Citric acid brass cleaner

[sagacious]

I tried the copper glo and it works well,turned the brass like new,the sodium chloride isn't table salt but read it had sulfamic acid in it.If the stuff that's in it is OK it cleans up brass real well...

The Copper Glo msds is avaliable online, might be worth taking a peek at to see what's in it.

There is a metal polish from citrus magic called brilliant metal cleaner,they claim its the best brass polish there is.I think it used to be called brite boy.Wonder if it is worth a try.

I like the FLITZ liquid metal polish that contains "no ammonia or abrasives". Many of the 'best' conventional brass/metal polishes that I have used contain ammonia, so be careful until you know it's definitely safe for use on cartridge brass. Good luck.

[NSP64]

Had a great day salvaging brass from the range yesturday. I get home, no lemi shine!!! Wife has been using it in dishwasher! What the hey!!! I go to wally world and get 2 cans, 1 to hide from her.LOL

[7of7]

A good place to find pure citric acid is your local home brew / wine making supply store. Not really cheap, but not to bad..
After searching around my area at local hardware stores, and healthfood stores, it dawned on me to check out the beer/wine/soda supply stores.... first place I called had it.... Now to go to the value stores, and find an old crockpot....

[7of7]

I picked up a small crockpot at our local thrift store.. They also had this lettuce container that had a small plastic basket in it.. It fit beautifully in the crockpot.. It holds about 300 45 acp brass... and will boil them in the solution quite nicely... I just take the basket out of the crockpot... and then take it into the house to rinse with hot water...
I put them in a cooler tray, and use a heat gun while moving them around with a shop towel and they dry pretty quick...

I wish you guys would have directed me to this thread a long long time ago.....

[sagacious]

Sounds good! That basket/colander is an excellent way to move batches of brass into/out-of the citric solution.

[buck1]

I just read this WHOLE thread start to finish! Thanks for the great info!

[Charlie Sometimes]

I just read this WHOLE thread start to finish! Thanks for the great info!

It's been really hot and humid here, so I haven't been able to work in the shop reloading and such- I shoulda done that.
I skipped a lot in the middle.

[Charlie Sometimes]

Wow, I'll bet this stuff cures cancer too!

It just hit me- you might be right, in a way.
Isn't Vitamin C supposed to be an antioxidant?

That's what everyone here is fighting to find a cure for- brass cancer!

[WallyM3]

(ditto)







(LOL)

[kentuckycajun]

citric acid and/or acid blend:

http://www.homebrewit.com/wine-makin...-additives.php

[sagacious]

citric acid and/or acid blend:

http://www.homebrewit.com/wine-makin...-additives.php

I'd say go with the citric acid. Citric is safe on brass/copper/steel, and will passivate those metals. Plus it's less expensive than the citric/malic/tartaric acid blend.

Citric and malic will clean brass and copper. I'm not sure what tartaric does, but (not having investigated the chemistry) I'd the hazard the guess that's it's probably similar to malic acid, and will clean copper/brass-- but that's just a guess. I'm also not sure if malic/tartaric will passivate brass (my guess is that it may not), and I'm not at all sure what malic/tartaric will do to steel for rust removal.

The added uncertainty is that when acids are combined, they often do not react as they did separately. It's common that acid blends are much more powerful than when used separately, and react much more vigorously. This presents a risk for cartridge brass, as the zinc in the brass can be susceptible to strong acids, and this can weaken/damage the brass. Citric is the safe and effective option.

Thanks very much for the link! I never realized that so many chemicals were available from a winemaker's supply house. There's one in town here, and I'll stop by and see what goodies they have on hand.

[BoolitSchuuter]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/atta...1&d=1279667834
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/atta...1&d=1279667911
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/atta...1&d=1279667911

If I did this right, you should be looking at three photos of before, during and after a Citric acid bath with 2 teaspoons Citric acid to 1 qt. boiling water. I left the cases in the solution for 2 minutes. I had some control cases and a couple of really grungy range pick ups. The interesting thing that I noticed was the bubbling going on inside the cases. When I rinsed them off and looked inside, there was very little carbon residue in them. I'm going to include this method in my case prep procedure.

[sagacious]

BoolitSchuuter,
Looks good. A few of those cases were really grungy!

I noticed the same fizzing when cleaning some really grungy military brass. The fizzing mostly came from the primer pockets. You may wish to deprime before the citric soak, as it seems to help remove and minimize the buildup of primer-pocket residue.

Best of luck, and keep up the good work.

[Charlie Sometimes]

Questions. I may have missed this somewhere-
Are cases that turn "red" after cleaning (as in the above photos) degraded and unuseable?
I know this reflects loss of zinc, I believe, but can there be any harm in continuing to use those in that condition?

Granted, that these cases are perfect test samples for this process, but I would think the metallurgical properties of the case altered by this exposure and corrosion, that trying to recover (for further use) extremely discolored brass could be hazardous to ones health or firearm.

Consider the situation like finding an empty cartridge that has laid in the woods for a few years, found while out hunting, and brought back to be cleaned up and restored to service.

I can see a scenerio where people out there use this process to clean up "grungy" range brass and sell it to make a few extra dollars, but at who's expense?

[dale2242]

I just cleaned my brass for the first time with the citric acid solution. I found 150+ 223 brass laying in the open in a local shooting area. Not a formal range, so they had been lying around for a while. They were very black from water staining. I will admit I was sceptical about the effectiveness of the solution. I mixed a quart and a half of boiling solution and poured it over the brass. I stirred and shook the container every 10 minutes. After an hour I took the brass out and rinsed it 3 times in clear water. I then shook what water I could from the cases and laid them on a towel in the sun for a few hours to dry. They looked pretty good with the worse stained having the copper look. When they were dry I tossed them in the tumbler for a couple of hours. I couldn't`t believe it, they looked even better than brand new.. what a great idea. BTW, I found the acid in the wine making section of the local Grange Coop store. .....dale

[DLCTEX]

Charlie, the oxidation of the zinc is only skin deep unless you have some really corroded brass. Spin a brass in a case trimmer and polish it with steel wool and you'll find that shiny brass is just under the surface.

[sagacious]

Questions. I may have missed this somewhere-
Are cases that turn "red" after cleaning (as in the above photos) degraded and unuseable?
I know this reflects loss of zinc, I believe, but can there be any harm in continuing to use those in that condition?

Charlie,
Those are good points. DLCTEX gave the short answer on this issue.

Often the tarnish or grungy look is only a very thin layer. Yes, the zinc in that layer is essentially gone, and unrecoverable. But it's usually only a very thin layer, and it's loss does not compromise the case-- in the same way that a REM case may be very slightly thinner than a WIN case, but both are perfectly fine.

If the 'red' cases turn back to a solid brass color after tumbling/polishing, one can be fairly confident that the tarnish layer was extremely thin, and of no consequence. The case is OK.

If after tumbling/polishing, red spots remain on the case, then the case is suspect. If the spots still remain after light polishing with steel wool, the metal is pitted and weakened, and the case should be scrapped.

[Charlie Sometimes]

Yes, beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone!
I considered that, but I was thinking along the line of the cases becoming brittle in those spots, as any long term corrosion like that would weaken the metal, even though it might be somewaht protected by oxidization. I just wonder if anyone has pushed the limits and had failures due to the use of brass in this condition.

I have always worked from the same assumption, too- if it polishes away, it's okay.

[Rock]

I ended up with a steel case in my batch of citric and brass.

It must have become an anode because it is about 25% dissolved now.

Batch was left at about 100 degrees for two days.

[DLCTEX]

I made a mistake yesterday and confused which batch of brass had been rinsed and dried. I put a batch of brass that had just come out of the citric acid in the tumbler. Corn cob glued to the brass that had to be scraped off, inside and out. Fortunately it was only 50 pcs. and not the 200 9 mm I was doing next.
Rock, Ill bet you had some blackened brass also, it doesn't take long for a steel case to react with the brass when they're in the solution. If you put the steel case in without the brass it just cleans it.