quick question......cleaning old ammo

[kritter]

cleaning out the garage, and found two cases, yes cases, 1200 rounds per case of .223 ammo.
it's been out there for at least a few years.. and starting to get all "funky" as in dark tarnish and, some cases are starting to turn a not so nice green color..
so how do i clean them?
is it safe to throw them in the tumbler for a while?, brasso and a few months of cleaning?
or should i just try to save the good stuff and pitch the rest..(not something i want to do)

 

[kritter]

cleaning out the garage, and found two cases, yes cases, 1200 rounds per case of .223 ammo.
it's been out there for at least a few years.. and starting to get all "funky" as in dark tarnish and, some cases are starting to turn a not so nice green color..
so how do i clean them?
is it safe to throw them in the tumbler for a while?, brasso and a few months of cleaning?
or should i just try to save the good stuff and pitch the rest..(not something i want to do)

 

[max]

I have tumbled loaded .223, but never for more than 30 minutes, and I don't fill the tumbler too full.

 

[madcaster]

CERTAINLY DANGEROUS!
I'd be REAL nervous about this if I were you.
Why not just try shooting a few rounds and check out reliability,shootability,and then question yourself as to would you be better off using steel wool by hand-just for safety's sake!
Just trying to give you other alternatives Friend...

 

[Cope]

Wanna sell it?

 

[kennyb]

i too have tumbeled it briefly...no problems...there is no reason it should not shoot perfectly

 

[Ron Thompson]

It is not dangerous to tumble live rounds as in they will go off. But...According to an engineer at Winchester...It is dangerous because most commercial powders have a coating on them to control burn. Tumbling or vibrating (the banging together of the rounds) knocks off this coating and the burn rate changes causing excessive pressures. Also do not use brasso as this "hardens" the brass making it brittle. Use a cleaning compond designed for the purpose. IOSSO makes such a paste.

 

[flop-shank]

Originally posted by Ron Thompson:
It is not dangerous to tumble live rounds as in they will go off. But...According to an engineer at Winchester...It is dangerous because most commercial powders have a coating on them to control burn. Tumbling or vibrating (the banging together of the rounds) knocks off this coating and the burn rate changes causing excessive pressures. Also do not use brasso as this "hardens" the brass making it brittle. Use a cleaning compond designed for the purpose. IOSSO makes such a paste.

+1. You were very wise to ask! I think the steel wool suggestion is the best choice. Perhaps Johnson's paste wax would help clean and prevent corrosion. Does anyone think Johnson's is a bad idea?

 

[kritter]

well, looks like i have a long chore ahead of me , cleaning it all by hand..
and sorry cope,, not selling it... it's the good stuff that my AR likes.....lol
i normally take and break down the cases into stripper clips, then into vacume sealed bags for storage i guess i must have missed these in the move here.....
thanks

 

[Cope]

and sorry cope,, not selling it... it's the good stuff that my AR likes.....lol

Completely understood. Can't fault me for trying to relieve you of the tedious work.

Personally, I have tumbled quite a bit of tarnished ammo that AIM was advertising as such a while back. Yea, some of it was pretty green. <grin> It was priced right, and so far has proven to be more than worth the effort. Since limiting time in the tumbler is apparently key, I opted for walnut media in lieu of corncob for this application. This seemed to speed up the process a bit. In the interest of transparency, it was my experience that less than an hour in the tumbler was less than completely effective. I used no other additives in the media. My approach was to place an extraordinary amount of media in the tumbler in hopes of minimizing the direct round against round contact. Whether it made any difference, I have no idea. One battlepack at a time seemed to be a nice batch size for my Dillon tumbler. I may be back next week/month/year with pics of a kBoom resulting from the ammo use, but it has been 100% so far.

Additionally, I learned during this process that if I was extra nice to the little lady for a couple days she was more than capable of performing the entire process even in my absence. It is a lovely site to come home and find that your bride of 15 years has willingly spent a significant portion of her day tumbling and stripping [ammo] for you. I think/hope she was alone at the time.

 

[BUFF]

A fellow on another site (FALFiles.com, dedicated to the building, care and feeding of the FN-FAL and it's variants) did an experiment to determinbe if tumbling loaded ammo affected it's performance. He tumbled a good batch of ammo after chronographing some of it. He would tumble for a while, then chrono some, then tumble some more and chrono... He ended up tumbling some ammo for more than a week, it memory serves. Not only did it not affect velocities but when he pulled down a round after he was done, the powder looked exactly like an un-tumbled round's powder.

The big ammo makers and commercial reloading companies all tumble their loaded ammo before packaging it.

I ain't skeered to do it.

 

[Centenniel]

Another method I have used is OOOO steel wool. It quickly cleans up the grunge.

 

[sar4937]

While I would have no problem with tumbling. I would recommend Scotchbrite for cleaning rather then steel wool.

 

[mikekj]

I work for a manufacturer and remanfacturer of ammunition, and it all gets tumbled after loading. Corn cob media in cement mixers.