SS media with nickel plated brass, interesting results..

mrblue357

mrblue357

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Not sure if this result has been posted but I picked up a STM tumber kit few weeks ago and was tumbling some nickel plated .223 brass with my regular brass. When I opened up the lid after a 8 hour tumble I was kind of shocked to find all of my brass is now nickel plated lol! I had 300 or so brass in the tumbler, out of which 80 rounds were nickel plated already. I believe those 80 rounds lost their shinny nickel coating and now they have like a black chrome look to them but that coating spread to all the other brass in there.

IMG_1136.jpg

The 3 brass to the left are the same brand of brass that you see in the middle, ones on the right are the original plated brass now with their new look.

IMG_1137.jpg

Anyways thought I would share.
 
mrblue357 said:
Not sure if this result has been posted but I picked up a STM tumber kit few weeks ago and was tumbling some nickel plated .223 brass with my regular brass. When I opened up the lid after a 8 hour tumble I was kind of shocked to find all of my brass is now nickel plated lol! I had 300 or so brass in the tumbler, out of which 80 rounds were nickel plated already. I believe those 80 rounds lost their shinny nickel coating and now they have like a black chrome look to them but that coating spread to all the other brass in there.

IMG_1136.jpg

The 3 brass to the left are the same brand of brass that you see in the middle, ones on the right are the original plated brass now with their new look.

Anyways thought I would share.
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Thanks for posting this picture I have never saw this before.

Graydog
 
I predict this brass treatment to be the newest trend in the online speculation of extreme long range bench/shooting/reloading.
 
I have tumbled nickel 500SW brass but only for a couple of hours, no noticeable change in the finish. Just wondering what would possess you to tumble it for 8 hours? The longest I have tumbled is 4 hours for really grungy range brass that I was testing to see if I could get it clean.

Thanks for posting that, very interesting effect.
 
Pffffttt... That's nuttin.... Should see what happens when you toss something copper in a ultrasonic cleaner with brass cases.... Good way to fool the scrap guy when copper is worth x3 what brass is.
 
i use ultrasonic cleaner. it takes a good 20 minutes to clean Inside and out of 200 .223 cases. and if i want to give a shiny look to them i add polishing solution. i think 8 hours is too much for tumbling.
 
deagle2008 said:
i use ultrasonic cleaner. it takes a good 20 minutes to clean Inside and out of 200 .223 cases. and if i want to give a shiny look to them i add polishing solution. i think 8 hours is too much for tumbling.
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Why does everyone think the worlds going to end cause I tumbled a bunch of nasty range brass for 8 hours lol? Seriously I had stuff to do away from home and wasn't going to sit there and babysit my brass, like I said above if you want "sparkling" brass not just shiny, 4 hours is enough...

Now the big question is do I retumble my 50cal brass for the nickel plated look Muahahaha!! God I love my SS media tumbler :rockOn:


IMG_1139.jpg

This is what you get when you find the end of the rainbow lol
 
I seen this on another website. Someone tumbled some brass and nickel plated .38 spl together and they all came out with a deep blue colour like what you have posted. I just separate my brass from nickel and do them separately. I hardly have any nickel so it is no big deal for me.
 
Hours in the tumbler????? s**t after 45 minutes my brass looks like I glass blasted it.. after 3 hours I start to see case erosion... I use corn media with dillon rapid polish and a few sheets of fabric softener ( to gather dust)

i realy have to get my drum tumble going... I have all the requier components but lack the drive to assemble it and get it working
 
That's pretty cool. You should be able to sell that brass as stealth or tacticool for a premium.
 
hk33ka1 said:
I predict this brass treatment to be the newest trend in the online speculation of extreme long range bench/shooting/reloading.
Click to expand...
Nope. Will never happen. You see, the inside of the case is now contaminated with nickel plating. This will absolutely throw off any groupings you may be trying for. Also, since you have reduced the case capacity, these cases should NOT be fired in any firearm because the rifle will explode due to higher pressures and burning powder coming into to contact with the nickel plating!!! Destroy them immediately!!













or just have fun shooting them. interesting effect. I have some nickel plated stuff but no SS tumbler...
 
What happened is, due to whatever you put in there(water etc, and something to make it something other than inert) with the two disimmilar metal surfaces, created a battrey and cuased electrolytic metal transfer. with the pins likely acting as a transfer conductor. The originally nickel cases lost the surface plate and oxidized, the other cases picked it up.

If you want too see it happen for yourself, take a good ol' potato, jam a piece of copper in one end and a big galvanized nail in the other, leave it for a week and cut it in half.

As far as safety of them, all thats happened is a coating thats less than .0001" (thats 10,000) thick. Now I coould calculate the lost of case volume but it would be a waste of time as it would have no measureable affect. Secondly, the case, ie the brass, is what holds back the pressure, not the plating. so fire away!

Thanks for the pictures, cool to see
 
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