Cleaning brass

[bpcrshooter62]

i agree but with the way i do it and the stuff i use to do it my way you can never get them cleaner it is worth every penny and that is about all it adds up to is a few cents to clean a batch of 200 cases it only takes one cap full of the liquid brass cleaner to do a batch so in a quart you get 100's of batches for that !!!

[Castaway]

If your liquid brass cleaner has ammonia, you’re making your brass brittle with a high chance of failure.

[bpcrshooter62]

In 20 plus years of doing it my way i have used the same brass in the cleaning solution hundreds of times and have never lost a single casing

[Randy Bohannon]

If your liquid brass cleaner has ammonia, you’re making your brass brittle with a high chance of failure.

There’s no ammonia in the Shiloh or B/A brass cleaning solution ,like BPCRShooter I have not used anything better in 20+ years of using either the Shiloh or B/A solution with ceramic media and a Thumblers Tumbler B model.

[Kurt]

When I shoot the Baker then the Quickly and finish again at Baker I shoot a lot of shells for those three shoots. I ran out of 1800 rounds one year and ran out of shells to shoot the Baker and the Hickmeister never forgave me for doing that
And I go home with about a 5 gallon bucket full of dirty brass after a month away from home.
When I get home I de

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prime the cases and soak them in a bucket of water for several hours and rinse them then I put them in a my sonic cleaner. I use a 10L DK SONIC that I used for cleaning fumed up Carburetors and then I put them in the Frankford Arsenal tumbler for an 1/2 hr. and they come out looking like them below.
I use 3mm ceramic balls and one pac of Cascade dishwasher stuff and a very little lemi shine.
I save the dirty water after the cleaning in a 5 gallon bucket. Not for the economy but it just works the best I have ever used.
The mud settles down in a day or two and it's clear again. When the bucket is full I drain off the top slowly till I see mud show up and clean out the bottom of the bucket and replace the clear solution.
The stuff in the photo is what it looks like reused.
I just dip a coffee can in the bucket and pour it into the tumbler. No mixing needed and the brass comes out like what you see here. Primer pockets and inside and outside is clean and shiny

[Kurt]

Primer pockets in the .38-50 Hepburn cases.

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[Gussy]

I tried the 3mm but had a lot sticking in the flash hole. Mine were not very uniform and had quite a few smaller ones.

Where did you get yours?

[Kurt]

I got mine at Amazon.
I never had one stick in the flash hole, the 2mm would but I have not had the 3mm do this. But they stick in the pocket some times held by the soap suds.
I also have some 4mm but they don't polish the brass like the 3mm. The brass gets clean but it will look like brushed brass.
Both 3mm and 4mm does a better job than the angle cut stick type does.

[bandanaman]

Kurt, How much of the 3mm round ceramic media do you use in the Frankford tumbler ? I picked up one package of the lyman angle cut media [1.6 lbs.]but it doesn't look like enough to me ? I just got back from my road trip to Bethune and haven't tried this as yet and will get to my brass tomorrow after christening my new scope.....
Michael

[Kurt]

Michael, I'm using 5 lbs so it does not beat up the case mouth that has a fairly sharp edge. I don't remember the brand name but it was about $20. for 5 lbs.
5 lbs is just right in the large Frankford Arsenal tumbler that will hold 200 of the .38-50 cases.

Just dont spill any on the cement floor LOL they bounce more than a hard hand ball.

[Gussy]

I got mine from Amazon too. Must have been a different supplier. Very uneven diameters. Some small that definitely stick in the hole.

[RB1Shooter]

Shooter II made by Greg Vest. Fabulous cleaning solution and as good if not better than the 38-50 brass shown in the pics. Of course, ceramic media and the combination you can't beat.

[bandanaman]

Well I tried an experiment....I picked up 5 lbs. of the 3mm ceramic media and put it in my Frankford tumbler less an equal volume of the lyman angle cut ceramic which I also put into the mix. My thinking was that a round ball can not clean an inside 90 degree corner. I used the Frankford brand cleaner and ran it for three hours...Likely overloaded it with about 390 pcs of 45-70 brass[volume wise ] but still only weighed about 25 lbs....Results weren't real bad but I am not happy with the primer pockets also the case right ahead of the rim can be cleaner as well.....Not having any experience with ultrasonic cleaners I have to think that must be one of the variables making all the difference ..In the past I have been using the stainless steel pins but was having real issues with case mouth peening. I even tried doubling the pins so they might not tumble so hard...Now I am wondering if a combination of the stainless pins with the 3mm ceramic balls may be an option....the balls definitely seem to tame the tumble as I haven't noticed any excessive case mouth peening at this point....Having separated the balls from the lyman media I am contemplating my next step[Fortunately had a strainer ladle that worked perfectly for this].The other option may be to investing a ultrasonic cleaner of some sort which will send me on another mission trying to decide on what to buy....Any thoughts on the stainless pin/ceramic mix ?

[Randy Bohannon]

My brass gets deprimed and primer pockets get scraped with the primer pocket scraper provided on the Pope style prime/deprime tool at the range. Then put in a container of Dawn detergent and water until I get home, a small well fitting flat blade screw driver is a decent scraper for primer pockets before tumbling.

[bandanaman]

Well I tried my new" soup". A combination of s/s pins and 3mm ceramic balls. This was the second time around so if they weren't up to snuff there's something seriously wrong having put them through the ringer now for six hours.......The s/s pins I feel were needed to get inside the primer pockets which they did.....the ceramics did a great job both inside and out .I will have to do some shooting and try some with this combo for a single cycle[which I usually run them for three hours]. I have not noticed any serious case mouth peening as the ceramics seem to slow the tumble down enough so they are not crashing against each other. Sometimes I wonder if this Frankford machine may be a little too fast ?Right now there is probably 5 lbs of s/s pins and 2 1/2 lbs of ceramic beads in this soup....Jury is out on ultrasonic cleaner as I have zero experience with these at this point in time.....I did find a couple cases with the primer pocket jammed with a couple of the beads....an odd size here and there managed to jam their way in but overall very uniform in size...These I got on Amazon "SACKORANGE" 5lbs $35.98 CDN.