What do you guys use to clean your brass cases

Rstjean

Rstjean

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I am going to start reloading my own handgun ammunition and I was just wondering what you guys found cleaned the brass the best before reloading. I would like to clean around 1000 rounds at a time.

Thanks Ryan.
 
used to use Thumblers Tumbler, then went to lemon juice and water with dash of dish soap. Now vibrator style with green media. Got lucky and picked it up with media at the lumby gun show for 40.00. Just make sure you leave primers in as its a pain to get out of the flash holes
 
SS media in a home made 20 liter tumbler. I do 1500 or so .223 at a time. 2-3 gallons of 9mm or .45. Less is more when it comes to soap or lemishine. Less than a tsp of each is enough.
 
I think you can see the overwhelming preference for SS tumbling!!!

I use it too, and it's really good. Costs another 100$ or so up front, but then you're set. Frankford is about 100$ less than a Thumlers. I don't think there's a Thumler's dealer in Canada, so the 1.4 dollar will kill you. Cabelas carries the Frankford. I think both are really good.

-J.
 
Until I can get money to pay to start wet tumbling, I do it this way:
- throw all brass in media (doesn't matter what to me) to clean it for 2-3 hours or a a few days as I have gotten busy once in a while and forget haha
- sort the brass - nicer, more consistent brass/needing trim brass goes in one pile and plinking brass (majority of it) goes in another
- plinking brass goes through the motion and then one final hour to get the resizing lube off then loaded
- nicer brass/stuff that needs to be resized (usually use it for my nice consistent loads that I am getting more and more into making) gets polished with ss wool then tumbled with corn cob and polish after its been worked. Then loaded.

Seems like a lot but I enjoy it!
 
Frankford vibratory, pet store walnut and a couple teaspoons of car polish, I use the Simoniz polish cuz it was the cheapest. Works like a charm.
 
For me I've found the best for my needs is an ultrasonic cleaner. I can't do 1000 at a time but the cleaning cycle is only a few minutes for a batch of brass which fills my two cupped together hands. I rinse and lay out one batch while the next is going through the cleaning cycle. So I can clean 1000 to 1200 small cases easily in an hour. Larger cases fill the cleaner too much so it's a bit slower due to smaller batches. Mind you I'm using a rather small cleaner that doesn't even hold a liter of cleaning solution.

For the cleaning solution it's 3 parts water, 1 part cheap white vinegar and a small dollop of liquid laundry detergent.

Hand gun ammo is cleaned primer in so the outsides are nice and new looking while the insides are a brassy looking dark grey. Rifle brass is deprimed before cleaning and comes out looking new inside and out.

This does remind me that I should order up a new larger tub model so I can up my throughput.....
 
Lemi-Shine & Dawn, 3 minutes in the ultrasonic and it shines better than new. Toss it in the tumbler with Princess Auto walnut shells and brass polish for a few hours and they look too nice to shoot.

Even without de-priming the cases are spotless, de-priming would be the best though if you have the time.
 
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