Introduction to Reloading – Cleaning your Brass
Editor’s Note: As we continue to develop our “Reloading Press” newsletter we want to focus some of our articles on subjects that will be of use to beginning reloaders. This article focuses on cleaning your brass after firing. We welcome any contribution on this basic subject that you would like to make. This task is one that many reloaders have developed their own “perfect” process.
After firing your brass, the first task is to clean the cartridges. Residue from firing collects on the outside of the case. Some residue may be present along the body but most of it is concentrated in the neck and shoulder area. Heavy residue on the case body is an indication that the neck is not sealing fast enough or not sealing properly. Improper sealing can be due to a light powder charge or powder with an incorrect burning rate.
There are several reasons to clean your cases. One reason is to keep the debris and grit from building up in your dies and decreasing their life. Cleaning your cases also avoids scratching or galling the brass in the dies. The accumulation of debris in the interior of the cases can flake off and potentially contaminate your load. Also, you don’t want to put dirty cases back in your chamber after you just finished cleaning the chamber! Finally, cleaning the cases allows you to inspect them easily and spot any potential problems. There are several alternative methods for cleaning cases; most of them are relatively simple.
Tumbling
The most common method of cleaning a large batch of cases is to use a case tumbler. Tumblers work exceptionally well and require no complicated procedures to use them. Your cases will clean up faster and better if they are cleaned as soon as possible after firing because the carbon soot left on the cases will take a set over time and become harder and harder to remove. When you return from the range, dump the fired brass in your tumbler as soon as you can. To achieve the best results, change your media periodically. Media additives can be used to rejuvenate media and to help control the dusty film left on the cases. Some handloaders tumble their brass with a treated media first and then tumble them for a shorter time in a batch of untreated media to remove the polishing residue. A good brass/media separator like the RCBS Separator makes short work of removing most of the media from the interior of the cases. I use tumblers on most of my high volume brass and recently have preferred to use treated walnut hull media. Treated corn cob also works well and is not quite as aggressive as the walnut hull media.
I prefer to keep my cases separated into cartridge boxes of 50 or 100 for lot number control, accessibility, and ease in carrying. Even though I may have several boxes of brass that are from the same lot, once they go into a box they will stay with their companion cases for the rest of their useful life. Therefore, when I tumble brass I may only tumble 50 or a 100 at a time, even though my tumbler capacity is 300 to 400 cases.
If you de-prime your cases in a separate de-priming operation prior to cleaning them, make sure you carefully inspect the cases after they have been tumbled. Some of your cases will have the flash holes plugged with finer media granules. These will have to be picked out with a dental pick or paper clip or blown out with compressed air. I prefer to tumble my cases with the spent primers left in and rarely have media stick in the flash hole.
If the necks of your cases (inside and out) are not clean enough for your liking, follow up with any of the hand cleaning methods detailed below.
The most common complaints about tumbling are the noise, the dust, and the polishing rouge left on the cases. For me it is a lot less labor intensive and the least expensive with the exception of cleaning cases by hand.
Besides the traditional corn cob and walnut hull media, other reloaders have experimented with everything from kitty litter, small ceramic media, plastic beads, etc.
Chemically Cleaning
Another case cleaning process that some handloaders favor is to use a chemical cleaner such as Iosso Case Cleaner. Cases are placed in a mesh bag and then immersed into a container of cleaning solution. The cases are allowed to soak for a short time and are then rinsed off with hot water and left to air dry. This procedure works well and is fast except for the dry time. The cases come out “squeaky” clean but not as highly polished as a tumbler will produce. The plus side is that they won’t have any residue that you get from the polishing rouge found in some of the treated media. If you want a cleaner “looking” appearance, throw the cases into a tumbler of untreated media after they dry. It will only take a few minutes to polish them up a bit. Iosso is a cleaner that is environmentally friendly; when it becomes too dirty it can be disposed of in a household sink. Birchwood Casey also makes a brass cleaning solution but I haven’t had a chance to use it.
Hand Cleaning
Cleaning cases by hand has one major benefit; you can easily inspect the cases while you are handling them. If you are going to hand clean your cases, begin with the inside of the case neck. Insert the appropriate size case neck cleaning brush into the case neck, retract it and then tap out any loosened residue. Most case neck cleaning brushes can be chucked into a power drill and used under low RPMs or use the Sinclair Neck Brush Adapter in a power screwdriver. If you are using a brush by hand, the spiral twist in the brush will normally work well by simply pushing the brush straight in and pulling it back out.
The outside of the case, especially the case neck, can be cleaned with all types of products. We commonly use a chunk of “0000” steel wool. The steel wool leaves very little or no residue on the outside of the case. Another product reloaders will use is Nevr-Dull ™, a “wadding” impregnated with a cleaning compound that works very well in cleaning cases. We sell it or you can sometimes find it at your local hardware stores. Nevr-Dull ™ does leave a little residue on the cases, but the cases can be easily wiped clean with a paper towel. Krazy Kloth is another commercial brass cleaning product that works well for removing stubborn powder residue. It is a reusable cloth impregnated with a cleaning compound.
Ultrasonic Cleaning
Cleaning cases in an ultrasonic cleaner is a favorite of a few shooters. There are several ultrasonic cleaners on the market with enough capacity to do enough cases. You can spend under $100 on ultrasonic cleaners from places like Harbor Freight or several hundred dollars on larger and higher quality models. Cleaning solutions vary from vinegar/soap/water mixtures to specific solutions designed specifically for carbon and brass.
I personally have tried using an ultrasonic cleaner and it seemed like a lot of work to me. I just had a small unit and experimented with some different cleaners. By the time I cleaned them, rinsed them, and then let them dry I was ready to go back to just chucking them in the tumbler and walking away. The plus side to the cases that I cleaned using the ultrasonic cleaner is that the cases were clean inside and out. I did like not having to wipe off cleaning rouge residue from the tumbling media.
I have inserted a link to a more in-depth article written by one of the Brownells staff who is a reloader. The article regards his experimentation and methodology in using a handgun ultrasonic cleaner to clean brass. Click here to read the article.
Bill Gravatt
President – Sinclair International, Inc.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
The last step I use in my brass prep is to before reloading polish the inside of the case neck with a bronze bore brush chucked up into a drill.
This will lend its self to a easier expender ball push over the case and more consistent neck tension on the bullet.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Great articles, keep them coming
November 18th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
just a note: something that many do not mention is an after tumbling step that I have adopted. I deprime before tumbling, and after tumbling my cases I wash them. A shot of Simple Green in a small bucket (depending on “batch” size), swish em around with some warm to hot water, a couple rinses with cool to cold water, then I set them out to dry. Typically spread on a towel in a breeze, sometimes i rack them up in re-used 50 count plastic pistol ammo racks (like those found with factory bought ammo, with the “webs” of plastic at the bottoms for support while packaged for retail purposes). Why you may ask? To remove the significant amount of tumbler dust that remains inside those cases. I have read on a barrel makers site that many “shot out” barrels have a layer of red embedded in the bore metal, and is the likely cause of the resulting condition. It seems that typically this “example” is from a moderately used firearm, lots of practice, then hunted with, that was the impression from the story anyway. I can only imagine the results if competition barrels were examined more in this fashion. I can tell you from my own personal experience that not cleaning enough of this red dust off has worn out my (only) 10 yr old RCBS 357 mag carbide resize die (have not found reference yet of someone else doing this). I had found that many resized cartridges were not fitting into several chambers, and a simple switch to a new die made the difference. May not be earthshaking news to old hands, but for the new loader, especially one maybe reloading a short mag or other “hot” caliber, may help them extend the life of their purchase just a few rounds more. And I feel a good tidbit for them to know about, to think more than just about the shiny outside of those lovingly crafted handloads!
November 19th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I also keep my brass in lots of 50. When I return home with fired cases I use a universal decapping die. Then I soak my cases in Apple Cider Vinegar for 20 minutes. I strain the vinegar out using a funnel and a coffe filter. I reuse the vinegar several times and discard if it starts to show any signs of cloudiness that does not settle to the bottom of the bottle. Immediately after removing the cases from the vinegar I dump them into a pot of warm water. Then I use my hands to swish the cases around in the water thorouhgly rinsing any vinegar off of the cases. I stand the cases up to dry over night. Then I tumble my cases in Tumbler #1 with walnut media for approximately 2 hours. I remove the cases from the walnut media ensuring that I remove all of the media even from the flash holes. Then I put the cases into to tumbler #2 that has corn cob media with a polish solution. I polish my cases for about 1-2 hours. When I get a full box of cases prepared this way I then size the cases and mark the box as “POLISHED AND SIZED.” Now my cases are ready to load. I believe that clean and polished cases are easier on my dies. My cases are always squeaky clean and I get lots of compliments on the appearance of my cases.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I find that I get good results in my tumbler when using a mixture of walnut media and corn cob media. I also add some powdered mica and Flitz brass polish. The brass comes out nice and shiny and clean. Rather than changing the media to re-tumble to remove any polish residue, I just use a cloth rag and wipe them down. It may take a little longer, but it leaves a great finish on the brass.
I find that cleaning de-primed brass doesn’t do much for cleaning the primer pocket and you end up having to check each flash hole for stuck media, which I remove with the end of a paper clip. It’s easier to leave the brass primed for tumbling, then using a primer pocket cleaning brush attached to a cordless power drill sitting on the bench to clean the primer pockets.
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
It’s a great article about the case cleaning procedure.
All these procedures are OK for cleaning the outside surface of the case and the neck. I use them.
But tumbling only is not enough (in my opinion) for cleaning the internal surface of the small bottleneck cases, like the 222 R.
I shot a lot of rounds of this cartridge with a Remington 700 BDL caliber 222R, with very good results (some time I have reach the first place in shooters competitions, with over 50 competitors), using my selected cases, resizing the neck only.
Every 10 (then) resizing, I have to resize the case body (with a Redding body die).
Always I found many carbon fragments coming out from the case (detached from the internal surface, due the case wall resized through the body die).
In this situation, in order to have the case body allways cleaned inside, it would be mandatory to wash them with warm water and proper additive.
But with the 222R case I don’t use to wash them, because the carbon deposite do NOT influence the shot precision in my rifle (five shots stay normally in 1/4 of MOA).
Which is your opinion about the cleaning of small bottle cases, like 222R, 22-250, 243W ??
Thanks for reply.
Claudio Ascari
November 24th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Claudio,
The vinegar and tumbling get them clean inside as well. I also shoot a 22-250. The walnut media is sometimes more difficult to shake out but they are definitely clean on the inside. I never get any carbon residue on my die expander ball since I have started using this procedure.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I recently wanted to demolyfy some moly coated bullets, so I puy some Play Sand in my tumbler and ran it for a couple of hours. The result was the sand did not do any serious harm to the moly coating, other than making the moly coating slightly glossy. So, I wondered what would happen if I ran some brass cases through the tumbler with the sand as media. I ran a batch of cases for an hour, tumbling in the sand. I then inspected the cases closely looking for ill effects from the sand. Amazingly, the cases appeared to be unharmed by the sand. The result was a slightly dull luster, but very clean brass with no sand granules trapped in flash holes.
I cannot say that this is an appropriate replacement for conventional media, as I have not yet gained enough experience with this procedure. I don’t yet know if this procedure will shorten the life of the brass. I am going to continue with this experiment throughout the life of this lot of brass.
One thing learned was that if one is ever in dire need of cleaning media and none is available, Play Sand will do the job until you get proper media.
March 24th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
The comment on washing the cases is good and I find that using a plastic bottle, old peanut type about 1/2 gallon with hot soapy water cleans well after tumbling in media. Just swish them around and then rinse several times with hot water to make sure no soap residue. Then I rinse them in rubbing alcohol as this absorbs any water left over and then set them out to dry, they dry faster after the alochol rinse as well. Can use the alcohol over several times. They come out like new.
This procedure also works well to clean of Lee’s sizing lube and would work for any water soluble lube.
And thanks for the great articles.
April 21st, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Good articles