Lemi Shine

[prs]

Cadillo, so far I have not found out. What goes wrong? I place dirty black powder cartridge and smokeless cartrige cases, spent primers still in, in a Model B with just enough water to cover and a teaspoon of citric acid powder plus a squirt of dish soap. Try to do batches of about 3/4 full in the drum. Let'm tumble until I sober-up and they be like new. I rinse in clear tap water and drain while in the sink. While they are still damp I toss in a dib of Lee case lube and mix with my hands. Into an Orange sack and air dry a few days The case lube leaves a slight haze, after going through a progressive press, the ammo looks new. Looks new still when shot days, weeks, or months later. No stainless steel pins used. Will my cases go bad doing this over time?

prs

[Cadillo]

Cadillo, so far I have not found out. What goes wrong? I place dirty black powder cartridge and smokeless cartrige cases, spent primers still in, in a Model B with just enough water to cover and a teaspoon of citric acid powder plus a squirt of dish soap. Try to do batches of about 3/4 full in the drum. Let'm tumble until I sober-up and they be like new. I rinse in clear tap water and drain while in the sink. While they are still damp I toss in a dib of Lee case lube and mix with my hands. Into an Orange sack and air dry a few days The case lube leaves a slight haze, after going through a progressive press, the ammo looks new. Looks new still when shot days, weeks, or months later. No stainless steel pins used. Will my cases go bad doing this over time?

prs

I have no experience with the "Citric Acid" you are using, though it may well be that Lemishine contains citric acid. I just don't know. I've always been told that any form of acid is bad for cases, but that is just what I've heard.

My guess is that your cases will split due to work hardening before they suffer any other real issue.

I always deprime my brass first, which allows my steel pins to clean the case interiors and primer pockets of all residue, which make priming smoother on my progessive presses.

[geargnasher]

Make sure your dishwasher soap has about 7 or 8 percent elemental phosphorous. Play games with what you have by adding the two ingredients as suggested above. Measure ph of the soap as from the box. Maintain that ph to start with when adding the phosphates. No more calcium/magnesium/iron problems thereafter. ... felix

Yup, the phosphates keep the dissolved calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron in suspension in the water so they don't deposit on things, but wash away with the rinse water. Phosphate soap is still available, you just have to order it depending on where you live. The issue is farther downstream, though, when the phosphates decompose through fermentation in the septic tanks. Phosphates are being banned in many states for household cleaner use because public wastewater systems aren't equipped to remove them, and they are discharged into the enviroment causing algae blooms and all sorts of things that make "green" folks yell and scream.

My solution has been to harvest rainwater for all our household use, skipping the minerals entirely. We can do spotless dishes with a single chip of Ivory bar soap. Unfortunately, I just discovered that many states other than mine have outlawed rainwater harvesting, so I guess it's either phosphates or a softener system for them.

Gear

[Cadillo]

how much do you put into the rinse water???

Rick

I first hose(initial rinse) my tumbled cases in my version of a sieve, and then toss them into a small bucket than contains about 1 gallon of water with about a 9x19mm case full of Lemishine mixed into it. Our water here is very hard and the final rinse makes them come out shiny and stay that way for much longer.

And, yes, the Lemishine really helps keep both our dishes and dishwasher clean and free of scale. Hard water is well, just hard.

[runfiverun]

lemishine is 96+% citric acid.

[RACWIN375]

I first hose(initial rinse) my tumbled cases in my version of a sieve, and then toss them into a small bucket than contains about 1 gallon of water with about a 9x19mm case full of Lemishine mixed into it. Our water here is very hard and the final rinse makes them come out shiny and stay that way for much longer.

And, yes, the Lemishine really helps keep both our dishes and dishwasher clean and free of scale. Hard water is well, just hard.

very cool
I'm going to do that

Rick

[Cadillo]

Quite by accident, I learned something related to this. I always deprime my brass before cleaning using the SS media, soap, water, and Lemishine. I've done many many cases this way without incident. The other day, I was sorting some 9mm brass by headstamp some three to four days after cleaning and drying, when I found a couple of cases that had somehow missed being deprimed. I decapped them by hand and found that there was water trapped between the spent primers and the pockets.

As one might imagine, this would be BAD had these cases been loaded without my having noticed. I would recommend that any cases to be cleaned using water be decapped first, or at least long enough in advance to thoroughly dry before any attempt to prime.

[RACWIN375]

I learned that many years ago,I did a bunch of 223's and 3 weeks later I went to reload and found water in the primer pockets I was using the RCBS stuff after that I got a decaping die

Cadillo
your Lemi Shine rinse works so good I had to redo about 1000 cases in it hehe

[RACWIN375]

some one said "Whether you use citric acid in Lemishine, or acetic acid in vinegar, you should always since them thoroughly afterwards in a baking soda in water bath to neutralize the acid. It will continue to work on the brass if you don't."

is that true ????

Rick

[Cadillo]

some one said "Whether you use citric acid in Lemishine, or acetic acid in vinegar, you should always since them thoroughly afterwards in a baking soda in water bath to neutralize the acid. It will continue to work on the brass if you don't."

is that true ????

Rick

Not in my experience over the last couple of years and many cases thus cleaned.

[Cadillo]

I learned that many years ago,I did a bunch of 223's and 3 weeks later I went to reload and found water in the primer pockets I was using the RCBS stuff after that I got a decaping die

Cadillo
your Lemi Shine rinse works so good I had to redo about 1000 cases in it hehe

I can't take credit for the method. I read about it on another forum.

Whoever discovered it sure helped me out!

[Bullet Caster]

I use pure citric acid that came with my water distiller. I've got about 1/2 lb. of it and I use about 1 tsp. in a gallon of water to clean my brass after decapping. As another thread about citric was read, I found out that citric acid passivates the brass and that vinegar is harmful to brass.

The citric acid mix works very well and since I don't have a vibratory tumbler or a tumbler, I just use a cheap knock off of the scotch-brite pad to put the finishing touches on the brass. I like the "brushed" brass look and they are easily identifiable from other people's brass when I go to the range. BC