Brass cleaning process

N

njsportsman

New member
Just picked up some .556 brass and it's really dirty. Don't care that's what cleaners and tumblers are for. What I want to know is, what is the process. Is it good to deprime and resize dirty brass or is it good to put that dirt in to your sonic cleaner. It's outdoor range brass as it has remnants of an outdoor range. Always got XTreme brass before so now I'm starting from the spent unprocessed brass and don't want to ruin anything so, I'm here for advice. thanks in advance
 
Soak in Cascade dishwashing soap. Those pods. Soak for a day or longer if really dirty. I clean my brass before running it through the depriving and resizing dies. Prefer clean brass. I wet tumble my brass with dishwashing soap, a teaspoon or so of CLR and a pinch or two of Lemme Shine. Once tumbled, separate and blow dry with hair dryer and then spread out on a towel.


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If they have debris caked on or in them you don't want to shove that through your dies. A good soak and rinse and then tumble dry is what I'd do ... if I didn't have a wet tumbler. Better yet, get the Frankford wet tumbler and make your life easier!


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There will be almost as many different opinions about cleaning brass as there are people posting on this site. I don't know that any way is right or wrong. I use a single stage press, so some of this may not work if all you have is a progressive press, but this is what I do:

  • I decap the cases using a Universal Decapping die. That way the case never touches the walls of the die.
  • I believe having the primer out before washing aids drying.
  • Wash the brass for fifteen minutes in a solution of detergent and either 1) one cup of vinegar, or 2) one tablespoon of Lemi-shine, to one quart of hot water.
  • If you have more cases than will fit in a quart container, just increase the mixture proportionately.
  • Shake the container every few minutes to make sure the solution reaches every case.
  • Rise thoroughly in hot water.
  • Lay the cases out on a clean towel to dry.

This will remove the dirt, grime, powder residue and the worst of any tarnish from the cases and allow you to do a thorough inspection of them. I am very selective about what I put in my reloading stream so I expect to cull about 5% of the cases and it doesn't bother me if 15% go in the scrap bucket.

  • Then, lubricate and resize the cases
  • Dry tumble in walnut media to remove the lubricant.
  • Trim cases as necessary
  • Deburr and chamfer trimmed cases.

The cases are now ready to be primed and loaded or boxed up and stored.

Hopefully, this will give you some ideas of what you would like to do in preparing your brass.
 
You can do better, even without apparatus of any kind.

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Deprime first. There is an inexpensive Lee tool and they also make a universal decapper for it. Get some citric acid. I use a lot of it, so I buy it 10 lbs at a time from Duda Diesel. But you can get it as a canning supply from Walmart or as Sour Salt from a kosher foods vendor or a soapy version as Lemishine from Lowe's or other places. If in doubt, try Amazon. I use about a tablespoon plus a squeeze of clear, unscented Dawn in a quart of water for ultrasonic cleaning. After that (results above) a tumble in the usual corncob vibratory machine will polish it, but that's not necessary for functional purposes.

Below is some .30-06 that was in a bag that got flooded.

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Thanks so, I started going through them and I wonder if this is re loadable? I think not but again I haven't dealt with unprocessed brass before. Let me know if they don't work. Don't know how to upload pictures
 
Some of those are pretty bad I would toss- for sure the first one. I take and slide a punch that's just the right size in the neck and place on the edge of my bench and lightly tap the necks as I roll the case and they will be like new.
 
Unclenick,
That first picture of the 45 case shows alloy damage due to the acid you used. The red areas are where the acid removed some of the zinc from the brass, leaving the copper behind. I won't make any rash statements about a one time dip but each time you do that you weaken the alloy.
My first response would be to put that piece of brass in the junk pail.
 
NJ Sportsman, I do these in about 50,000 lot batches,
Its up to you, but that picture looking down into necks, from left to right, #5 & #10 are the only ones I would qualify for resizing the way they sit.

Anything with more than 10% occlusion of the mouth are disqualified.
#5
are the only two that could go directly into resizing die with reasonable results.

The mouth *CAN* be up to, or a little more than 20% occluded, but to recover the brass properly the mouth/neck has to be annealed first before resize is attempted.
2, 4, 6 & 7 will come out of it, but stretched necks will require at least basic stress relief annealing to be 'Right' again.

Anything with a bend that causes a kink is disqualified, along with anything that crushed any part of the mouth down. No amount of work is going to save a gouged mouth, and a kinked case is simply going to crack, unless it's plinking ammo, I wouldn't use it or inflict it on anyone else.
No sense in spending the time prepping a case that is going to crack, too much work involved in that prep for accuracy ammo.

When I get them looking like that (and I get 5 gallon buckets looking like that), I cut them off for .300 Black Out, since the 5.56 neck is GONE, it doesn't effect making the case into .300 BO, and the BO guys are ALWAYS looking for cases.
 
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Just out of curiosity....

One goes to the firearms/reloading-related manufacturers to find UltraSonic cleaners in the many $100s of dollars.

What might be wrong w/ most of THESE under $100 ?

.
 
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Unclenick,
That first picture of the 45 case shows alloy damage due to the acid you used. The red areas are where the acid removed some of the zinc from the brass, leaving the copper behind. I won't make any rash statements about a one time dip but each time you do that you weaken the alloy. My first response would be to put that piece of brass in the junk pail.
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My thought as well
 
I wouldn't waste a minute on that brass, new is not that expensive these days and there are a lot of options for buying once fired.

Unclenick, the .45, agree with shootist.

Highly recommend the universal depriming die usage prior to cleaning. I would also recommend a food dryer for drying the brass. These are readily available at Target, Wall mart etc. and will run about half what the ones stamped Brass Dryers. They are the same thing, come with timers and temp control. At around $45 it's a good deal and will dry nicely in an hour.
 
Unclenick, the only thing I don't like about ultrasonic is anything heavy in the case stays in the case, rocks, heavy sand, etc.
Works great for most stuff, but I can't recommend it for basic milbrass since you just don't know what rode in with the brass.

Hounddawg, all brass is 'Good' brass when it's free, that's why.
I pick up .17 & .22 rimfire, at the very worst it all sells for scrap weight, and at the best someone gifts me some Lapua or Norma or like brass.

The guy above has milbrass from the look of it, and with as many disqualifiers as what I see in the picture, unless there is a lot of stright necks & round mouths he's not showing, I'd say he's picked up someone else's rejects...
It's all good, not too long ago those would have sold for 10 to 15 cents each even dented & mangled, during the so called 'Shortages' that would have been a real find...
 
supercub99 said:
I wouldn't waste a minute on that brass, new is not that expensive these days and there are a lot of options for buying once fired.
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Normally I wouldn't but i paid for that brass. Being green in this process I ordered once fired brass and got what you see. It took me 138 round to get a 100 good ones. I'm no genius but you do the math that sucks. I still have about another 350 round to go through, At this rate I'll probably lose about a 100 to a 150 rounds out of 500. Again no genius but that's horrible. I probably can fix some of them because I've seen videos of people doing it but, even if I can fix 50 of them that is still a high percentage of bad ones. I was buying brass for my handguns from X-Treme Brass and wanted to use my tumbler and brass tools and boy O boy I'm going to use them. Any recommendations for once fired brass? I don't mind working but I want brass I can work on with little throw aways.
 
Are these reloadable?
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Re: Dented case mouths. Yes, if the dents are small the expander plug will straighten them. If more than slight, find some round, tapered tool that will push the dent out (brass is soft enough to bend with just human power), far enough for the expander ball to enter.
 
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