Removing hard water stains from wet tumbled brass

A

ADClope

New member
Hi all,

I'm new to reloading, and recently started learning the wet tumbling process using SS media. Used dawn dish soap and some lemi shine (which should help with water spotting). The brass looked fantastic when I removed it from the tumbler, but without thinking, I rinsed it off in the sink and we do have hard water. Now, after letting it air dry, it doesn't look great anymore. The cases are still quite clean, and from a functional standpoint this won't make any difference I know, but after going through the process of reloading it all, I'd like it to look nice, superficial or not lol.

Now that it's dry, is there a way to remove the water spots safely that you guys know of? Open to suggestions, thanks!

Maybe a stupid question, but can you dry tumble loaded brass? Would this be a good way to shine/clean things up afterwards? Or would this be dangerous?

Andrew
 
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I've found you need to wash the brass really well with clean water after you've completed the tumbling process. That will reduce water spotting. After I rinse my brass, I put the brass in a strainer and let it air dry in my kitchen over night.

You can tumble loaded rounds in dry medium. I don't. Nor would I try it with water if that's what you asking.
 
Put some dishwasher dryer (Jet Dry or equal) before the last rinse. I shake the brass as well as I can to remove most water, then dump it on a towel and roll it around just a bit to remove the last bit of water from the outside. Never had problems with spotting, at least on the outside.

And yes you can tumble loaded ammo. Lots of people do it, so to the manufacturers, just takes about 10 minutes to remove any residual fingerprints or sizing wax. It *might* remove the water spotting. And no, the primers won't detonate causing all of the ammo within 2 miles to explode. Use cotton gloves or plastic gloves to handle the ammo after cleaning.
 
I agree that you need to rinse real well . I'll add two things that I believe help . 1st is use hot water to rinse . 2nd is to move the cases around after sitting for 20 min or so .

I often tumble hundreds at a time and after rinsing I spread them out on a towel to dry . After about 20 min I grab 2 corners of the towel and lift until all the brass is at the other end . I then do the same thing with the other two ends of the towel . This allows the cases to roll around on the towel soaking up the larger water spots before they dry onto the cases . Then spread them back out to dry fully .

To be honest I'm not completely sure of the timing . It could be best to do that after only 10min . I just do it shortly after I first lay them out . The other thing is to spin as much of the water out/off of them before laying them out on the towel for the first time . I use a media separator for this .

I have both of these and they both work good with the platinum model having a few benefits the other does not . Like being able to close the top to stop the media from flying out . It also has drain holes in it with screening .

https://www.amazon.com/Frankford-Ar...-6&keywords=frankford+arsenal+media+separator

https://www.amazon.com/Frankford-Ar...-2&keywords=frankford+arsenal+media+separator
 
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I'm with MG,
HOT water, fluff them around in a towel or throw wash cloths/towel scraps in the seperation with them, tumble them around a little.
'Shakes' & wipes the water droplets off them that cause spots...

I'm throwing sponges with wax in them in the separator now, seeing how that works.
I only want wax on the outside, the sponges do that and the separator makes it easy.

I'm trying lubed sponges in the case feeder the next time I load.
Lubing is a pain in large volume, tossing a few sponge scraps in the case feeder is an easy solution *IF* it works...
 
First of all, doing any brass cleaning in kitchen sink is really not a good idea.

Hard water stain doesn't affect how the round shoots. If you worry about, you have to remove the water from the surface. A towel and some manual labor will work.

-TL
 
When air drying my cleaned cases, I first put a paper towel in an aluminum baking tray. I then lay the cases in on their sides with the case heads all facing the same direction. After that, I set the tray down with one end propped up as high as I can so any remaining water can drain down from the case mouths. By doing this, I no longer have water spots. Apparently, all the remaining water drains down into the paper towel before it evaporates, and takes any dissolved minerals with it.

Your water may be harder than mine, so the above might or might not work for you. However, given that it involves only adding a paper towel to your current routine, I'd say it's worth a try.
 
All of the above advice is spot on (or in this case, is it "spot off"!!! :D ), especially the extensive rinsing.

One thing that I am doing nowadays is using Armorall Wash & Wax rather than the dawn soap. It seems to prevent some of the water spots and tarnishing that can occur post tumbling.
 
ADClope,

To answer your question directly, you will want to retumble with citric acid (lemishine) to dissolve the water marks off. You should not need to use detergent again.

Buy a gallon of distilled water. After rinsing thoroughly in tap water, put a cup of the distilled water in and tumble with just that for a minute. Drain it and repeat. If you can still find water marks after doing that, go for a third time; but that's unlikely to occur.

Incidentally, I finally got annoyed enough at special rinsing requirements that I installed a reverse osmosis purifier under one of my sinks. The one I got has a de-ionizing filter and it produces water with even lower conductivity than some of the distilled water I've bought. The one I got after some research was this one, but there are other options out there.
 
Thanks so much guys. Fantastic advice! Will try these methods in the future to see which one works well. Thanks again :)
 
And then there is me, if I wanted stains on my case I would I would use something with acid like lime shine, etc. and then there is vinegar. I use vinegar to reduce the amount of when tumbling the worst of cases, and then? I do not make it a habit, once I have rescued the cases from 6 days of tumbling I do not allow the cases to get into the 'worst of case condition' again.

And I use tumblers, I have one that holds 1,000 30/06 cases, I do not use it but I have it just in case. I use tumbling media and nothing in my tumblers. I know, but I fight the urge to say "I used a giggler of this and a spoon full of this", again, I use tumbling media and nothing.

After I tumbling put my cases away, I know what air does to the cases but it does not take me long to throw a bunch of cases into a bumbler when I want them 'looking good'.

F. GUffey
 
Isn't really anything to worry about. Brass needs to be clean not shiney. However, water softener is just salt. Hard water is usually just lime and/or chalk in the water. The guys who make medalguy's Jet Dry also make a Hard Water Detergent Booster that takes it off. Lotta extra work when a regular tumbler does it all with one tumble.
"...letting it air dry..." 15 minutes in a 'warm'(lowest setting) oven on a cookie sheet will dry 'em as dry as they'll ever get. Don't touch 'em for another 15 minutes when you take' em out.
 
Martha Steward will be giving reloading tips soon and we'll be reading "Family Circle."
Hard water stains on cases? Oh, the humanity!
I take my wet cases, throw them in a large towel, connect the ends and shake to remove most of the water. Then air dry over night. I've never seen a water stain on a case.
May all your problems be small ones.
 
I eliminated the water marks as follows:

1) Add a teaspoon of rinse aid to the final rinse.
2) After rinsing drop the cases into a towel, grab the ends and raise/lower in a reciprocating motion to remove excess surface water.
3) Place the cases in a stainless steel basket somewhere warm to dry, and shake 2 or 3 times during the first 30 mins.

Incidentally: to keep the brass from tarnishing during longer term storage, clean using an automotive wash and wax product (optionally with added citric acid); the wax keeps them from tarnishing too quickly.

..
 
Depends on the water. I used to live in a town whose water came from wells cut into limestone. After a year of dealing with the deposits it left, we got Culligan to start delivering softening tanks to the house. The salesman came and ran a test showing the town water had 35 grains per gallon dissolved solids. He said they considered anything over 10 grains per gallon extremely hard. The USGS uses 180 mg/liter as the boundary for "very hard", their highest category, and that works out to 10.5 grains per gallon, so Culligan's classification was close enough.

That water would build up deposits in iron pipes until they choked closed. The deposit in this picture is lightweight compared to the sectioned length of replaced water main I saw at the local college. You couldn't boil rusted steel in that water for rust bluing as its stopped the normal reaction and the rust stayed red. And the water "marks" left by it were heavy white streaks you could mark a chalk board with. All the aluminum pans you boiled that water in were etched by it until very heavy oxide layers formed. Until then, the water boiled in them tasted metallic.

That stuff rubbing off in dies and getting all over your press and shell holders could develop into an issue, perhaps promoting corrosion. Anyway, you get the idea. There are water marks and then there are Water Marks.
 
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