Get Your Brass Out of the Oven!

[dale2242]

My wet cleaned brass gets several rinses in clean water.
In the summer it is dried in the sun on a dark colored towel on the sidewalk.
Here in SW Oregon it gets dried in the dehydrator the rest of the year...dale

[iomskp]

Where I live I just put them in the car for an hour or so, then they are dry.

[Half Dog]

I save my tumbling for the summer months. Letting them dry in the sunshine works for me. Plus I believe the Texas summer temperatures might anneal the brass too (tee-he-he).

[Stewbaby]

Another option is a ‘hot box’. I use a hair dryer and a small box made from insulation board. I close up the gap with an old tee shirt ‘curtain’.

[Hawks Feather]

Blue coral wash and wax was cheap, but didn't seem to much for my car or brass. Next time I might try Mcguires.

I have used several of the Meguiars 'wash and wax' products and they all work well for me. Since that was the case I have just used the one with the best price that I can find for brass and the higher priced ones for the car and truck.

[fcvan]

I de-prime and wash with dawn/walmart equivalent. I resize, sometimes not even drying. The friction of resizing tends to warm up the die so it dries on its own, but I still make sure.

For rifle brass I just place the brass in a container with a screw lid, dribble in some vegetable oil, and shake until evenly coated. I only use one hand to handle the brass because it will get oily, enough so that every 3 - 5 pieces I swipe my finger over the case mouth to ensure the expander ball gets lube. It is kind of a feel thing.

The brass gets a dawn rinse to remove the oil, then gets a dawn/lemon juice soak for about 3 - 5 minutes. I strain the brass saving the dawn/lemon juice solution as I can re-use it many times before I have to change it. The strained and still wet brass goes to the tumbler.

I use ground walnut from the pet store, it is sold as 'lizard bedding' which is waa cheaper than buying polishing media, but is the same stuff. The ground walnut gets smooth after extended use but swells up when wet. Heck, I have washed and re used my media for several years. It might get dark but it still does it's job.

I have used a tablespoon or so of Turtle Zip wash in my media for years. It cleans and leaves a thin coating of wax which helps seal the pores of the brass which retards oxidization. every 100 pieces or so I add some more Zip Wash. I have factory ammo (given to me, I rarely if ever buy store bought, shudder the thought) that oxidized in the box while my reloads are still purty

My wet brass gets tossed directly into the tumbler. The moisture helps the media swell back up and reconstitutes the Zip Wash. Within an hour the brass and media are dry and ready to load. Most of this is done on the Pacific Northwest about a mile from the Pacific when I am out west. It is very dry in Colorado, very much humidity by the coast. Brass gets sifted and loaded.

I tend to reload in stages which are timed there and about an hours worth of effort. That way I can quit and not be in the middle of something when I have to shut down. Doing thousands of rounds at a time, broken down to 1 hour stages, helps keep things going. Cast an hour, PC an hour, size an hour, etc. Some things can be done while something else is going, like waiting for the pot to heat up, changing die heads, etc.

As a younger man I would sometimes load or cast, or something without taking breaks to wash my hands and eat/drink/potty because I kept trudging. Now, my longest setting might be a baseball game on the radio.

35 years ago, I would cast 200 boolits, 100 each of 2 calibers, the refill the pot. 100 cases would be primed and charged, and then 100 of those boolits would be sized/lubed and placed on the case mouths. Those would be seated, and magically the pot was ready for flux and pour. The other 100 would be stockpiled.

As I was shooting 1250 rounds a week (3 calibers) I generally cast 2000 boolits a week. I traded 1/2 of them for powder and primers. Lead was free from the range at work so I shot a lot for just my labor and electricity. Now I might PC and bake and start casting again. Even then, I process all of my brass before I start to making boolits. Once everything is loaded I might just start stockpiling cast/sized boolits. Usually 1000 of each. It is time to top things off . . . and start the whole process all over again.

[Hanzy4200]

I have to lay mine out on a towel after a soap & water wash and rinse.

I used to dry large batches in the oven until the second live .45ACP got in there and cooked off.

Now days, all my reloading projects have been banned from the kitchen.

And my wife thinks I misuse her kitchen. LOL

[44Blam]

Wife got me a new food dehydrator for Christmas... So, now I need to buy a wet tumbler...

[kmw1954]

Here in Wisconsin after Sept. it would be a waste of time trying to dry in the sun.

Two years ago I started wet washing brass with primers in. After one batch that had been sitting in an open jar in a hot upstairs room for 2 weeks I used them and loaded up a bunch. That week the wife and I went to the range together and was having a great time until she stopped and brought her XD to me and said she couldn't get it to go into battery. Shure enough there was a bullet stuck in the barrel just far enough to eject the case yet not let another chamber. A SQUIB!

I pulled that box of ammo she was using and packed up and went home. At home I proceeded to start pulling those bullets apart. Out of that box I found 2 more with wet powder! So after almost blowing up my wife everything that goes into water also goes into the toaster oven. You all can do as you feel adequate but for me it is not going to happen again. The toaster oven has a beginning temp of 200* and an analog timer that gets set for 30min... From there it stays in the oven until it is cool enough to pick up bare handed. I now also have enough brass that I don't have to wash, dry, load. I can take washed brass and leave it for a month before I even have to think about using it.

As for discoloration, I haven't seen it. Even with the stuff that has sat in a plastic container sealed for a few months.

[fast ronnie]

The reason that I dry in the sun is because I have tried using the oven set to 200 degrees. I WILL NOT do it again as the whole batch was ruined. If I can't dry in the sun, I will set them on top of the wood stove for a little while on a cookie sheet. The top doesn't get real hot on our wood stove, but will dry brass very quickly. Dehydrators work nicely, but don't have the room for another one and the wife uses hers for "of all things, drying fruit."

[kmw1954]

The reason that I dry in the sun is because I have tried using the oven set to 200 degrees. I WILL NOT do it again as the whole batch was ruined.

So elaborate on that please. What happened?

After Squibbing a bullet in the barrel of my wife's gun and how disastrous it could have been had that bullet been another 1/4" into the barrel, if I had to quit heating in an oven then I would quit wet washing my brass.

[mebudman63]

All i use is Armor All Wash & Wax in my wet tumbler, then a dehydrator. In the summertime a towel and the driveway works.

[RKJ]

I use Dawn and Lemishine in hot water, rinse in cold water and then lay the brass on an old towel in front of a box fan. It works like a charm. I found if I don't rinse though, they don't stay shiny very long and I'm like a pack rat, I like shiny brass.

[USSR]

...I have tried using the oven set to 200 degrees. I WILL NOT do it again as the whole batch was ruined.

You can't just "set" an oven to a particular temperature and expect that it will be that temperature. You need to buy an oven thermometer and determine what the setting should be to reach your desired temperature. I have to set my oven WELL below any of the temperature settings to reach a temperature of 225 degrees.

Don

[6bg6ga]

Well, we anneal brass so how could drying it in the oven be any different? A couple hundred degrees isn't going to hurt it. Sun drying in AZ should be banned too?

[ih772]

You didn't "ruin" your brass by heating it to 200 degrees or slightly higher.

The change in color that one sees is from oxidation. It doesn't matter if it comes out of an oven or if it air dries. The air dried brass will be the same color in 6 months as the oven dried brass. The higher temp in the oven just speeds up oxidation the process.

We use this same process at the heat treating plant I work at. We take fresh parts and put them in a pre-oxidation furnace and heat them up. After they come out the y have oxidized and changed in color. This prepares the part to go into the nitriding furnace where the nitrogen can more easily penetrate and bond to the surface of the part.

[6bg6ga]

I've seen people throw brass in an old pillow case and toss it into the clothes dryer and it never hurt the brass. One might not want to do it with the wife around however.

[Drew P]

Well, we anneal brass so how could drying it in the oven be any different? A couple hundred degrees isn't going to hurt it. Sun drying in AZ should be banned too?

when you anneal brass you only do the neck, it’s a disaster waiting to happen if you do the whole case. Annealing temp for brass is only 500°, which is easy to overdo if your oven is trying to get to its set point and over cooks the cases near the elements.

What I do is towel dry initially, then put brass into a basket to sit for a while, like weeks, or months, then use. This ensures that moist air is moved out from inside cases. A cardboard box will work too but take longer. Storing brass in plastic container or something equally air tight will stop any drying action. It can take a long time for moisture in the bottom of a 223 case to find its way out. Especially if the cases still have primers in them. Deprimed 45acp is a lot easier to dry than primed 223!
I don’t trust the hair dryer methods as they can’t insure the insides are dry for me. Only time or an oven can do that.

[6bg6ga]

It wasn't my point to do the whole case. When annealing the whole case does in fact heat up and if you don't think so try to pick one up. My point is the case heats up so its really no different than putting the entire case in the oven at 200 degrees except in annealing the case neck gets hotter.


If I were to dry my brass in the oven I would let the oven reach a set temp and then put the brass in.

Never never wash brass after you have primed it simply because the primer gets wet and moisture will not leave the case for a long period of time.

[kmw1954]

From my own past experience I will continue to use my toaster oven. I would rather scrap a few hundred pistol cases than see someone I love maimed or lose an eye. That one bad experience left a very uneasy feeling for a long time and it is still etched in my brain.

These days the brass comes out of the water and into a towel. From there it goes into the toaster oven. From there it goes into a bucket and from there it goes into the vibrator tumbler with whatever that polish is that Cabela's sells. From there it is sorted by headstamp and then but into plastic jars for storage.