Another Question About Cleaning Brass

[JackEllis]

I understand the need to get sand and debris out of the insides of the cases. Also the importance of removing any case lube before priming.

What I do now is wash the brass in a solution of water and Simple Green (probably be changing to dish soap and vinegar) after decapping, then I die size them, then I wash them again in a similar solution. Other than making the brass look nice, polishing brass seems to be a lot more time and trouble than it's worth. I just inspected 1000 pieces of polished range brass and the reflection made it hard to see flaws in damaged cases.

If I'm producing hunting and plinking loads, what's the purpose of polishing brass by tumbling?

[AGGRO]

Nothing. Unless your case is too long or damaged you can shoot the round, run it through the press and shoot it again and again until the case is stretched or damaged. Some like shiny I wash with vinegar and salt with dawn dish soap.

[thoughtpolice59]

You're fine - I've been washing my brass like that for years - I add a tiny bit of meguires car cleaner as well. Only just moved up to a Rebel tumbler.

[highpower790]

Clean tarnished brass cant be seen when chambered.Alot of people going through too much trouble.
A wise old marine told me years ago...would you rather spend your time reloading,or shooting?

[Red9]

Only reason I wet tumble is to clean the pockets. Too lazy to manually clean them.

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[kcheung2]

That's kind of a false premise. Tumbling brass cleans it, it just happens that polishing can be done simultaneously by adding polishing chemicals. Or not. Personally I don't, I just use crushed walnut. Just dump it into a tumbler and come back in a few hours. And if I leave it for longer, it doesn't tarnish or react.

Some people like you prefer to use water to clean, others use crushed media.

[JackEllis]

kcheung2, perhaps a better way to ask my question would have been, how clean is clean enough? I think what I'm hearing is that other than flushing out loose dirt and debris that could mess up firing, clean enough is largely a personal preference.

Thanks for the responses.

[someoneeasy]

washing and drying your brass two different times seems like more time and trouble than its worth.

Running brass through a tumbler with crushed walnut media is a lot less trouble than washing and drying. I don't need to worry about liquids or if my brass is dry enough to start reloading.

I can run brass through my tumbler for as little as 10 minutes, separate the media, then start loading.

[Calguns77]

If you just wet tumbled with ss pins you would decap, wet tumble with a bit of wash and wax, then dry...cleaned with spotless primer pockets and as a bonus the brass is polished. Plus you would only wash once. Right now your dealing with most of the crappy aspects of wet tumbling but without the benefits.

Clean tarnished brass cant be seen when chambered.Alot of people going through too much trouble.

I dont get this. Its not like squirting a bit of polish into your dry media takes any real amount of effort or time, whats the downside?

[Jimi Jah]

I use an ultrasonic cleaner. I does a great job on the innards. It doesn't make the exterior all shiny but that doesn't matter for performance.

[JackEllis]

washing and drying your brass two different times seems like more time and trouble than its worth.

I'd rather not do this but...the purpose of the first wash is to get rid of dirt and debris that can damage my sizing dies and the second wash is to get rid of case lube from the sizing process. Thus far I've been working with large rifle (.243 and .30-06 cases) numbering in the low dozens and I dry in the oven at 210 degrees (not hot enough to anneal the case heads).

I use an ultrasonic cleaner. I does a great job on the innards. It doesn't make the exterior all shiny but that doesn't matter for performance.

Performance is really all I care about. I could get an ultrasonic cleaner or a tumbler but it's one more piece of gear in a shop with lots of other stuff competing for a limited amount of space. The low tech solutions work well enough and there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to adopt another approach. I'm not knocking what anyone else does, just trying to make sure I haven't overlooked something.

I have discovered that the intense reflection from shined brass makes it more difficult to spot flaws on .223 cases, but maybe that's failing vision rather than a disadvantage of shined brass.

[Jimi Jah]

The ultrasonic cleaner is also used for other stuff like cleaning gun parts, jewelry, electronic parts, etc. It's a handy device to have around.