Brass Shining Made Easy!

[mrdaputer]

This debate has gone on for years and years. My take is Armor all wash and wax instead of Dawn 'casings will stay shiny longer' with ss pins and a tad of lemi shine.

[hounddawg]

the reddish tint on the brass was not caused by the citric acid leeching anything, it was there all along just hidden by the blackish tarnish.

When brass oxidizes there are two types of oxidation. The common type is black (CUO) in color and this is dissolved by citric acid. Under it is another layer of oxidation which is red (Cu2O) in color. Citric acid is worthless on that type of oxidation. Before cleaning the brass looks black since the black oxidation covers up the red oxidation. Take the CUO (black oxidation) away and you reveal the CU2O (red oxidation) which was there before cleaning, you just could not see it for the black oxidation.

Polish off the pink with a tumbler or non ammonia based brass polish, or just leave it. Never Dull works great, but always examine those cases. As long as the brass is not pitted it is safe. If you see any pitting then toss it. I normally clean mine off with neverdull so I don't get into 30 minute discussions at the matches to explain why my cases are pinkish. That is when I examine my cases closely for pitting, or any other signs the case's life is at the end.

Hope this helps clear up any misunderstanding and if you want to get down into the weeds on this here is a much more indepth paper on the oxidation process of brass

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...69433211014826

[schmellba99]

Armor all wash and wax instead of Dawn 'casings will stay shiny longer' with ss pins and a tad of lemi shine.

Yep. Switched over to the Armor All a few years back, glad I did. The wax coating does a couple of things:

1. Protects the brass from darkening or discoloration from oxidation. Also prevents water spots.

2. The wax lubricates the brass and prevents galling that you get with bare brass on dies. Even carbide dies can gall brass. I lube even my pistol brass anyway, but the wax coating helps to alleviate any galling and you simply need less lube as it is.

[azar92]

Perhaps this is a silly question, but can you use walnut media in a rotary tumbler if you don't want to deal with wet tumbling? If so, how well does it work?

[GCbroker]

I use one squeezed Lemon with the rind with a few drops of HD dish soap with hot water in a tub with two palm sanders mounted on the sides. I can do 500 223 cases at a time. I get the same results.... Super Clean and Shinny.

[edfardos]

white vinegar (acetic acid) seems to work in the same way. water, vinegar, couple drops of dish soap. i didnt like the pink rust (thanks for the chemical analysis on that), plus it seems to oxidize faster after cleaning. the fix was to also tumble in cobb/almond media with a few drops of Nu Finish car polish. this shines them to a mirror and seems to coat them with an oxygen resistive layer.

in my observation,

edfardos

[supercub99]

I've looked at sonic cleaning and wet ss pin tumbling over the past few months as more and more shelf space seems be shifting to that. For the past 40odd years I've dry tumbled, mostly turning on the tumbler at 10 pm and shutting it off in the morning. Brass is shiny new but the primer pockets still need work. Life was good, my brass went from box to gun to box to tumbler, no biggie. After reading a bunch of reviews and a lot of the folks pretty much were of the opinion that as long as it was clean outside, what the heck. I decided to cut a case in half and see just how clean or not it was.

Here are the cases, one that had been reloaded 5-8 times and tumbled and another same vintage one that had been in a wet media tumbler 1 hr.



Quite a difference to say the least. I also anneal and often ran into different reactions to the same setting on my Annie with the same brass. Looking at the inside of the necks, I wondered if that had an affect?

Sonic seemed fast but involved heating and chemicals which wasn't too appealing. That left wet ss media tumbling. Looking at all the units available and a ton of reviews and opinions, I came to the conclusion that most issues could be addressed with controllable units, tumbler and dryers.

I went with a CED tornado tumbler because of the controllability and it is designed just for this purpose. Being able to set the rotational speed and the ability to have it reverse directions along with a timer is a plus. The unit also has some nice features, quick cover open, second strainer cover and the thing weighs 28 pounds, solid!

For a dryer I found as many have that food dehydrators are the same thing. Again, I wanted something temp and timer controllable along with treys with raised center to keep the brass contained when moving trays. The Hamilton beach 32100A filled the bill.

I set it all up and ran the first batch of (130 pieces) brass, took an hour with Sonic cleaner solution and Lemishine, both of which came with the Tornado as sample sizes. I ran the dryer for an hour and 15 min at 150 deg which was plenty to dry the cases. After that I annealed and all reacted the same, no more variation.

All in all, I think it's a good setup and time wise with the timers, it's at my convenience, I can do it all in an afternoon or spread it out all day while I do other things like loading ammo. As always, it's not the only way and the only right components but it certainly works.

[jag2]

So I've read umpteen threads on wet tumbling, with and without SS pins, with and without citric acid, blah blah blah. Also read about crushed walnut and corn cob and Nufinish. So my dumb question is, has anyone tried wet stuff in vibratory cleaner, assuming you can make it leak proof? Just wondering if anyone will admit to trying it before I short out my unit.

Sorry, I thought I started a new thread. My bad.

[supercub99]

I hear you, I've read em all as well and thought one more wouldn't hurt.

You pose a good question that I pondered as well. First thought is that the ss pins would fall to the bottom and stay there and polish themselves, not a good thing. You could try it though and I doubt very much you would burn up or short out your unit. The stem on mine comes up to the top so unless you filled it up with Alaskan gallon of water, you should be alright with a little bitty texas gallon.
Dust and time wasn't my excuse to look into other means, it was that nasty looking inside of the case. Like I said, it may not make any difference but it sure won't hurt and that's my line in the sand when it comes to things like this.
Let me know how it works if you give it a shot.

[hounddawg]

Occasionally I get anal and clean the primer pockets on my rifle cases, most of the time I will not, I have not noticed a bit of difference one way or the other. Now what does make a difference for me is polishing the case necks but a old bore brush and a Dremel takes care of that as fast as I can pick up the cases. That is always my first step in case prep. I am seriously considering a harbor freight tumbler and steel pins just so the necks will get cleaned.


Oh and the red tint on washed cases is Cu2O tarnish which is present on any case that has been subjected to water or stored in an area with High humidity. When you clean cases with a non abrasive method using a mild acid the black tarnish (CuO) is removed but the Cu2O is not. When using steel pins or a dry tumbler the red gets polished off with the black. The copper leeching is just an old wives tale, ask any chemist or naval engineer

[hounddawg]

After sleeping on it I am about ready to pull the trigger on a wet tumbler but have one last question that is bugging me

How do you get the pins out of the cases afterwards? Seems to me the wet pins would want to stick to the inside of the cases. I have a case dryer which works well since the wife banned me from using her cookie sheets and the oven. Do the pins come out easily after a trip to the case dryer.

[supercub99]

I was somewhat concerned about that too but I found that after rinsing, I dumped the cases and what ever pins were in them into a Cabela's media separator and spun it for a minute reversing direction every couple revs. You don't need to put the top down on the unit, that was for dust when separating dry media, and you can see when you've gotten all the pins out.
I will say, when doing .308 cases, I have found 5 cases so far with pins just inside and across the necks. Easily picked out but still something to watch for. I have yet to find any in primer holes and none just falling out.
You will want to have one of the collapsing magnet tools to snag pins from the cracks in the separator and any that take flight...and they do occasionally.
The Cabela's unit is ok, the Lyman might be better if it doesn't have the shell adjustment opening in the bottom. That is a pin snagger.
In the end, you will handle those cases more than enough to get any wayward pins to fall out although I'm frankly impressed that I haven't found any yet after 3 runs. The whole process is much easier done than described. If you want to watch a great U tube, google CED Tornado reviews and watch that one, the one done by the company.

[ed308]

"How do you get the pins out of the cases afterwards? Seems to me the wet pins would want to stick to the inside of the cases. I have a case dryer which works well since the wife banned me from using her cookie sheets and the oven. Do the pins come out easily after a trip to the case dryer."

I use a Frankfort Arsenal pan made to fit in a 5 gallon paint bucket. Everything gets dumped in the pan then I run clean water over the pan and bucket while I swirling the brass around the pan with my hand. The pins separate easily from the brass and fall into the 5 gallon bucket. After draining most the water from the bucket, the pins get dumped back into the tumbler where they're stored. I tried Frankfort's ball media separator but didn't like it using it. It throws water and pins around.

https://www.amazon.com/Frankford-Ars...X23ZZ0JFMNRZ5V