Case cleaning

[XD Niner]

I tried rice, walnut and corn cob with and without car polish. The rice didn't seem to work worth a darn when dry and became very sticky with the polish added. The walnut cleaned will but didn't polish well even with the car polish added. The corn cob seems to work the best especially with the polish added. I'm sticking with it. YMMV.

[bagdrag]

My $.02, YMMV.

For me the best combo has been Corn Cob and and a small amount of Walnut w/ polish. I tried Corn Cob and polish only at first and I noticed it didn't clean off the perm marker ink off my cases. When I switched to my current combo the brass started coming out almost perfect. What I also see is the walnut actually breaking down much faster than the corn cob and eeking out as black dust, so every once in a while I need to add new walnut to the old corn cob w/ a small amount of polish for each cleaning session. The corn cob can be replaced when almost black. This works well for me.

[wsimpso1]

Some things to think about and a strong caution:

Ammonia is poison to work hardened copper alloys and will cause splits. Bullet jackets, primer cups, and cartidge cases all qualify. Hoppes #9 has ammonia in it. Cleaning cases with any ammonia based solvent is BAAAAD! I know, you don't use much, and you have gotten away with it, but one kabboom from a case split, and you will wish that you had not.

The biggest question that you need to answer with regards to tumbling is: What do you want? Assuming that you use carbide dies and you don't lube cases:

The minimum is "I care about the ammo feeding and firing on cue, then extracting and ejecting". Beyond that there is "I want my brass shiney" and "I don't want my brass to turn brown while it sits around".

Different stuff for different needs:

Clean is best accomplished with walnut - it is hard and has abrasives imbedded. It will lean the outside of the cases and most of the ash from the inside. If you de-prime first, then tumble in walnut, you will have gotten most of the primer ash out of the primer pocket too. Walnut may put a frosted finish on brass. Walnut wears out and gets dusty - when it takes too long or leaves your ammo dirty, it is time to toss the tubfull. Your ammo will work fine when just clean;

Polishing requires a finer grade and softer abrasive than walnut, and corncob with a bit of jewler's rouge is the easy way to do this. Jeweler's rouge is Fe2O3, so it is a lousy polishing agent on steel, which means that it won't wear on your gun. Clean and polish with corn cob/rouge will take longer than with walnut, or you could clean with walnut and polish with rouge treated corn cob. Corn cob does not wear out - you can add more rouge, but when it gets dusty, it is time to replace it. Polishing looks nice, but neither the gun nor the target cares. If you must have polished, have at it.

"No brown ammo" is another topic. I have acid fingers and that has made really clean cases acquire brown fingerprints. A long time ago, I learned that a tablespoon of automotive antifreeze in the tumbler with each batch of brass puts enough glycol and corrosion inhibitors on the cases to keep them from turning brown.

Me? I de-prime cases and then tumble in walnut, treated with automotive antifreeze. My primer pockets get cleaned and the cases stay corrosion free while they wait their turn to be shot.

Now for rifles, you will want everything clean once (walnut) and then after sizing you will need to clean off the lube (corn cob/antifreeze). Rouge added to the lube removal run makes 'em pretty too, but is hardly necessary.

Some folks add small amounts of mineral spirits to keep down dust.

Later

Billski

[Radical Precision Designs]

Some things to think about and a strong caution:

Ammonia is poison to work hardened copper alloys and will cause splits. Bullet jackets, primer cups, and cartidge cases all qualify. Hoppes #9 has ammonia in it. Cleaning cases with any ammonia based solvent is BAAAAD! I know, you don't use much, and you have gotten away with it, but one kabboom from a case split, and you will wish that you had not.

The biggest question that you need to answer with regards to tumbling is: What do you want? Assuming that you use carbide dies and you don't lube cases:

The minimum is "I care about the ammo feeding and firing on cue, then extracting and ejecting". Beyond that there is "I want my brass shiney" and "I don't want my brass to turn brown while it sits around".

Different stuff for different needs:

Clean is best accomplished with walnut - it is hard and has abrasives imbedded. It will lean the outside of the cases and most of the ash from the inside. If you de-prime first, then tumble in walnut, you will have gotten most of the primer ash out of the primer pocket too. Walnut may put a frosted finish on brass. Walnut wears out and gets dusty - when it takes too long or leaves your ammo dirty, it is time to toss the tubfull. Your ammo will work fine when just clean;

Polishing requires a finer grade and softer abrasive than walnut, and corncob with a bit of jewler's rouge is the easy way to do this. Jeweler's rouge is Fe2O3, so it is a lousy polishing agent on steel, which means that it won't wear on your gun. Clean and polish with corn cob/rouge will take longer than with walnut, or you could clean with walnut and polish with rouge treated corn cob. Corn cob does not wear out - you can add more rouge, but when it gets dusty, it is time to replace it. Polishing looks nice, but neither the gun nor the target cares. If you must have polished, have at it.

"No brown ammo" is another topic. I have acid fingers and that has made really clean cases acquire brown fingerprints. A long time ago, I learned that a tablespoon of automotive antifreeze in the tumbler with each batch of brass puts enough glycol and corrosion inhibitors on the cases to keep them from turning brown.

Me? I de-prime cases and then tumble in walnut, treated with automotive antifreeze. My primer pockets get cleaned and the cases stay corrosion free while they wait their turn to be shot.

Now for rifles, you will want everything clean once (walnut) and then after sizing you will need to clean off the lube (corn cob/antifreeze). Rouge added to the lube removal run makes 'em pretty too, but is hardly necessary.

Some folks add small amounts of mineral spirits to keep down dust.

Later

Billski

+1

I like walnut shell for getting out the crud. I wish the time was available for depriming before tumbling, but the number of cases I go through is humongous. So I must continue life with "dirty" primer pockets.

Now and then I will put in a capfull of Dillon's Rapid Polish #290 (It does not list ammonia as an ingredient) into the walnut.

Billski has gotten me into thinking with the "glycol" additive ...? I have some leftover samples (from Dow Corning) of "pure" polyethilene glycols at various molecular weights (from R&D with synthetic lubricants), including one with a molecular weigth of 3350 which makes it into a "solid". I wonder if mixing a little bit of it with the walnut and then a little bit of the mineral spirits (to keep dust down!?) would be the ticket for me?

After cleaning, I usually finish it off with a few minutes (5) of plain, untreated corn cob to wick out any walnut/abrasives dust and slight polish. Maybe a little bit of the mineral spirits here too?

After loading, if I have the time, I try to tumble again with just plain corn cob for that final cleaning and shine. Usually fifteen to twenty minutes is fine for me. Maybe adding some of the glycol here may be nice too?

Sounds like something that may prolong the overall life of the cleaning media. I think this may be my new "tickett" if it lives to the potential.

[wsimpso1]

Radical Precision Designs,

I apologize if I mislead. I was just after the corrosion inhibitors in the antifreeze. The glycol is the means for spreading the corrosion inhibiters around in the media. It is a bit lubricous, but was not the main thrust.

Here's the background. Really clean brass and gilding metal will oxidize and turn brown. Not good in commerical ammo. In military ammo, they do not tumble the lube and oxidation off, which leaves it darker and prevents the brown corrosion. At Remington Arms we added an anti-corrosive to our tumbling media for the purposes of keeping bright ammo bright.

The anti-corrosive agents turn out to be the same bunch of chemicals as the corrosion inhibiters used in automotive antifreeze. You might play hell trying to just buy the corrosion inhibiters on the market, and then you have to disperse it into your tumbling media - dissolve it in a solvent is the usual way. It could get fussy. Automotive antifreeze already has the corrosion inhibiters dissolved in glycol. So automotive antifreeze is cheap and easy and works fine for the task. No more brown ammo. And no, it does not seem to influence primers and powders.

Now these glycols... Hmmm. Let us know how the experiment works out.

Billski

[tightloop]

Crushed walnut hulls and a heaping tablespoon of Met-al aluminum polish...shiny, dry, cleans everything, and no cracked hulls unless you count the ones I have reloaded over 15 times...great stuff..

[Radical Precision Designs]

Radical Precision Designs,

I apologize if I mislead. I was just after the corrosion inhibitors in the antifreeze. The glycol is the means for spreading the corrosion inhibiters around in the media. It is a bit lubricous, but was not the main thrust.

Here's the background. Really clean brass and gilding metal will oxidize and turn brown. Not good in commerical ammo. In military ammo, they do not tumble the lube and oxidation off, which leaves it darker and prevents the brown corrosion. At Remington Arms we added an anti-corrosive to our tumbling media for the purposes of keeping bright ammo bright.

The anti-corrosive agents turn out to be the same bunch of chemicals as the corrosion inhibiters used in automotive antifreeze. You might play hell trying to just buy the corrosion inhibiters on the market, and then you have to disperse it into your tumbling media - dissolve it in a solvent is the usual way. It could get fussy. Automotive antifreeze already has the corrosion inhibiters dissolved in glycol. So automotive antifreeze is cheap and easy and works fine for the task. No more brown ammo. And no, it does not seem to influence primers and powders.

Now these glycols... Hmmm. Let us know how the experiment works out.

Billski

Billski-

Yes,I got the "brown fingers/cases" relationship from the anti-corrosion additives in anti-freeze, along with the lubricity part. Somehow I "read" more emphasis into the lubricous part which is no what you meant to emphasize. This brings me into the chemical makeup of these "anti-corrosion inhibitors" as usually found into the automotive readily available stuff. According to their labels some happen to be rather toxic/poisonous to human and other animals (especially dogs and cats ) Glycols by themselves remain benign to use and handling. But as you point out, these corrosion inhibitors is what we should be after. Can you tell us which specific additives were used by Remington, if it is ok to divulge? I know that I have used DuPont's "Ortholeum" ( in very minuscule amounts) as an additve to "preserve" and retard oxidation. But I know that Ortholeum is also highly poisonous and transdermal, so I wouldn't recommend it in any amounts for anyting that I would be handling continually. Don't mean to be a spoi-sports. Can you recommend a specific brand of automotive anti-freeze that is safe to handle in small amounts. Or am I being paranoid without a reason here? My apologies if I am.

I do realize that hand-loading ammo brings us into contact with various unhealthy things, including lead. That is why using protective gloves while handling any substantial amount of ammo is recommended. And, to lighten up things a little: do not ever add your old/used corn cob media into your cats kitty litter, not unless you hate your tom-cat...

[ima45dv8]

A quick and easy way to cut down on dust, and lead exposure, and make your media (especially corncob) last longer is to throw a used dryer sheet in while tumbling. When finished running the brass through the tumbler it will be full of ugly black dust, much of which is lead-based from the priming compound. Gently remove it to a safe waste container before dumping the media and brass.

You reduce exposure from that cloud of fine lead-laden dust that develops when pouring the mix into the separator and your media will last much longer.

[tightloop]

Good idea...I just always wore a Michael Jackson type of hospital mask...

[hiropro]

just get gunk off of them. Not really needed to get them shiny. I like that see it from the space shuttle shine but that is kind of silly. Just needs to be clean. Some people think that tumbling work hardens the brass and it should not be done.

oh well I tumble too much

Hiro