BP Fired Brass

[Hip's Ax]

Greetings, I have always used a plastic jug with water with Dawn to put my fired brass in at the range. I no longer scrub the cases by hand as I bought the ceramic media.

Question, must I still dunk the brass or can I just put it back in the box like I do with smokeless? Does it corrode or anything? How long does it take if it does corrode?

I did it once but I tumbled the brass right after getting home from the range, I was wondering if it corrodes in a day a week or a month?

I hate that stinky jug. :lol:

[13Echo]

I think I'd still decap , soak, and rinse to get rid of as much fouling as I could before tumbling. Just think of all that crud in your tumbler. The media will clean it out but the dissolved salts that causes the cases to corrode will still adhere to the cases as they dry and might still be a problem. My 2 cents. I haven't tried what you suggest so I may be all wet.

Jerry Liles

[Chicken Thief]

Corrosion will set in after several days in humid conditions.
So the trip home from the range is not going to change anything.
Save a step at the range and just enjoy shooting ;)

[mustanggt]

I've got a tide jug of dawn and hot water in which I dump them. I come home and rinse them out well till I don't get anymore "stinky stuff" coming out of the jug. Then I put them on a cookie sheet and dry them in a warm oven. Then I decap and put them in the tumbler.

[bigted]

from the peanut corner...i dunk em in my milk jug and sometimes i leave em for a couple weeks before i get to cleaning them...i find it is a whole bunch easier to do the case cleaning when i feel like doing it rather then when im "suppose to".

i find that if i occassionally swish the jug around and re-sudz it...the cases will save for about as long as i want//need as long as they are covered with water.......oh and i deprime at the range as this is a part of my process that keeps my barrel cool and shooting.

[August]

I put three things in the water of the jug I take to multi-day matches. Dawn, Windex-vinegar, and Murphy's Oil. I used to just use Dawn and would occasionally see some corrosion. The Murphy's Oil seems to have put an end to that and I am comfortable letting brass soak for up to a week.

On single day matches, I just throw the brass in the cartridge bag and sort it out when I get home, where upon, I throw it in the afore said mix for a couple of days before tumbling it.

[oldracer]

When I started, I was advised to de-cap the case then drop them into the Dawn and water jug which I still do. By the time I get around to rinsing off the cases, they are free of any fowling and makes the tumbling a little faster. Besides, it also makes makes the new shooters wonder what the heck am I doing and generally gives me a chance to talk to them about "real guns"!!!!

[zardoz]

This past weekend, I was shooting the 50-90, and realized I forgot a jug of water to put my fired brass in.

Well, found a one gallon size ziplock freezer bag in my range bag, and filled it with a cup water from the range well spigot. I also had some moose milk, and decided to pour about a cup of that into the bag as well. My moose milk was NAPA oil and Murphys Oil Soap in more water.

Later, I found a discarded liter drinking water bottle in one of the trash cans on the pistol range, and dumped the brass and mix into that for the ride home. The bag was not completely leak proof it seemed, and really didn't want that mess in the truck.

Anyway, it all worked out OK in the end. Brass polished up 100% bright in the tumbler after I got home a few hours later.

[WARD O]

I have always just brought the fired cases home as fired and then decapped them with a decapping die. I throw them in a small pail and give them a good rinse in hot water. I drain the pail and give them a shot of an ounce or two of white vinegar and fill the pail again with hot water and give them a good rinse and let them sit for a couple of minutes. Drain and rinse with plain hot water. The little bit of vinegar stops the action of the black powder residue. Now I throw them in the tumbler with the ceramic media and a teaspoon of the soap and several cups of water. I set the tumbler for two hours and come back the next morning and drain and rinse in cold water and then set them out on an old towel to dry for how ever long it takes. They come out perfect!

After they are dried, I size and bell as necessary and put them away as they are all ready for the next loading.

Take them out and prime, charge etc etc and shoot.

I have never had any brass issues using this method.

Ward

[NickSS]

I guess I am lazy as I do not drop them in a jug at the range but when I get home I soak them in a tube of hot water with about a cup of white vinagar. After about 10 to 20 minutes (long enough to clean my rifle and put it away) I swirl them around a bit and pour the water out. I then rinse with hot water and put them in a rack I made that holds the cases mouth side down and let them air dry for anything from a day to several weeks (depending upon when I decide to size them). I size them and them tumble. I have yet to get any ceramic media as I really do not care if my brass is bright and shinny. My tumbling it to get dirt and lube off of them. Then I reload them.

[TXGunNut]

If I'll be home that day I just bag up my brass and head home. Then I deprime w/ a universal deprimer and drop cases in a plastic whiskey bottle, squirt in a bit of Dawn and cover the brass plus an inch or so with hot water, shake good and let soak while I clean the rifle. Then I rinse the cases with hot water until it runs clear. I dry the cases on a cookie sheet lined with a dry towel in a 250 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. I think they look plum purty when they come out but I tumble them anyway. If I don't deprime before cleaning I find that primers sometimes stick or corrode before I get around to resizing/decapping, also feel the flashole and primer pocket get cleaner with the primer removed.

[Don McDowell]

Now that I have a thumlers and ceramic media, I put the deprimed cases in a coffee can until I get home, then put them into the thumlers for a couple of hours and rinse them with clean water and hang them in the drying rack to dry.

[Tom Myers]

Question, must I still dunk the brass or can I just put it back in the box like I do with smokeless? Does it corrode or anything? How long does it take if it does corrode?


You can put them back into the cartridge box after firing until you get back home to clean them. However, do not forget to clean the box when you clean your cases. If you store loaded rounds in a box contaminated with the Black Powder residue from fired cases for any length of time, the contamination will literally eat big pits in your brass.

I had several match cases ruined before I finally figured out that it was not the jostling when driving to the range that was eating rings into my loaded casings but was the tiny bit of BP residue left from the previous match.

Now I throw the cartridge boxes in my dish washer while the brass is tumbling in the ceramic media.

[OD#3]

How do you keep your media from packing into the primer pockets? This is the biggest reason I don't decap before tumbling. Every time I've tried that, the primer pocket gets packed solid with tumbling media and stays dirty anyway.

[JSnover]

I deprime after tumbling and hit the pockets with the uniform tool. Never got around to buying an actual pocket cleaner. One swipe and it's done.

[cajun shooter]

I use a bucket that has a screw top that is plastic and about a 1 1/2 gal capacity. I fill it about half full of warm water and then add about a ounce or so of Dawn / Oxy, 2 oz's of Lemon Pine Oil and 2oz of Concentrated Lemon juice. Each range I fire at is about a 45 minute drive home.
When you remove that top the smell will knock you down and the solution will be coal black. Your brass will also be black and have splotches but don't fret. Rinse the brass until the water is close to clear.
Put your brass into the Thumblers and cover with ceramic and just enough water to cover both of them in the tumbler. Add a good squirt Dawn/Oxy and tumble for about 3 hours. Your brass should have that like new look both inside and out. You may have to use a small pick to remove any ceramic that is caught in the cases.
If your ceramic is new then you should run it at least twice with the soap before trying to cleaning any brass. If your brass should ever appear gray and greasy then your ceramic and brass needs to be run with Mineral Spirits. Then run with soap before using with brass again.

[bigted]

my latest experiment with leaving my cases un-atended in the milk jug has been thusly done.

shot the rounds and after the shot each time i de-prime then n there and drop em into my dawn impregnated water bath [this helps keep my barrel cool while shooting ]. this latest round of cartridges was left for three weeks in the bath. upon opening the lid the smell was obnoxious but still bp smelling for the most part. i then rinsed them in clean water till the suds were a thing of the past. fearing the worst as they were completely black i dried them and put them in my walnut media vibrator still not sure if i had done irreparable damage to my carefully taken care of w/w brass. after letting them vibrate for 5 hours i turned off the vibrator and opened the lid to find completely clean inside n out cases...these as usual had media in the touch hole that needed to be picked out but the cases were sparkling clean inside and out with no determinable damage done.

i believe that if the cases are left completely submersed in the wash water with the soap...they will last an UN-determined length of time without damage. im going to load some of my rem cases next and shoot them and soak em for a mounth or maybe longer to see if there is any substance to my suspicions