How Do You Clean Your Brass?

[Madpap]

50/50 corn cob media and lizard litter. Cheap and works very well. A little Nu-Finish once in a while.

 

[Incrediblerod]

50/50 corn cob media and lizard litter. Cheap and works very well. A little Nu-Finish once in a while.

That's what I'm looking for.

 

[NightShade]

I don't reload yet but I spoke with someone at one point in time who uses KoolAid. Found their post on another forum too.

I use a liquid for cleaning my brass..it is called coolaid and i heat up about 3/4 quart of water on the stove and add the coolaid to this...and add the brass..i stir it around for 3 minutes
Then i put the mix into an old mayo bottle (plastic) with about a 1/3 cup of 3/8" square pieces of scotch bright pads ...

Shake and roll...make the brass spin really good with the lid on and the pads scrubbing....Remove brass and rinse 2 times with warm clean water and 1 time with warm water with baking soda ...then 1 more good rinse with warm clean water..

I then blow both ends out with air compressor...I can hold about 7 30-06 shells at a time in my hand and blow out...
Let set overnight or swab with q tip and load......You can reuse the coolaid about 4-5 times....I will do about 30-40 at a time.
I cant see spending money on a tumbler....

 

[7stw]

Yep, cut a used dryer sheet in 4 pieces and throw it in when you start tumbling, it absorbs most of the dust. I also found a process called LSD, where you combine a dash of LemiShine (dishwasher detergent powder), a squirt of Dawn and hot water in a plastic bowl with lid, then add brass to it and shake it up good. Let that sit overnight, take brass out and let it dry on a towel or something for a little bit, then tumble with the media and dryer sheets for about 1-2 hours and it will look shinier than new brass. I also add a capful of NuFinish car polish every so often to my media. Hope this helps ya out!

I don't care for the LSD method but do tumble with dryer sheets and nu finish but I use corn cob instead of walnut. If I'm out of nu finish I've used flitz metal polish and it works as well.

 

[Hoov]

Flitz makes a media polish that works well. Being the thinker that I am (squirrel!), I have wondered what it is chemically. I like the Lemishine recipe. I will try that as I have a boatload of brass I need to start prepping.

 

[WessonOil]

I did the Flitz for awhile, but it was pricey and finding a place locally who carried it was spotty.

I went over to Nu-Finish, and use crushed walnut shells from PetSmart.

Two caps of Nu-Finish in my Hornady vibratory tumbler works great.

 

[djcorrell]

Citric Acid in an ultrasonic. 160 deg. water with a mix of 1 to 2 tsp/gal. no need for dish soap as the sonic cleaner does the work. If you want to polish it, it's hard to beat walnut shells and compound (Flitz, NuFinish, Midway). Please do not use ROUGE. it will significantly wear the bore.

 

[aviator41]

I like to deprime and resize then sonic clean for 45 minutes with a water/vinegar/lemi-shine mix. dry and tumble overnight in lizard littler and a couple of capfuls of nu-finish in my re-purposed ice cream maker. thousands of round later and still going strong.

Done everything from .17 hornet to 300 win mag in it.

 

[MoBoost]

For range pick-up:

Sort by head stamp
Deprime
Sort by weight +/-0.5gn
2hr Tumbler's tumbler with Lemishine and Dawn and SS media
Dry on a towel for a day
Hornady one-shot and FL Size
Trim with wilson and debur
Uniform primer pocket and flash hole
Neck turn with 21st century
1hr in Lyman's vibratory tumbler
Aneal

ready .....

After firing I just wipe the neck with a rag, neck size and then load another 5-6 times before any cleaning.

SS media beats up necks - that's why I do brass "work" after wet cleaning.
Tumbling in dry media removes any leftover moister, lube and brass shavings.

 

[swampratt]

I wondered about the stainless media and beat up necks..or cases
I also pin tumble but my pins are made of copper.
I hate all the dust...To me even a couple microscopic pieces of dust is a lot of dust.
It will scratch the dies and the brass.. sometimes you can't avoid it..
But i try.