Cleaning brass

Joined
Aug 5, 2019
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47
Location
Granville, Mass
I have been ultrasonic cleaning brass with hot water, tablespoon dish detergent, 1:3 ratio of white vinegar. Takes about an hour. Once dry I will tumble in corncob and my brass looks new and is clean inside and out. What is everyone using to clean their brass to reload? Do store bought products work better or faster than my homemade cleaner?
 
started with corn cob and vibrating tumbler. went wet tumbling a few years ago. will never go back to corn cob. even real tarnished brass will look like new after a run in my wet tumbler . lemi shine and dawn and water is what i use in my wet tumbler
 
Originally Posted by WhyMe
started with corn cob and vibrating tumbler. went wet tumbling a few years ago. will never go back to corn cob. even real tarnished brass will look like new after a run in my wet tumbler . lemi shine and dawn and water is what i use in my wet tumbler


wet tumbler use pins as media?
 
Originally Posted by WhyMe
started with corn cob and vibrating tumbler. went wet tumbling a few years ago. will never go back to corn cob. even real tarnished brass will look like new after a run in my wet tumbler . lemi shine and dawn and water is what i use in my wet tumbler

Ditto for me. WhyMe's formula is exactly what I do and you can't believe how clean and shiny the brass will be. Franklin wet tumbler and 5 pounds of stainless steel pins. Buy the Franklin kit that comes with the separator and buy a release magnet to pick up the pins you'll drop. I'll never ever go back to media tumbling.
 
Originally Posted by wwillson
Originally Posted by WhyMe
started with corn cob and vibrating tumbler. went wet tumbling a few years ago. will never go back to corn cob. even real tarnished brass will look like new after a run in my wet tumbler . lemi shine and dawn and water is what i use in my wet tumbler

Ditto for me. WhyMe's formula is exactly what I do and you can't believe how clean and shiny the brass will be. Franklin wet tumbler and 5 pounds of stainless steel pins. Buy the Franklin kit that comes with the separator and buy a release magnet to pick up the pins you'll drop. I'll never ever go back to media tumbling.

Same here. I built a wet tumbler from scratch and posted the information and all of the parts a while back. I use Armorall Wash and Wax, Lemishine, and S/S pins. The Armorall leaves a bit of wax behind that keeps them from tarnishing.
 
Originally Posted by wwillson
Originally Posted by WhyMe
started with corn cob and vibrating tumbler. went wet tumbling a few years ago. will never go back to corn cob. even real tarnished brass will look like new after a run in my wet tumbler . lemi shine and dawn and water is what i use in my wet tumbler

Ditto for me. WhyMe's formula is exactly what I do and you can't believe how clean and shiny the brass will be. Franklin wet tumbler and 5 pounds of stainless steel pins. Buy the Franklin kit that comes with the separator and buy a release magnet to pick up the pins you'll drop. I'll never ever go back to media tumbling.


Same Here...
 
I still use a dry tumbler for range pick up brass. It is a good "initial clean" before I deprime the cases. This prevents sand and grass and dirt from clogging up my dies.

After the primers have been removed, and case mouths flared, then I do wet tumbling to clean out the primer pockets and give them a nice shine.
 
Originally Posted by 762fermeandyou
Originally Posted by WhyMe
started with corn cob and vibrating tumbler. went wet tumbling a few years ago. will never go back to corn cob. even real tarnished brass will look like new after a run in my wet tumbler . lemi shine and dawn and water is what i use in my wet tumbler


wet tumbler use pins as media?


i reload a lot of 9mm and 40 for action games. i used to use the pins and it got the inside and outside clean . i have gotten lazy and stopped using the pins on brass that is not tarnished. the outside gets clean by the cases rubbing against each other and the inside get clean enough .

i use pin for exttremely tarnished brass.
 
For dirty range brass , I wash in warm water + liquid dish soap , until I have remove as much dirt as I can . Dry in the oven at 200F . When dry , deprime with a Lee universal de-priming die .
 
Originally Posted by wwillson
Originally Posted by WhyMe
started with corn cob and vibrating tumbler. went wet tumbling a few years ago. will never go back to corn cob. even real tarnished brass will look like new after a run in my wet tumbler . lemi shine and dawn and water is what i use in my wet tumbler

Ditto for me. WhyMe's formula is exactly what I do and you can't believe how clean and shiny the brass will be. Franklin wet tumbler and 5 pounds of stainless steel pins. Buy the Franklin kit that comes with the separator and buy a release magnet to pick up the pins you'll drop. I'll never ever go back to media tumbling.


Thank you. I was reading another forum and couple guys said that they experienced damage to case mouth and had to deburr/trim after tumble.
 
I dont reload a ton yet. I do d-lead in a soda bottle, shake it a while to get the big dirt out... Then small batches in a little tumbler I have, with SS pins.

Make maybe 50 at a time so far. More manageable for me.

With kids around I never wanted to mess with corncob tumbling. Didnt want any chance of any wrong dust or residue anywhere nearby.
 
Originally Posted by 762fermeandyou
I was reading another forum and couple guys said that they experienced damage to case mouth and had to deburr/trim after tumble.
After wet tumbling? I have tumbled at least 40K pieces of brass both rifle and pistol and have not had any issues with needing to deburr afterwards. Trimming has to happen on most rifles cases after a few firings anyway, but the two are not related (tumbling and trimming).
 
I ultrasonic with a bit of dish soap and a splash of lemon juice. Sometimes I'll sprinkle in some kosher salt and it's amazing watching the little grains moving around obliterating everything in their path.
 
Walnut here.

If you use walnut or corn cob, you should wash cartridge inside and out afterwards to get all the media out/off. If any left in cartridge, easy to shoot a barrel out real quick.
 
Home built wet tumbler for me as well. I use a tiny bit of citric acid and Armorall Wash and Wax with the SS pins. Cleans the brass nice and shiny.
 
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
Originally Posted by 762fermeandyou
I was reading another forum and couple guys said that they experienced damage to case mouth and had to deburr/trim after tumble.
After wet tumbling? I have tumbled at least 40K pieces of brass both rifle and pistol and have not had any issues with needing to deburr afterwards. Trimming has to happen on most rifles cases after a few firings anyway, but the two are not related (tumbling and trimming).


yes after wet tumbling. they claimed their trimmed brass had the end of the neck buggered up or peened in. Had to swage out and touch up trim. Since everyone here seems to love wet tumbling, i consider it a moot issue thanks!!!
 
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