Brass Cleaning

Caledonia

Caledonia

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Greetings all,

Wondering what method you use for cleaning brass - perhaps you don't bother - that's good info as well.
I'm usually reloading .303 British & 6.5 x55mm Swedish Mauser.
I typically decap, clean primer pocket, quick trim, and then toss the brass into the case tumbler with corn cob media. Finally, I use compressed air to blow out the individual shells. How does that compare with your method?
Looking forward to some comparisons.
Regards
Caledonia
 
I concur, I recently went to wet tumbling and it blows traditional tumbling with dry media out of the water. If you shoot black powder its a must in my opinion.
 
I have a vibratory tumbler, a wet tumbler and a sonic cleaner and I use the sonic cleaner the most.

Below is a .44 Special case mouth after wet tumbling with SS media and the reason I bought my sonic cleaner. Wet tumbling would peen the case mouth and during expanding I would get small brass flakes inside the cases. Sonic cleaning does not clean as well as wet tumbling and add the "bling" but you do not get the case mouth peening.

Bottom line, with sonic cleaning you have no dust, no media stuck in the flash holes and no peened case mouths. All three methods have their good points and the above is just one persons opinion.

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I clean outside of necks with RCBS Case Lube - 2 ... couple of turns with a Kleenex. Removes any crud and a bit of the carbon.
On inside necks, a few turns with a nylon brush. My theory is that the remaining carbon is enough of a lubricant so bullets seat easy and provides consistent release. EDIT: I should add that I do not use the expander button for most cartridges, but for those I do, lube inside the neck using a Q tip.
After numerous cycles, I sometimes use a non-grit brass cleaner to restore a bit of shine. None of the shiny brass seems to shoot any better than the stuff that is also clean, but not shiny.
I clean primer pockets with a primer picket uniformer (not a “cleaner”).
 
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Like everything, there isn't one perfect system/method, and we all have our unique requirements. The one change I will make to my method is to slap on my handy respirator when dealing with dry tumbler media.

This post has already been productive. Thanks to all for sharing.

Regards
Caledonia
 
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All three methods have their good points and the above is just one persons opinion. - bigedp51

I'm thinking along that same line.��
 
I wet tumble but don’t use the stainless media
Tried using it once and it was a pita to get the pins out of everything
I found if you tumble a bit longer without the media the brass comes out almost as clean as using the pins so good enough for me
 
I use a Lyman tumbler with walnut media, seems to work good as long as the brass isn't too tarnished, if only doing a few cases I just clean them by hand with steel wool, it is fast and does an excellent job. I don't bother cleaning primer pockets.
 
brewmech said:
vibratory with walnut media and car polish
Click to expand...

Same here. Does a fantastic job. Insides are never very clean, outside is very clean, the flash holes are never clogged up. Princess Auto has a huge bag full of crushed walnuts. Case mouths not dinged up, no drying. I really wanted to do the wet tumble with pins, but my method is sound.
I use NuFinish car polish.
 
Used vib tumbler with corn or more often walnut media forever. Recently (2yrs back) dad helped me build this wet tumbler (stainless pins) and theres no going back i love this process.
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I decap using a universal decapper, seperate per cal to not have cases locking together filling it 1/2 to 2/3 full of water after everythings in with a dot of dawn and a tsp of lemishine. Run it for 1hr, strain the water, fill it up, strain again (only straining out the gross water), etc until the waters clear in the drum. I then refill it 3/4 full and pick the cases out inverting and taping them lightly on the way out to ensure all pins are out of the cases (personaly find it easier getting the pins out when submerged still). Hot rinse them on the way to the drying rack. I dry them on a rack that i need to rebuild which is a wood board with 300 nails (smaller cartridges i can process that at once) and air dry prefferably on the deck in the sun.
After that im into sizing, trimming. To rid of the lube after this process i re-run them for 30 min with only a dot of dawn in the 2/3 full of water/brass/pins in the drum. Once nice and dry again its primer, powder, bullet seating time. Wondered about trying the oven to dry them but havent bothered yet.
 
I dry tumble my rifle brass in walnut and nufinish. I also dry tumble my pistol brass but every third firing I wet tumble it.

Word of advice- don’t buy crushed walnut at the pet store to try and save a few bucks. It works just as well as the reloading branded stuff but it’s dusty as hell, and no amount of dryer sheets will ever get rid of the dust.
 
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