Cleaning brass

[DesertFox]

I am sure some geezers will chime in to say how they have been shooting/reloading/casting for 900 years and they have never had a problem with lead poisoning.

Geezer here who will attest to (rather than deny) the dangers. 25 years ago or more, was diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning. Lead, antimony, and a list of other undesirable elements. Went through chelation therapy, had fillings removed, stopped short of a tin foil hat.

Certainly more cautious with handling all types of potential harmful substances since. Mostly cured now with the exception of my musical tastes.

 

[mikld]

The brass needs to be free of dirt, debris, etc. to prevent damage to your sizing die. You can do this with a cloth. They don't need to be fastidiously clean. Soak in your solution if you wish; it will do no harm, but isn't really necessary.

Tumbling brass until it is mirror shiny clean is just cosmetic. rockquarry is correct; clean enough to keep grit, dirt. debris off your tools is enough. I also might add clean enough for a good inspection. I reloaded, quite successfully for 12 years before I got a tumbler, occasionally using the old NRA formula (water white vinegar, dish soap and salt). Inspection was my first step so I wiped each case with a solvent dampened rag as I inspected it. No ruined dies no scratched chambers...

Do we rarely see any mention of lead poisoning when talking about cleaning brass because it really isn't a thing? Possibly in theory, but real life?

Case cleaning is one of the steps in reloading that is almost entirely personal preference. Some want shinier than new, insidce and out and some just want to keep their tools clean...

 

[Empe]

I appreciate all the replies ...thank you !

 

[dogdoc]

I have all the vibratory cleaners now and have for many years . When I started I used to just wipe my cases off with a cloth and a little wd40 or something. I never had problem and shot thousands of rounds. All this extreme cleaning is cosmetic. They do look nice but shoot no better. I have never cleaned primer pockets

 

[venomballistics]

i have been reloading for 51 years. With work and kids, never had the time to tumble or clean otherwise. Now being retired I bought all the stuff and now perfectly clean every case before reloading. My reloads now look pretty.

Nevertheless, in the past I never had a failure of any kind. I'm still using the dies I used 51 years ago with dirty cases.

Am I missing something here? Are my sizing dies about to fail?

When he says dirt, what he means is dump the gravel and sand out of it. Not make it suitable for surgical implantation.
That's a different debate

 

[Imissedagain]

Bass Pro in Dania, early on, let us use reloads.
Then it was factory fresh only.
ROs knew me well and advised to tumble so it would pass for new and cover them.
I'd kept a box of factory ammo in my bag to just show them but shot my own after the rule change.
They had no problems with that.

Mainly went there as they had indoor archery to paper tune my bows.

We have a sonic cleaner but always wash the cases with soap/water and dry them in the sun or oven before deprime/size.

I might throw the 460s and 458WMags in the sonic occasionally as it helps them feel a bit prettier and they return the favor by lowering the recoil.

 

[4barrel]

There are lots of ways to clean brass. When I get the grime off <sloshing in a small amount of gas>and pour through a screen =I let them dry and put in my tumbler <corn cob media> and add a little liquid car wax and fresh room spray. They resize easier and smell good. You don't wax your car with a dirty rag. Brass needs to be clean.== Hot soap water works also and dries in a couple of minutes poured on a bench but needs a little spray to resize easier. Sometimes I put on a hot plate and boil in soap and water if it's really dirty<223-308 30 06 range stuff>There are endless ways to clean brass. My shooting buddy tumbles with steel pins with a cheap concrete mixer from Harbor Freight.

 

[BB57]

I’ve been hand loading for 46 years and as other experienced hand loaders have mentioned in the majority of cases case cleaning isn’t required.

There are exceptions.

Cartridges loaded with black powder will last forever (I’ve been using the same 100 cases for black powder loads in my Sharps for 20 years and counting) but the black powder fouling needs to be removed with a wash in plain old soapy water and then a hot water rinse.

Similarly, there are some heavy walled long bodied magnum flex cases that size a little easier if the cases are clean.

For many bottle neck cases, the expander ball passes through a clean neck notably smoother than it does through a dirty case neck.

——

I started out wet cleaning as I couldn’t justify the expense of a vibratory tumbler, and at the time wet cleaning didn’t involve ultrasound.

I’ve used vibratory tumblers now for over 30 years, and they are fairly slow, but also low effort. I address “slow” by having three of them.

There are two sides to tumbling with primers in versus out. As noted tumbling with the primers of has some potential for lead exposure as any residue from lead styphnate and lead peroxide could become loose and trickle through the flash hole.

But that can be mitigated by reactivating your media with a polish additive often enough to keep the dust down, and/or wearing an N95 mask or respirator when emptying the tumbler.

That same risk is much harder to mitigate with wet tumbling, if you are handling the wet cases at all without latex or rubber gloves.

Decapping before cleaning mitigates the risk as well. It makes it easier to dry the cases with wet tumbling and it cleans the primer pocket with wet or dry cleaning.

However dry tumbling decapped cases can result in cleaning media (corncob or walnut) getting stuck in the flash hole. If you don’t check for that you’ll break decapping pins.

I’m also middle of the road on the concept that cleaning makes case inspection easier or more effective. For the most part, no. The bright line of an incipient case head separation is much more evident on a dirty case than a clean one. The dark crack of a partial separation is just as easy to see on a dirty case as a clean one. Neck and case mouth cracks might be slightly more obvious with a clean case, but the difference isn’t significant.

 

[38SPL HV]

I also don’t tumble but ensure cases are wiped clean always (kitchen paper towels). You may want to try 4/0000 extra fine steel wool to help clean extremely tarnished brass cases…few spins of the cases in it and voilà new looking brass! Yes, use it only on brass, not nickel plated.