loading process. It would also eliminate the problem of media becoming lodged in the primer pocket.

Oldpink made an interesting observation that during the reloading process the deprimer would dislodge any obstruction in the primer hole. My only worry is that I had media lodged around the primer pocket, but not necessarily in the hole. I don't believe that the depriming pin would have dislodged those pieces.

Again, my primary interest is getting the cases clean enough to not gunk up my dies during resizing/reloading. Sparkly cases that retain their shine would be nice, but are not (in my mind) worth much additional effort.

So, what are the downsides to NOT depriming prior to cleaning?

I use to do it but like you would get the holes clogged. The only ones I do anything to are my 223 brass and 357. I would like to have clean pockets especially as these are ones I don't shoot much or don't have a stock of brass for. I would like to develop a 357 load for my 6in GP100 so I figure do it right instead of making plinkers with decent accuracy.

 

[oldpink]

Thanks to everyone for their observations and suggestions.

One comment did jump out at me and got me wondering whether one of my preconceptions is actually valid - is it really necessary to deprime before cleaning?

Currently, I deprime each case prior to cleaning. Skipping that step would save a lot of time since I could just deprime on my LnL progressive press during the loading process. It would also eliminate the problem of media becoming lodged in the primer pocket.

Oldpink made an interesting observation that during the reloading process the deprimer would dislodge any obstruction in the primer hole. My only worry is that I had media lodged around the primer pocket, but not necessarily in the hole. I don't believe that the depriming pin would have dislodged those pieces.

Again, my primary interest is getting the cases clean enough to not gunk up my dies during resizing/reloading. Sparkly cases that retain their shine would be nice, but are not (in my mind) worth much additional effort.

So, what are the downsides to NOT depriming prior to cleaning?

FWIW, I have loaded thousands of rounds using this method without any remaining tumbling media stuck in the primer pockets after the decapping pin is passed trough the flash hole when resizing the brass.
It just pops out, with the only (minor) annoyance being that the primer catcher on my Rockchucker accumulates the little bits of media until I finally dump it out again.

 

[throttletony]

Thanks to everyone for their observations and suggestions.
...
So, what are the downsides to NOT depriming prior to cleaning?

Media coming out (if dry tumbling).
Also, more contaminants from the spent primers. Is it enough to worry me? Not really, but the media would have more chemicals (spent primer mixture) Again, this is in regards to dry tumbling.

If wet tumbling, you could tumble leaving spent primers in, and save a step. From your description, I'd suggest using LESS cleaner - let the pins do the hard work
I still do it the way you mentioned that you used to --> Decap, wet tumble, rinse, dry, reload.

FWIW I do relatively low volume and enjoy the process, so I'm not in a huge rush to process thousands of pieces of brass within a day (more like a couple hundred per month)