I recently started reloading and am doing it on the KISS philosophy. Using a Lee Breech Handpress, I am not anxious to invest is the various media mixers and tumblers, takes up too much space...

As a dentist with a lot of older equipment in the basement, I found a small ultrasonic that was put into retirement when we purchased a larger unit. My thought was to use it with a solution of 70% vinegar/30% distilled water. Then let the cases air dry. Final touch would be to hit the cases with a bit of hand rubbing with either Mother's Metal Polish or plain old 00 steel wool.

I probably would not be doing more than 100 rounds at a sitting. What do you think?

Thanks, any comments, suggestions, criticisms welcome.

if you dont mind doing that small a batch at a time it should work fine - however dont use vinegar - as it could affect the brass. use something with citric acid - the commercial stuff from the reloading companies does or just go straight water & see if you like the results

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Steve

Vinegar works just fine. The old NRA cleaning solution was about 2 cups of white vinegar, 2 tablespoons of salt. a few drops of dish soap, mixed with water to make one gal. No, mixing vinegar and salt does not create HCL. Even if it did the solution is so mild it does not matter. A strong acid can not be made from a weak one.

Yes you can use citric acid instead. It can be purchased on line cheap free shipping by the pound.
https://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=citric

You can skip the distilled water, just use tap water.

Rinse the brass well after using any mild acid solution.

You do not even need the ultrasonic unit. Just mix in a bucket stir or shake let sit 20 minutes, rinse and done.

I have cleaned range brass like this.

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Still Running Against the Wind

Swirl them around in a bucket of water with some barkeepers friend.Rinse them off a couple of times,roll em around in an old towel and lay them in the sun to dry.

I've cleaned thousands plus with Dawn, and lemon concentrate.

I start out with hot water, to cover the brass in a bucket, Dawn dish soap (great degreaser) and lemon concentrate, about a quarter cup or less... depending on the amount of brass...200-300 plus at times.

I stir them up a bit, let them sit for 10 minutes, (their clean, almost instantly) pour them out into a sieve, and rinse in hot water several times. I lay them out on some old bath towels in the sun to dry.

The brass comes out terrific. The dirt and carbon soot is gone, they look bright and when dry, ready to load. But I tumble them to help capture any remaining moisture and to shine them to a new finish, with corn husk media and some polish... because I love the shine. And they look better than new after that.

Before this method of washing, I would go through lots of media and time to get them clean. Using this method, I get many repeated uses from the media. It stays so much cleaner longer.

I use to use Birchwood Casey, concentrated case cleaner. It did
wonderful job. Rinse in water and let air dry. Then I got smart
I buy a concentrated solution, by Gallon, that the H/Vac guys
use to clean out coils on AC units. Much cheaper and works as
well. I still give a good rinsing in cold water and let air dry. Both
these solutions leave a clean dull finish on brass, you have to
put them in polisher if you want shine on your brass.

Hot water and 5 gallon bucket work just fine for me.

Too much trouble to do small wet batches.
Dishsoap and water work very well, and is necessary if the cases are covered in dried mud.
For cartridges simply fired and picked up, a cheap vibratory tumbler and walnut shells are far easier and quicker.

I shoot a lot, so I have no interest in making case cleaning a complicated multi-step chore. IMHO, hand polishing brass is cruel and unusual punishment.

I'd forget about steel wool and vinegar (acid) around brass cases.

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Science plus Art

Terrific suggestions, I thank you all very much!

I will also give one of the wash & dry methods a try. Do you de-prime first and does wash clean grit from primer pockets and cast bullet grease residue from inside case mouth?

I think hand rubbing those cases with anything is gonna "dilute", (pun intended) your enthusiasm quickly. In any case, if you use water, get the RO purified kind.....no spots. Good luck, jd45

Vinegar is acetic acid. It looks like acetic acid CAN be bad for bronze. I will look further.


UPDATE: Oh, man. Acetic acid is BAD for brass.


And citric acid has a bad effect. If I were to use either of these I would only expose them for a short period and then rinse then thoroughly.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

You know, saying acetic acid is bad for brass is like saying HCL is bad for pools. Have you looked at the molar content for the acetic acid you are talking about using? People drink the stuff, for crying out loud. It is called PICKLE JUICE!!!

The same for citric acid. It is a weak acid that doesn't ionize very well in water.

I have used a lot of vinegar, and a fair amount of citric acid. Take a look at what the active ingredient in lemonade flavored Kool-Aid is. You might be surprised to see it is citric acid. Oh, no. WE ARE FEEDING THIS STUFF TO OUR KIDS! THEY WILL ALL BE KILLED!!!

I apologize if this sounds like sarcasm. I don't mean it to, it is just that I have had this argument for many years with those that really don't fully understand. And I do not mean that personally. But I have read that vinegar will literally leach the zinc out of handgun brass, leaving tiny little holes. How in the world??? Brass is an alloy, which means it is amalgamated at the molecular level. How is something we can drink going to dissolve metal? I am sorry; it just won't happen.

Rule 3 is right in his above post. Try it. It works...

Acetic acetic (Vinegar) is what maybe 5%? So 2 cups in 1 gal of water is how strong.??

All the liquid brass cleaners are either citric or phosphoric acid.

So how much difference are those than vinegar. Good Grief.

While tumbling cases in an abrasive media provides the best finish, extremely dirty cases can be decapped first (using a non-sizing die) and then washed in one of the following solutions. The final rinse in soapy water helps prevent tarnishing. All of these methods were approved by Frankford Arsenal and will not weaken your brass.

• A 5 percent solution of citric acid (available from your drugstore) and warm water for about 10 minutes. If your water is very hard increase the amount of citric acid. You can add some Dawn™ or Cascade™ dishwasher liquid soap (which does not contain ammonia--be careful some do), 409, or Awsome to the solution for extra grease cutting ability. Follow with a rinse in hot soapy water (Ivory™ works well) and allow to dry. Don't overuse the citric acid or the brass may discolor.
• A solution of 1 quart of white vinegar and 2 tablespoons of salt. Soak with some agitation for 15 to 20 minutes and follow with a rinse of soapy hot water and allow to dry.
• A solution of 1 quart of water, 1 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup laundry or dishwashing detergent, 1/8 cup salt. Soak with some agitation for 15 to 20 minutes and follow with a rinse of soapy hot water and allow to dry. This may leave brass with a slight pinkish cast which will disappear with a short tumble in media.
• Military arsenals use a heated 4 percent sulfuric acid dip with a little potassium dichromate added. The solution is heated until bubbles rise slowly without it boiling and the cases are dipped into it for 4 -5 minutes using a basket of copper screening or plastic. A final rinse using plain hot water is followed by hot water with Ivory™ soap in it and the cases are left to drain and dry. Because of the use of heated sulfuric acid this method is probably impractical for home use but is given here to show what can be safely used.

Cases which have been fired several times and which show signs of carbon build up internally can be rinsed in straight paint & varnish makers (P&VM) naphtha available at any paint store. Decap, soak for 5 - 10 minutes, drain, allow to air dry and then tumble as usual. Cases will be sparkling clean inside and out but not any shinier.
An interesting idea is to use an "air stone" and a small air pump from a fish aquarium tank to agitate the liquid cleaning solutions.

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Still Running Against the Wind

Materially human tissue is nothing like the structure of metals so the comparison is apples to oranges. Even though vinegar or a citric acid mix is dilute, Also TIME is a factor. That's why I meant not to soak and leave them for a week and then come back. And the corrosion charts do give citric and acetic acid 'severe attack' rating with brass but it doesn't name the dilution so I do agree that a bottle of vinegar out of the pantry probably won't have much effect in the short term. However, people do make their own concentration of citric acid and it will probably be stronger to clean better.

Brass exposed to DRINKING WATER undergoes dezincification in tap water in some regions of the country. The zinc is taken out the brass leaving the soft copper. You twist the faucet and it breaks off in your hand.

PS No sarcasm was intended at all in this comment.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I bought a tumbler from Midsouth Shooters Supply along with 10lbs of corncob media and a bottle of brass polish. I think it set me back about $65 for all of that. It's their "store brand" and so far it seems to be good quality. I drop the brass in the tumbler and let it run overnight. Next morning I turn it off and then empty it and bag the brass whenever I have the time. In all, I spend a total of 15 minutes of actual hands on time on my cleaned brass. The tumbler does the rest and the brass looks better than new.

Well, just cleaned some cases this morning, used tap water, a bit of lemon juice conc., a few drops of Dawn dish soap and put it all in the ultrasound for 10 minutes, rinsed and voila, damned cleaned cases! Didn't take long. I should mention that I did de-prime them first so that the primer pocket would get cleaned. There is some marking on the cases but not too bad at all, I may hit them with a little 00 steel wool just to see how shiny I can get them, but really not necessary. I will try to get some photos and post the results.

For a great many years I have used a citric acid solution along with a little dishwashing detergent for cleaning cases. Many supermarkets carry a powdered product called Lemi-Shine for use in dishwashers to prevent glassware spotting. It is nothing but citric acid plus some anti-caking agent. Citric acid won't harm brass in any way. I often let brass sit overnight in the solution. I usually put a tablespoon of citric acid in a couple of quarts of water. The solution will turn green after awhile. I have found citric acid works better than vinegar. If you wish, add a little vinegar to the citric acid solution.

I buy citric acid in bulk off eBay, much cheaper than buying Lemi-Shine. Most of it is used in my wife's dishwasher, not very much goes for cleaning brass.

I use a vibratory tumbler that I bought from Berry's Bullets. I don't shoot a huge number of rounds at a time but, when I get home I just dump the empties in the tumbler. When it gets full I add a squirt of car polish and turn it on. A few hours later and all the cases are clean and shiny. No need to mix stuff up, no drying required and no hand polishing. Easy peasy.

My house keeper accidentally put a bag of 9mm brass in the washing machine with dirty clothes. Then into the dryer, I heard it banging around in the dryer and took it out.

The brass was a nice as any I have cleaned!!

that's his story and he's stickin to it

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it just needs more voltage

Sam, I did de-prime first and then ran the ultrasonic, all grit was removed in the primer pockets. I did notice that some of the cartridges had a very tiny bit of residue (grease?) on the inside of a the cases but I used a q-tip to quickly remove it. I'm thinking I may run it in the ultrasonic an extra 10 minutes to see if even this residue can be removed.

Haven't tried the ultrasonic. Purchased a vibratory tumbler about 15 years ago, and it works well with ground walnut shells.

Prior to that I used plastic buckets with hot water and dishwashing detergent, rinsed twice, then air dried for a couple of days. Soak for 24 to 48 hours in the detergent solution, then into the first rinse bucket for 24 hours, followed by a second rinse for 24 hours, then air drying (laid out so that air circulation allows for complete evaporation). Works very well with very little expense.

TRY THE LEMI-SHINE (CITRIC ACID) AND A CAP FULL OF CARWASH WITH THE WAX. ANY NAME BRAND. AND LOOK OUT. THEY WILL BE BRIGHT AND CLEAN. JUST RINSE AND SHAKE OFF EXCESS AND LAY OUT TO DRY.

Using walnut shells in Lyman tumbler, I have found it necessary to re clean inner case mouths using fine steel wool wrapped around old brass brush in drill to remove cast bullet grease residue. No big deal, but would be more interested in wet methods if they would remove grease residue.

Well, it's off to the dryer.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I use a vibratory tumbler with dry media and it gets cases like new in a couple of hours of run time. There is no time spent wiping cases or waiting for them to dry - just take them to the loading bench and load them. And if you do that before depriming them (the most convenient routine when using a progressive loader), there is no way a piece of media can get into a flash hole.

I just cleaned 200 .38 Special cases that way and they absolutely cannot be told from new!

Ed

I like my ultrasonic cleaner even though it doesn't put a high shine on the brass. Recipe I use is 4 parts water,1 part vinegar,1 table spoon salt and 1 table spoon dish soap. That is after depriming. Smallish batches also. After rinsing and shaking water out into a rag dry them under a light.