Anyone tumbled with walnut media/baking soda. Don't want to be put anything down my barrel with acidity but would like shiny brass.

I tried walnut but wasn't too impressed. Never tried it with baking soda. Works a little better on really tarnished cases but I still prefer corn cob with a little polish added in . All my reloading equipment is in my shop and totally separate from the house so I typically load up the tumbler, turn it on, and let it run over night with the corn cob/polish combo. Brass comes out the next day looking way better than factory ammo.

Sounds like a mess!
Some medium grit walnut shell seasoned with a cap of Nu Finish works fine. Decent corn cob media works fine. Just avoid the cheapo kitty litter stuff made from full cobbs.

When you get too far off the well traveled (proven) road on some of this stuff you have got to ask... Why?

I've been happy with walnut, but I only use it with Flitz tumbler polish, and corn cob with Flitz works either as well or better for me. I'll never go back to tumbling without polish, the difference is night and day. I've never tried baking soda.

Baking soda is not acidic, it is the opposite of acidic (alkaline). That is why is it used to neutralize acid on car batteries, etc.

I have never tried it on brass.

Mike

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NRA Certified Pistol Inst.

I've used walnut media treated with Jeweler's Rouge for 40 years in the same Thumler's Tumbler Model B. I see no reason to change.

Just buy rouge treated walnut media , it has a red color to it.
It's made for polishing brass , it does the job better than any thing you can come up with....pet bedding , corn cob , car polishing additives....I've tried it all.
The media made for case polishing is the correct size and will polish the cases to look like new.
In the long run , it's the most economical thing to use....trust me!

Gary

I'm a walnut with a tablespoon of Brasso kinda guy. Been using that for years. My goal is clean with purdy secondary.

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Randy
Provenance nerd

Now you've gone an done it!

I am making popcorn!

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Still Running Against the Wind

What is the baking soda supposed to do?? I use walnut & a bit of Nu-finish or a 50-50 mix of Walnut & corn cob.= w/ Nufinish. Toss a used dryer sheet in strips, helps with the dust.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

My guess is the baking soda is a mild abrasive.

Hey! If quinn wants to use sodium hydroxide (ammonia) on his brass it should be totally up to him.

Corncobs and a bit of auto polish works just fine.

I've used walnut hulls for 50 years. I did have to do a replacement when the cat thought it was litter. About 40 years ago, I bought a quart of jewelers rouge liquid that is about to run out. I've tried the other stuff, but always go back to the walnut hulls. An occasional used dryer sheet helps and replace the media when it gets really dirty.

Ammonia has the chemical formula NH3.

Sodium hydroxide, commonly known as lye, has the chemical formula NaOH

They are not the same chemical.

You could adopt a hybrid approach.

After decapping, I immerse my brass in a weak acid solution with a little detergent. The weak acid solution can be either citric acid (i.e. Lemishine) at the rate of 1 teaspoon per gallon of water or acetic acid (vinegar) at the rate of 2-4 ounces per gallon of water. Agitate the container for a few seconds every five to ten minutes for about a half-hour. Don't go too much longer or the brass will turn pink with the Lemishine or tan with the Vinegar. If you do leave it too long, don't worry, tumbling overnight will restore the shine.

After the half-hour is over, empty the container, rinse the brass in warm water and dry on an absorbent towel. Your brass will be noticeably shinier. It won't look like you tumbled it for hours with Lemishine and stainless steel pins, but it will be shinier.

Inspect your brass, resize it and then put it into your walnut media for an hour or two. Tumbling in the walnut media will remove the resizing lubricant and put a nice shine on the brass.

This is what I do and the result is much more pleasing to me than just walnut tumbling alone. For my purposes, it is the optimal combination of time, investment in equipment and results.

I have never tried corn cob media, but I assume it would produce similar results.

I used walnut, until I tried the cobs. Don't use walnut anymore...

edit -- and with polish

I used to use corncob, until I got a deal on a big bag of fine walnut. I just use it naked (no polish, occasionally a dryer strip) on fired brass before decapping/sizing. Produces a great-looking finish, doesn't clog flashholes, and lasts longer than the cob ever did. Never looked back.

Larry

Your brass will never know the difference. Both cause hydrogen embrittlement.

I tumble to clean the cases. I've never had a tarnished round fail to fire.

You may want to avoid using any compounds that contain ammonia as they are prone to cause stress corrosion cracking on brass.

I also use NuFinish liquid car wax and dryer sheets with Lizard liter which is fine grained walnut. I have a large vibrating tumbler so I add 2 cap fulls. Usually lasts for about 2K rounds of 308/556 before having to add more..

elpac3 wrote:
What you are talking about is what is known as "season cracking" and is attributable to prolonged storage of brass cases in an environment with a high ammonia concentration (caused by the decay of animal urine). Compounds like Brasso do contain ammonia, but the concentration is so low and the exposure time so short that there is little to worry about unless you intend to store the brass for a number of decades.

And it should be noted that because of my particular disability, I did, invountarily, end up storing brass for approximately 21 years; including brass polished with Brasso, and while upwards of 25% of brass stored during that time corroded beyond use, about 2% of the brass polished with Brasso suffered from any significantly tarnishing.

MichiganScott wrote:
Hydrogen embrittlement is a consequence of the accidental introduction of hydrogen during forming and finishing operation. Brass that is being tumbled has already been through forming an finishing operations. Generally, this happens occurs with steel and not brass. If you have a citation to an authoritative peer-reviewed publication demonstrating hydrogen embrittlement of brass by short-term (i.e. minutes) exposure to hydrogen-bearing compounds (not elemental Hydrogen) after it has been smelted, mixed, drawn and formed into its final shape, I would be interested in reading it. As it is, I see no mechanism for such problems as season cracking or hydrogen brittlement to occur after an exposure to Brasso for the average of three to five minutes that such polishing would occur.

Little Billy was a chemist: Little Billy is no more...

What he thought was H2O was H2SO4!

CHEERS!