Saving old brass

[metricmonkeywrench]

Hopefully this does not turn into testimonials of unobtainium pins in a Mr Fusion cryogenic centrifuge, I am strictly small time working on less than 400 pieces of brass.

I was given some old brass from a neighbor who has had it in a closet since his father passed. In the box was some .38 wadcutter and 30-30 brass that i am hoping to salvage. The revolver brass was reported to be once fired and a couple boxes of the rifle brass had reloading tags from the 80's. Most of the brass was badly tarnished and a cycle thru the tumbler didn't do much. I ran them through a lemishine bath (not rich enough for a sonic yet) which cleaned off the majority of the tarnish on about half of the brass. On the remainder the cleaning left either brown stained fingerprints/splotches on the brass or copper color blotches.. None of the brass is pitted or appears to be compromised so i believe it still may be usable ugly as it is.


Short of neverdul/brasso on each piece bringing back memories of boot camp setting on a footlocker, does anyone have any thoughts on a way to batch clean the remainder of the staining? I can drop it back into the tumbler (Lyman treated corn) but doubt it may make much of a difference.

[labradigger1]

SS pins.

[jonas302]

Dont use brasso the ammonia is hard in brass
Could try a citric acid bath as that is stronger than lemishine and still cheap

[richhodg66]

White vinegar and dishsoap in water works to clean up brass.

[Mk42gunner]

Brass doesn't have to gleam to be useable, as long as there is no dirt or corrosion on it, it will be okay.

A case spinner and a bit of steel wool will work, it will take a little time, but it is cheap.

Robert

[Bullwolf]

I'd also try a citric acid bath first. If that didn't do it...

I'll use a Lee Universal Three Jaw Chuck (around $12-13 bucks)



Along with the Lee 3 Jaw spinner stud, ($3-5 bucks) so you can spin the Lee 3 jaw chuck with an electric or battery powered drill.







And spin the cases using a drill. While spinning, touch some 0000 Steel Wool to the brass until any visible corrosion is gone. After that, toss em in the tumbler for a final polish.

You can power through a pile of badly tarnished brass this way, much faster than turning cases with your hands.

When I have old brass that's really stained or discolored, I'll do this to see if the cases are salvageable.

I don't do it very often, but when I do... The Lee three jaw chuck really earns it's keep.





- Bullwolf

[GoodOlBoy]

I am assuming you either pulled the bullets or fired them before you started cleaning.... I will leave that at that...

Anyway when working with small batches of very old brass (yes I am a cheap sob to, and have done this very thing) I first threw it into a tumbler with walnut media... anything that didn't take off I tried a little elbow grease and 4/0 steel wool. Anything left didn't appear to affect the brass. Though visual inspection on several pieces showed the same brown splotch appeared on both sides of the bass wall, both inside and out. These pieces didn't "feel right" when squeezed between trigger finger and thumb (felt like it "flexed" it could have been my imagination) so they were tossed. I also found that on very old brass annealing actually DID help reduce case splitting even with mild loads. In the end I was able to save about 90% or better of it. Kinda crazy considering I still have several hundred rounds of Independence 38 special brass that I bought on here once fired and I've never reloaded, but I just couldn't let the old stuff go to waste either..

God Bless, and One Love.

GoodOlBoy

[17nut]

SS pins.
Heres some 45-120 that was BP shot and then left to rot.
3 sessions of 3 hours and the last pic is after.

[Maven]

mmw, You may want to consider annealing the .30-30Win brass given its age. I'd also suggest doing that to the .38Spl. brass, but that operation is a bit trickier.

[Harter66]

Some time ago I picked up a long abandoned 8x57 fmj misfire , no green on it but stuff doesn't do that on the dry shoulders of the clay flats here . I tossed it in with several batches of brass , I figured if it ran long enough it would be shiny brass again instead of 74 penny brown . I have no idea how long it ran but it was enough hours to easily have become a week or probably well into 2. I looked a little closer and it was slick and shiny as any of the other brass run it had just kept the patina .

I don't sweat the patina . If it has raised spots , lumps or craters it gets sent away to salvage to be done with accordingly . I have some 30s vintage 32 Rem and lost about 20% first shot the balance was torn down cleaned and annealed and had a 5% loss again I didn't worry about the patina .

[Greg S]

OP, save your money for the ultrasonic case cleaner and go for the Frankfurt Arsonal SS Pin tumbler. Have all sorts of tumblers and ss pin is the way to go.

[metricmonkeywrench]

Thanks for the ideas, so far a stick spinner and 000 wool may be my next step to stay on the cheap side. If it was just standard brass it would probably head to the scrap bucket, but this is wadcutter brass which is getting harder to find, so I have read.


Yes the brass was empty, and so far I have touched every piece I am trying to save at least twice and for the most part don't seem brittle and none of the ones that cleaned up real nice the first go around went back thru the tumbler, have split during sizing/expanding and still seem to retain the elasticity of my newer brass. The 30-30 brass I have done so far cleaned up real well and FL sized with no problem.

[metricmonkeywrench]

Guess I should have done this up front... here's what the stages looked like. The 9mm is pretty much what all of the brass looked like across the board. The next three were after tumbling the whole lot and I sorted by head stamp. The third group is after the lemishine bath and where I have my issue the third piece shows the fingerprint up by the case mouth. The last set are the ones that cleaned up well and went back into the tumbler and are now ready to load.

[Bullwolf]

Brown staining, or patina won't hurt a thing. It's just not pretty to look at.

I loaded dark colored brass for years with out any problems. It's much easier to spot clean shiny (or nickel plated) brass on the ground though.

Its also easier to see splits, burrs, off center or media stuck in flash holes, and powder levels in clean shiny brass.

I dislike any green verdigris on my cartridge brass. I'll remove verdigris in the tumbler, or if it's more aggressive I use 0000 steel wool, and then examine the brass underneath. It the brass still looks good after polishing the verdigris off, I use it.

If the Zinc has been pulled out of the cartridge brass, and it's pink or red under the verdigris - I discard it. If there are any pits, craters or holes underneath the verdigris... I scrap the brass as well.

I do the same thing with old brass that's been outside in dirt or mud long enough to leech the Zinc from the brass, and turn it pink. Brass in this condition almost always splits on me during either resizing or flaring. I don't consider it safe to use at that point, so I scrap it as well.


Note that I am not talking about the faint pink surface color you sometimes get from cleaning cases and using too much Lemishine or citric acid.

There's a good writeup on Pink Brass and Lemishine, and dezincification of brass in the link below if your looking for more info.

https://flat5.net/2014/03/pink-brass-and-lemi-shine/

If you can wipe the pink/copper color off the outside of the cases with 0000 steel wool, tumbling media, or case polish, then there's still some Zinc in the cartridge brass.

If the brass still looks pink or red after polishing, and you can not polish off that pink/reddish color, then it's done.

I sometimes find pink or red colored brass that I lost in the dirt or mud, and it will look like this after a few years on my home range. I'm not sure how well it would show up in a picture, but you can tell just by looking at it, that it's usable life is over.





- Bullwolf

[GONRA]

GONRA sez to watch out for SOFT "range brass" that has (somehow)
escaped from the 55 gallon "trash burn drum" after burning.

[wv109323]

Take some of the lemishine and apply directly to the case. work to or three cases in your hand until clean. Drop into a bucket of water and rinse 2-3 time with water. Put them into the tumbler after water is drained.

[metricmonkeywrench]

Final (I think) update, I ran the remaining brass back thru the tumbler for about a 6 hr cycle and the remainder of the brass came out about 90-95% clean. I will be doing a final inspection in the magnifier but I am pleased with the outcome so far.

Oddly enough this does not appear to be the usual range pick up, but rather brass that was fired thrown in a bag, stuck in a closet and forgotten until now. So far no piece has been pitted or brittle and the ones I have sized and expanded came out perfect

[tankgunner59]

The only ranges in my area are outdoor, so I end up collecting a lot of tarnished brass. I keep what I use and trade/sell the rest. I have found through experimenting with the ones that retain some staining, Scotch Brite pads shine them really well. I use it once and when I tumble after the next firing they come out looking very nice.

I just hold the case in my fingers, wrap the pad around and spin, it only takes a few twists and the brass is shiny again. Reload, shoot, tumble and its looking good again.

[Don Fischer]

Year's before I ever saw a tumbler I cleaned brass with 0000 steel wool. I used STP as a lube back then and found I could return each piece to be brighter than new. I used a pretty worn out cleaning brush for the cal. Wrapped 0000 steel wool around it and chucked it up in a drill. Then a small pad of the steel wool in my other hand. To clean the inside of the neck, I'd squeeze the case in one hand holding it in the 0000 steel wool. Then run the cleaning brush with steel wool around it into the neck and let it turn just a bit. Then loosen the other hand a bit and keeping pressure on the case with my hand, let it spin in my hand for a few moments. Cleanest brass I've ever seen. Took it right from the press after re-sizing and cleaned them before setting them back down. You would be surprised how many you could do in an hour, lots! It would take old brass like your talking about right back to new but, tarnished brass I cleaned before re-sizing.