I used to believe in cycling self defense ammo, shoot it up and buy fresh. Today with the scarce availability of good self defense ammo like Hydra-Shok, (backordered till December), that isn't as viable as it used to be. So over time, ammo becomes tarnished. On a whim, I poped a round out of my mag yesterday and cleaned it with a bit of Brasso on a paper towel. It shined up like new money. Do you see a problem with this as long as you use it scarcely and keep it away from the primer pocket, or better left alone?

Polish away. I've done this several times over the years (tho with Flitz) and never had a problem due to it.

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Now go make God proud...

I put mine in the tumbler and give it a whirl

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NRA Member

And THAT I wouldn't do.

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Now go make God proud...

Nor would I.

Flitz is amazing stuff and will not hurt anything. I just bought another large tube from Midway on sale.

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Still Running Against the Wind

A LITTLE tumbling of loaded ammo won't hurt. Tumbling it long enough to remove brass tarnish could be risky.

I don't clean loaded ammo at all. Am I missing
something? I don't see the need to clean ammo
but if I should let me know. Don

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"Don't worry be happy"

Yes, there is a problem with this. Ammonia based polishes like Brasso will cause Nitrogen embrittlement of brass. Several months after using Brasso you will start to notice case necks with cracks caused by the stress of the pressure exerted by the bullet. Even before this you may see cases which split on firing as the ammonia causes the brass to lose ductility.

If you watch the reloading forums this is a frequent question and always someone who will argue "I have done it and never had any problems"! Take it from someone who discovered this on his own more than 30 years ago before it was widely known. Lost literally hundreds of cases due to this years back.

Glad I asked. Thanks!

I clean ammo with a Kleenex or paper towel. Seems to work. Paper is a mild abrasive.

One reason why I don't use auto pistols more for defense work is that I don't like emptying magazines and putting the wiped ammo back in. The cartridges tend to get worn. In times of ammo shortages, this gets to be a serious issue.

T-Star

Why would you need to empty a loaded mag and reload it? No reason to wear the springs, and the ammo shouldn't corrode in the mag.

Have I been away from humidity so long that I've forgotten about this? (It's possible . . . )

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Now go make God proud...

I rotate my loaded mags every month or two in my automatics with the exception of my Glocks (they will rebuild the mags as-well-as the gun at the GSSF matches for free). The others get rotated due to the springs weakening while loaded for a long time. I screwed up and left a couple a M1 Carbine 15 round mags loaded for more than a year and they now have feeding problems(need to buy some springs). This can happen in any mag if left under max pressure long enough. If we are talking plinking mags---not a big deal, if we are talking hunting mags---piss you off, and if we are talking self defense mag--- might get you killed from the "lack of shooting back"

Rounds will tarnish/corode in mags in the right (or wrong if you will) enviornment, Your fingerprints to do the job the first time you touch the brass/copper and will continue until stopped, cleaned, or shot.

My advise is to fire off your old carry loads every 3-6 months, don't worry about target loads (unless you see the green/white powder off of those old military surplus rounds)---shot them when you shot them, The mil surp. I mentioned clean them with Flitz or 0000 steel wool to get the heavy **** off.
Oh yea, resist the temptation to touch the pretty rounds in the box, Leave you buger finger off until you load them. Wear a glove and load the mags to prevent finger print tarnish on the rounds.

Talk to an engineer: on a well-made spring, it's the compressing and uncompressing that wears. Constant compression is not going to wear the spring. You'll wear your mags out faster doing what you do than just letting them sit. Seriously, talk to an engineer.

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Now go make God proud...

Actually, you're both right, or you're both wrong, depending on how the spring is designed and the material it's made from.

If the material will creep under stress (as most materials do), then leaving the spring compressed over a long time will shorten it. If you look at a used recoil spring for a 1911, it will be shorter than a new spring. If the spring is properly designed, there will still be enough length and force to operate properly. Use cheap materials or bad design, then leaving your mags loaded will cause functioning problems.

Even with proper steel, it's strength deteriorates by about half as it is cyclically loaded and unloaded up to about a million cycles. If you design for the million cycle yield strength, no problem. Likewise, if you don't cycle it much, still no problem.

The practical answer is to use quality magazines, and you probably won't have any problems no matter what you do. If you want to be a bit more conservative, don't cycle the mags more than necessary.

And, yes, I are a mechanical injuneer, with one of those Piled Higher and Deeper thingies.


Buck

I've used Simichrome Polish to shine up Brass and my stainless 460 XVR, It helps take the discoloration off the Cylinder created from firing those high pressure loads.

The tube I had was left over from my mechanic days, been around a long time and still works great.

Also don't need to use but a drop or 2 so it goes a long way.

Gentlemen, i see where people are afraid to clean loaded ammo in a tumbler
I have been reloading ammo for about 40 years now, and every time i am
done loading i always clean my ammo in the tumbler as a final polish before
putting the ammo away. i dont know why there is concern about this, i have never had any problems in 40 years, and i load 12 different calibers. other than wearing out a tumbler faster, Have Fun with shinier bullits.

Everything I have read advises against tumbling loaded ammo - something about changing the burning rate of the powder by breaking it into smaller chunks.

Tumbling loaded ammo in walnut shells (no additives) will clean it up and will not harm it in any way.

Magazines can be left loaded for 100 years and the springs will not weaken.

Carry on...

Yea, I'm not sure I want to tumble loaded ammo for a number or different reasons......right now all my ammo is in pretty good shape except for a few hundred rounds of .50 BMG......I guess maybe hand polish with a low speed buffer wheel.....?

Semper Fi!

Do you suppose that typical $30 magazines, such as used in M&P pistols for example, use "proper steel" and proper design that would enable such magazines to be continuously fully loaded for several years and still function reliably?

I'm with you. The cosmetics aren't important to me if it goes bang every time.

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Oh well, what the hell.

But then you read "I just got my new XX pistol, and can't load the last xx round(s) in the magazine?"...and ten responses say "load up as many as you can fit, and leave it sit for ___days. Then you'll be able to fully load it."

Something's obviously going on...

Tumbling loaded ammo is potentially dangerous. The burning rate of many kinds of powder is controlled by size of the individual grains or flakes. The powder companies add flakes of different size to standardize the burning rate. With spherical powder, inhibitors are added to the mix. Tumbling loaded ammo can cause flake powder to break into smaller pieces resulting in faster burning powder. I'm not sure if it would do anything to spherical powder. I just wouldn't do it. Use Flitz or Semichrome polish on a cloth or paper towel.

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Dick

There is absolutly no proof of it changeing the burn rate, the powder is not exposed
to any change on the brass and bullits get polished. 40 years and perfect ammo everytime. Dont believe what does not make common sense unless there is real
documented evedense of this. ive seen no proof of this and ive been tumbling loaded ammo since 1973.

Reposting on a 7 year old thread doesn't make sense, but since this has been resurrected I will.

Your remarks are absolutely incorrect! You are 180 degrees off. The correct way to look at this is to "Heed such advice unless there is documentable evidence that it is incorrect." You will never have an issue by not doing something you have been advised against, but you could well come to grief by doing what you have been advised against. Contrary to your assumption it does make perfect sense that polishing loaded ammunition by either vibratory methods or tumbling could, and likely will, cause unseen damage to either the powder charge or primer. It probably will not make the ammunition dangerous, but could result in irregular/erratic performance including mis-fires and squibs if the primer is damaged by the vibrations.

This reminds me of the situation years ago, of which you may have no knowledge, concerning H-110/296. Guns were being blown up, squibs, etc. from reduced charges! Counter-intuitive, isn't it!!! But it was happening. Eventually Winchester only published Maximum loads, and advised to not reduce more than 3%. Hodgdon continued to pooh-pooh the idea that reduced charges could cause problems, but after several years Hodgdon finally acknowledged that there was a problem and began publishing only Maximum charges, and to not reduce more than 5%!

Do you really want to be the first, or one of the few, that discovers there really is a problem with tumbling loaded ammunition????????? Anecdotal tales of "I've been doing it for years and haven't had a problem", are just that, tales that always leave off the most important word at the end, YET!

Do what you want, when something goes wrong you probably won't admit it could be the result of tumbling loaded ammunition, after all "It doesn't make sense to you!"

BTW, I really didn't "Like" your post, just did it in hopes you would come back to see what was said.

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Gunsmithing since 1961

I don't worry about "tarnished" casings. Now pitting and verdigris is something that I will clean of and examine with a loupe. Pitting is NOT good. Verdigris can conceal pitting underneath the "green".
I bought some 250 rnd boxes of Speer Gold dot 124 gr HPs a coupla years back. A good price because they were only tarnished. Tarnishing is NOT pitting. At least not at a level we need to worry about. (Yeah, ok, on a microscopic level. I'll give you engineer gurus that one.)
These Gold dots are what I train with and use for SD.
I will pull and toss any cases with pitting.
And no, I don't tumble loaded rounds for any reason.
My reloads get walnut hull tumbled and as long as they are clean and smooth, I don't care how pretty they are.
But that's just me.
YMMV.
And I've been reloading since the late 70's. Rifle, handgun. and even LR precision.

since i have been tumbling loaded ammo since 1973, with 100 percent success, i do believe that proves to me, that your myth is just that a myth. but people believe what they want to believe, so if you believe that, then
dont tumble your loaded ammo, but with as much success as i have had with it, i will non stop because of internet rummers. I haave found that there are people on gun forums that think they have expert advice on things that they have absolutly no experience in. I have been building high end custom 1911s for 30 years now and i still have these internet experts giving me advice. its just the way the gun world is.

Facts:
1. Ammo manufacturers tumble their loaded ammo before they package it for sale.

2. Magazine springs will not set by being left loaded. They will be effected more by constant loading and unloading than being left loaded.

It is not dangerous to tumble loaded ammo and not bad to leave magazines loaded. It u2s just as true now as when this thread was started 7 years ago.

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

ArchAngel, you are correct about the ammo and the mags, good to read
someone else with common sense

Think I'd skip the buffer !
Eddie

That is not true. Tumbling will not harm loaded ammo and will not change the burning rate of the powder.

all ammo manufactures tumble there ammo before packaging. life is complicated enough without making up myths and rumors about not tumbling ammo. who dreams
up this **** anyway

^^^ BS gets half way around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.

Oh, and smokeless powder does not make good fertilizer.

I'm just going to walk away!

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S&WHF 366

What's going on is initial creep (deformation); give it enough time under the same compressive load and it will surely fail.

Some people just don't think logically. If they did they would realize that no ammunition box comes with a warning about not leaving it in your truck. The vibrations from some of the dirt roads and fire trails that I have been down has got to be worse than a couple of hours in a tumbler.

The subject of tumbling ammo comes up frequently.

Geoff Beneze, a former employee at Dillon Reloading did a test on tumbling rounds. Some were tumbled for as long as 6 months, running 24-7. He found no degradation in the powder or performance.

I would never advocate that kind of tumbling, but it proves to me that tumbling loaded rounds for 10 minutes to remove case lube, in the case of reloading, or to polish dull brass isn't going to cause any problems. As for claims that all manufactures tumble rounds after assembly, that is NOT true. Some do, some do not. However during the manufacturing process, the loaded rounds do go through processes that tumble them about, such as during boxing. And they also go through a lot of shaking and bouncing around during transport, certainly more than 10 minutes in a tumbler.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

The OP, from many years ago, was about SD ammo becoming tarnished over time. IME , all of the good quality SD ammo I've ever bought had shiny nickel cases. I can't remember ever seeing tarnished SD ammo. EVER! Never thought about polishing SD ammo. I cycle through it maybe every two years or so.

Yes. Cycling is what kills the spring

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Magazine springs should be/are designed to be cycled, not indefinitely compressed. Either way, imperfections in crystal lattice structure of economical steel used for manufacture of magazine springs limits the useful life of practical springs -- certainly those used in $30 magazines.

The what? Do some more research. $30 mags are typically quality mags. If you're paying more for most of them you're being ripped off. Even HK mags, which are expansive and quality, run $35 - $45.

I have compressed mags for years and when I take them out they run like new. Afterwards I load them up and they sit for years. People with 1911s have mags loaded from ww2 that still work fine

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Stuff tends to get a little green here in the bootheel unless you're storing it in controlled conditions . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Ever bend a paper clip back and forth . . .?

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Whenever yield strength of any solid metal is substantially exceeded, shaped into a paper clip or not, plastic deformation and reduction in load bearing cross sectional area occurs rapidly which quite often leads to failure. This is hardly the mode of failure in magazine springs, which are usually not made of paper clip type material.

I never implied or suggested that $30 magazines cannot be fully compressed/loaded for several years and still function.
However, if you are implying that you can fully load such magazines and maintain them fully loaded for several years and yet obtain the same number of loading cycles thereafter as with brand new magazines -- we will agree to disagree.

What do you mean by "same loading cycle? As in each time it's loaded and unloaded? In that case i don't know, I don't count. I have mags from 20 years ago that still work fine and I use them ...if not weekly then definitely monthly. I have battlefield mags that are original from conflicts and wars. They were made in the 60s, 70, 80s AK mags from Yugoslavia and FAL mags from Rhodesia)...and I still use them to this day. My carry mag is from the ban era. I've been using it for 7 years. Works just fine. So I suppose a new one may be loaded 500,000 times where as mine have 400,000 left.

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Do me a favor and search this subject on this forum and read the multiple threads regarding keeping your magazines loaded vs. not . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

And yet the springs in my Cavalier are sagging after less than 17 years....

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Yes, a loading cycle refers to loading a magazine and then unloading, as would be done in normal operation.
Again, if your point is that a fully compressed magazine spring in a typical $30 magazine is unaffected by such continuous compression for extended periods of time, and that only "cycling" the spring "kills" the spring, we disagree. Both cycling and time under compression are factors that "kill" springs in typical pistol magazines.

I'm familiar with the content of such threads; as with many threads some opinions are more valid than others. However, I have not encountered a factual explanation how mechanical failure of a paper clip that is repeatedly bent is relevant to the failure mode of pistol magazine springs. Perhaps you can enlighten me on your paper clip/magazine spring analogy.