Experiment

[bobw]

Venison Rx pm inbound.

[JonnyV]

So the byproduct of firing black powder is that a lot of the partially consumed sulfur remains in the brass. When exposed to a moisture source, it creates sulfuric acid. So for your gas it grows the brass away, ecause brass is reactive with sulfuric acid. If you take that fired brass and mix it with vinegar water solution, you’ve now created a compound acid. So if your gas and plus acetic acid. It will do a good job of cleaning the brass, however you must get it out of that solution within a short time or it will begin to corrode the brass even faster. Basic college chemistry (and I’m a Marine)….

For your freshly fired brass, a better solution is to mix about 2 ounces of simple green with a gallon of distilled water (more SG is not better in this case). This creates an alkaline solution that neutralizes the sulfur in the black powder residue. Then you can let your breast shit basically as long as you want before you tumble it and clean it.

[martinibelgian]

Sheesh, the sulfuric acid thing surfaces again....

[JonnyV]

Sulfuric acid leaches copper out of brass…that’s what the green stuff in th OP’s photos is…copper. Just like the outside of the Statue of Liberty…

[martinibelgian]

Now, how would there be sulphuric acid if BP residue is alkaline? Maybe alkaline sulphuric acid? It's not because BP contains sulphur that you will have sulphuric acid, you know...
This more or less explains the byproducts of combustion of BP: " produced (in order of descending quantities) 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, potassium thiocyanate, carbon, ammonium carbonate and 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water."
Most of which are basic (anything potassium). FWIW, ammonia will also attack your brass while being pretty much alkaline. You want to be sure? buy a test kit and have a go...

[JonnyV]

I have a pH testing kit. Maybe I’ll test it again to be sure. You can leach copper out of brass if you go to far alkaline as well as if you go too far acidic. The Simple Green mix keeps the pH n my fired and recapped brass right at about 8.5, which allows me the freedom of not racing home to run the tumbler.

[martinibelgian]

FWIW, contrary to popular opinion, BP fouling will not rust a barrel. And now I hear people saying, but where does that rust come from then? I've had it happen!
Very true, and you will get rust if you don''t clean out BP fouling. The reason is simple, the stuff is hygroscopic, so absorbs moisture from the air. And water will rust steel...

[JonnyV]

Ok now I’m curious…the sulfur is there, I can smell it. Sulfur mixed with water does make acid. If there are other compounds present though they may mitigate it.

Luckily, my gunsmith is also a chemist, works in high pressure steam systems and community water handling equipment and that stuff is full of brass valves hence the need to control the ph levels in those systems…going to take over the info I found and actually do the chemical equations to see what the results are.

[martinibelgian]

Nope, mixing sulphur and water doesn't make sulphuric acid. You'll need to do your homework...

[Aviator]

I routinely see posts promoting the idea that you need to start soaking your brass almost immediately after firing.
What is this based on?

I have never implemented this practice, and have yet to see any negative consequences. I routinely let my brass sit for anywhere from 1 day to 3 weeks after firing, and am baffled by not seeing any issue.
On the occasions that I deprime and put it in the tumbler immediately after arriving home from range, I see no different results compared to the times that I let it sit several weeks before depriming and cleaning.

I am relatively new to black powder shooting, having only started about 3 years ago. But I have fired at least 10,000 black powder rounds thru my Shiloh. What symptoms should I be looking for?

[ian45662]

I routinely see posts promoting the idea that you need to start soaking your brass almost immediately after firing.
What is this based on?

I have never implemented this practice, and have yet to see any negative consequences. I routinely let my brass sit for anywhere from 1 day to 3 weeks after firing, and am baffled by not seeing any issue.
On the occasions that I deprime and put it in the tumbler immediately after arriving home from range, I see no different results compared to the times that I let it sit several weeks before depriming and cleaning.

I am relatively new to black powder shooting, having only started about 3 years ago. But I have fired at least 10,000 black powder rounds thru my Shiloh. What symptoms should I be looking for?

Steve my experience has been the same as yours

[VenisonRX]

For those of you who don’t really have corrosion issues, are you in relatively dry climates or have low humidity in your homes? Just something I was thinking since as we learned earlier (I barely passed college chemistry) that water+fowling=corrosion. Perhaps results may vary wildly depending on your environment. The brass I posted pictures of at the beginning of this thread was fired in Abilene, TX which is surprisingly humid and my box of assorted brass was kept in a shed. Obviously it only corrodes so much because after 10 years I would have suspected to see holes in it. So far this looks to be a nasty case of tarnish more than pitted corrosion. Though I’m also not a metallurgist either so it may have leached out enough copper to make it brittle. I’ll be doing some tests and see if it cracks vs bends or what happens if I try to run it up into smaller sized dies or something with and without annealing.

Really enjoying the conversation so far. Love learning in depth details on stuff. Makes shooting that much more enjoyable when you know why everything is the way it is.

[bohemianway]

Just a note: The rotten egg smell you get from shooting BP is from the H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide) typically created in the combustion process. It is the H2S that is slightly soluble in water and acts as a weak acid. Also consider that hydrogen sulfide reacts with metal ions to form metal sulfides and what that may potential do to the bore and brass.

[alfajim]

Since you mentioned it, the Marine solution is

Also sorry about the crayon joke. Just a little veteran humor. I flew C-130s for almost 15 years and the marines were always the easiest to work with. So thank you for that. Nothing more painful than seeing the frag tell us we were supporting the army…

VenisonRX, thanks for your service. Retired Navy airdale AE A-3D's, A-6's, FA-18 legacy. Are you looking or planing to fly with one of the airlines? A lot of our A-6 drivers were with Southwest.
Nice discussion, the sulfur, sulfuric acid thread is interesting spent many years in racing engine shop and learned a lot about acid's and there different uses to clean up blown up or damaged engines.

Jim O

[VenisonRX]

VenisonRX, thanks for your service. Retired Navy airdale AE A-3D's, A-6's, FA-18 legacy. Are you looking or planing to fly with one of the airlines? A lot of our A-6 drivers were with Southwest.
Nice discussion, the sulfur, sulfuric acid thread is interesting spent many years in racing engine shop and learned a lot about acid's and there different uses to clean up blown up or damaged engines.

Jim O

Thanks Jim you too. A bunch of our guys went southwest, fed x, ups, and delta. I was a navigator so the airlines weren’t in the cards for me. I ended up working for CAE instructing in the simulators. Pretty nice gig since I get to be at home with the kids every night. Being gone 10 months a year got real old real quick after my first kid was born. Made coming to this new job a pretty easy decision.