Can you colour brass cases?

Trinimon

Trinimon

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Well I've scanned the internet looking to see if there was an easy way to colour cases. The main way was to use amonia fumes after a day or so to give it a darker patina.

I did up some dummy rounds for a couple friends and one asked if there was a way to mark it so they could easily tell live ammo from the duds. I figured I've got some Outer's Gun Blue and Birchwood Casey Aluma-Black kicking around, what's the worst that could happen right?

This is what I got from Aluma-Black. Don't mind the blotchy look, I don't think I properly degreased the dummies before applying the black. The ones with Outer's Gun Blue came out light grey and didn't look very good.

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I gave them a light buffing after washing them off and the black held. Actually it started looking like polished black chrome. It'll probably scratch off after a few chamberings but meh.

I'll try the Aluma-Black and Gun Blue on some nickel brass cases tonight and see...
 
I've read about formulas for creating different colors for brass cartridge casings.

I'll see if I can find them again.
 
You could pickup some "brass black". It's used for antiquing brass and is available at many gun stores. I don't know which chemicals are used for aluma-black or brass-black so I don't know if one would work better than the other.
There are some home-electro-plating kits you can buy for not too much (unless you want silver or gold). Not too useful though since the colours wont be too different from what the cases already are sometimes (nickel, copper, etc.)
 
If you planning on shooting them after? If you are amonia is the LAST thing you would want to be coming in contact wih brass.

Google anything about ammonia and brass and you will have numerous articles stating the connection between them and rapid stress corrosion cracking and embrittlement.

Dummy rounds, meh do whatever and see what works.
 
Red Sharpie.

Seriously.

That's what I used to colour all my dummies. Scratches a bit when clambering but you'd have to chamber it a thousand times to scratch it to a point where you couldn't tell it was a dummy. And it only takes 3 seconds to reapply anyway.
 
I found red sharpie didn't last very long on the outside of the cases and I didn't like it rubbing off on the inside of my chamber. I ended up just putting it in the extractor groove and just above the neck. Has lasted - couple of months so far without wearing off.
 
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