Tarnished cases

G

Gregad

Inactive
How do you get the black left by tarnish off cases? It does not affect the way the shoot, just cosmetic looks. I used my media tumbler to remove tarnish but still left the black color were tarnish use to be.
 
Ideally, you would wet tumble them with stainless steel pins. Lacking a wet tumbler, pour a capful of NuFinish car polish onto your walnut shell media and let it run for 1/2 a day.

Don
 
Plain white vinegar or lemon juice and as bit of baking soda mixed to a paste rubbed on and rinsed well, works.
Leaving the cases in your tumbler longer should clean more off.
 
How do you get the black left by tarnish off cases?
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From the beginning I have cleaned the worst of cases with vinegar. In the old days vinegar saved days of tumbling. Before that is used some bad stuff; when finished with that stuff the cases were black.

And then there should have been questions about the difference; the difference between the bad stuff and vinegar was just under 13 minutes and the absolute mandatory necessity of rinsing cases in boiling water, twice. I never got into the habit of cleaning cases in vinegar; again, I use vinegar for the worst of cases. at the time other reloaders thought it was a crime and or a sin to use vinegar or an acid to clean cases. AND NOW? It is no biggie.

F. Guffey

When I use vinegar I clean in vinegar for 15 minutes once for the worst of cases. After using vinegar the cases are no longer in the worst of cases category.
 
Wet tumble with SS pins, water solution including blue dishwashing liquid and Lemi Shine for a couple of hours.
While hiking in the woods, I found a 260 Rem. case in an area that had been control-burned about 6 months prior. This case was in very bad shape, corroded, burnt, tarnished and weathered. I wet tumbled it with some 30-30 cases, and if it weren't for the caliber difference I could not have picked that case out of the bunch. Still have it on my reloading bench.
 
A tuft of 0000 steel wool and a little light oil will take that black residue right off.
Quick, easy and cheap.... used this method many times....it works !
Gary
 
Must be doing something wrong, a few of my cases with the black spots still have black spots on them after wet tumbling and in dry media. It's only a few, and it doesn't affect anything, I move on. I do like shiny brass but haven't lost any sleep over those few cases yet.
 
I'll second the notion to use 4/0 steel wool and oil thing. It works.

Of course you need a cordless or corded drill to spin the cases.
 
I'll second the notion to use 4/0 steel wool and oil thing. It works.

Of course you need a cordless or corded drill to spin the cases.
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I make spinners, again I start with 3M green pads and finish with steel wool, I have never found it necessary to use lube and or oil. I choose to have nothing between the case and chamber but air; when it comes to choosing how much air I want the minimum amount. I want my cases close to the chamber.

F. Guffey
 
As the fellers noted above; really bad tarnish can be removed with vinegar, but I'm not fond of the stink. I have a few different tumbling media for different uses; cob blast media for most of my case cleaning, walnut for light rust and heavier tarnish on brass and tools, and for really tough stains, rust I use Harbor Freight hard resin tumbling media. Pretty aggressive but less aggressive than ceramic and does an excellent job in my rotary (and a mix with the HF stuff and cob, 25/75)... https://www.harborfreight.com/catal...eatured+Weight,f,Sale+Rank,f&q=tumbling+media
 
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