Pickled brass.......mmmmmmm, nummy.

[supe47]

Does anyone else pickle their 22LR cases after annealing? I gave it a try today with some nasty looking cases and all I can say is WOW! After annealing and stainless pin tumbling they looked nasty. Quick soak in pickle solution, tumbled again and they LOOKED beautiful. What y'all think? Am I sacrificing strength for beauty?

Supe

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=74019&d=1371677026 http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=74020&d=1371677050

[300winmag]

You will never see them when they exit the muzzle,the yote would not know what color that jacket is.
They look good to me.

[supe47]

Just wondering about pickling makin' 'em brittle. They were only in the pickling solution for a few minutes.

[customcutter]

Quick google search and it appears that vinegar is OK. However, ammonia is a NO NO.

CC

[BT Sniper]

Good to go!

Try dropping the hot annealed cases directly into the solution while still hot then tumble. Should get good results too. Yours look good. Nice job.

They will look even better loaded :)

BT

[Zymurgy50]

Mine come straight out of the kiln and get dumped into a 5 gallon bucket half filled with water and 3-4 tablespoons of lemishine.
Rinse with cold running water, dry, and seat cores.

[fredj338]

I take mine out of the Lee & drop them hot into my ss tumble solution. Tumble for 2hrs & they look like this. The ones on the right had copper BBs added.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/223jackets_zps1ef125b8.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/fredj338/media/223jackets_zps1ef125b8.jpg.html)

[BT Sniper]

You know I was thinking..... I bet we could drop $.05 worth of pennies in our mix and get the same copper plating effect without the cost of the copper plated BBs.

Some day I'll try it out.

BT

[Zymurgy50]

Ya wont get much copper off of new pennies, they are plated zinc now. what about a couple small pieces of 1/2" copper pipe?

[Lizard333]

I get the copper look without any pennies at all. Or copper for that matter. Add a little to much citric acid in your SS media and tumble about an hour. It bleaches the zinc out of the brass somehow.

74567

[Nickle]

Going to have to try that one, those look good.

[R.Ph. 380]

BINGO. Looks really good. Don't need the zinc there anymore anyway.

Bill

[plus1hdcp]

I was wondering what your too much citric acid means, care to share your approximate water to citric acid ratios? BTW, looks good.


I get the copper look without any pennies at all. Or copper for that matter. Add a little to much citric acid in your SS media and tumble about an hour. It bleaches the zinc out of the brass somehow.

74567

[Lizard333]

I'd say a teaspoon in a liter of water. Maybe a little more. Not much.

[deltaenterprizes]

You know I was thinking..... I bet we could drop $.05 worth of pennies in our mix and get the same copper plating effect without the cost of the copper plated BBs.

Some day I'll try it out.

BT
Only with pennies made before 1983, after 1983 they are copper plated zinc.

[Nickle]

I put some brass in citric acid yesterday, and they started to change to brass colored.

I think I'm going to pursue this one a bit more.

And, the main ingredient in unsweetened Kool Aid is citric acid.

[Cane_man]

so just buy a packet of unsweetened lemondade Kool Aid and i am good to go?

will Lemishine do the same thing?

[Nickle]

Yesterday, I used 2 packets of unsweetened Kool Aid and a bit of Dawn in about a quart of water. That's a bit more citric acid than some use, but I wanted to trigger this action.

By the way, this really isn't anything new. I have done this over 40 years ago, before tumblers were common. It's just "new again".

And, it still works.