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I recently ran into a new issue. I have wet tumbled over 400 pounds of brass with my current setup with no real issues. I have run into some small things here and there and learned along the way. But the problem I ran into recently was totally new to me and just would not go away.
I was bulk tumbling .223/5.56 brass. The brass was typical for the most part. A little dirty from shooting but no corrosion or anything on 90% of it with a few dirty/discolored (dark) pieces I picked up along the way.
I started noticing that when draining off the water it was not it's normal dark brown/blackish color but instead it was green. After separating my pins and rinsing I found that all of the cases were a light green. My first thought was that the discolored cases caused this. I thought nothing of it and tried to tumble the same brass again to get rid of the green but all it did after 3 more hours of tumbling was lighten the green only slightly.
I decided to try a fresh batch without mixing in any range pickups. Before I tumbled again I cleaned the inside of my tumbler and double checked that my pins were clean. I ran a smaller load of 15# of pins and 10# of brass. I got similar results. I tumbled them a second time and again it only lightened the shade of green. I cleaned the pins and the tumbler again and tried with a different soap......same results. Green water and light green tinting to the brass.
I searched all over the internet. I read thread about cleaning with vinegar/salt/water but decided against this method due to some things I read along the way. I saw others peoples fix was to simply dry tumble the cases to get the shine back. I went as far as pricing out a dry tumbler because I wanted to fix these cases.
I went back to the drawing board. I tried to think of what I was doing different. My method was always hot water, a .40 casing full of lemi-shine (I use large vessels for bulk brass) and a squirt or two of dawn dish soap tumbled for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It then occurred to me that lately I was getting lazy and just pouring a bit of lemi-shine in my hand and dumping it in the tumbler rather the measuring it out. So I decided to start fresh with a batch of the green tinted brass because at this point I had about 40# or more of it. I went back to the old recipe and measured out the lemi-shine. The only other change I made was to go with only 15# of pins but 22# of brass since I had so much of the green brass. 1 1/2 hours later I checked the brass. I poured out the water and it still had a slightly green hue but when I poured out the brass....BINGO. All shiny and new like it is supposed to look.
I had no idea that too much lemi--shine could cause such an issue and even with all of my searching nobody really pointed to that as an issue for green brass. I did see a reduction recommended for slightly graying brass or if someone was using a teaspoon or more.
I tried one more load of mostly clean brass mixed again with about 10% range pickups and again it came out like glossy new brass.
The moral of the story here kids is if you get lazy and start eyeballing on some stuff you may end up causing yourself a lot of lost time and frustration.
I was bulk tumbling .223/5.56 brass. The brass was typical for the most part. A little dirty from shooting but no corrosion or anything on 90% of it with a few dirty/discolored (dark) pieces I picked up along the way.
I started noticing that when draining off the water it was not it's normal dark brown/blackish color but instead it was green. After separating my pins and rinsing I found that all of the cases were a light green. My first thought was that the discolored cases caused this. I thought nothing of it and tried to tumble the same brass again to get rid of the green but all it did after 3 more hours of tumbling was lighten the green only slightly.
I decided to try a fresh batch without mixing in any range pickups. Before I tumbled again I cleaned the inside of my tumbler and double checked that my pins were clean. I ran a smaller load of 15# of pins and 10# of brass. I got similar results. I tumbled them a second time and again it only lightened the shade of green. I cleaned the pins and the tumbler again and tried with a different soap......same results. Green water and light green tinting to the brass.
I searched all over the internet. I read thread about cleaning with vinegar/salt/water but decided against this method due to some things I read along the way. I saw others peoples fix was to simply dry tumble the cases to get the shine back. I went as far as pricing out a dry tumbler because I wanted to fix these cases.
I went back to the drawing board. I tried to think of what I was doing different. My method was always hot water, a .40 casing full of lemi-shine (I use large vessels for bulk brass) and a squirt or two of dawn dish soap tumbled for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It then occurred to me that lately I was getting lazy and just pouring a bit of lemi-shine in my hand and dumping it in the tumbler rather the measuring it out. So I decided to start fresh with a batch of the green tinted brass because at this point I had about 40# or more of it. I went back to the old recipe and measured out the lemi-shine. The only other change I made was to go with only 15# of pins but 22# of brass since I had so much of the green brass. 1 1/2 hours later I checked the brass. I poured out the water and it still had a slightly green hue but when I poured out the brass....BINGO. All shiny and new like it is supposed to look.
I had no idea that too much lemi--shine could cause such an issue and even with all of my searching nobody really pointed to that as an issue for green brass. I did see a reduction recommended for slightly graying brass or if someone was using a teaspoon or more.
I tried one more load of mostly clean brass mixed again with about 10% range pickups and again it came out like glossy new brass.
The moral of the story here kids is if you get lazy and start eyeballing on some stuff you may end up causing yourself a lot of lost time and frustration.
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