Tumbling with Lemon Juice

[Springfield Slim]

Summer started last week   I don't hunt but seems to me having 2 holes to bleed out of would be better than one.

[Deadeye Dick]

SS,
Ideally the bullet should expand and use up all of its energy in the animal and come to rest just inside the skin on the other side. But that is improbable using one load for many different sizes of game. The animal I shot using your bullet only went about 10 yards. That's completely good enough for me. I have had some animals drop immediately, but they usually go a short distance. A lot depends on shot placement.
Deadeye Dick 

[Nueces]

Deadeye I have to agree with SS on this one. Two holes are always better than one unless you are talking about some sort of energy weapon. As a friend of mine is always reminding me, it's not energy deposition that kills, it is target deformation. His two Ds. If it were energy then a baseball hitting you in the chest would kill you. Again, his analogy. If you don't believe me then calculate the kinetic energy of a 200 grain bullet at 800 fps and then a 5 ounce baseball at 60 mph and tell me which one has more energy. Been hit with both and I can testify the bullet hurts more and the consequences are a lot longer lasting. The myth of the perfect bullet that expends all of it's energy and lodges beneath the skin has been around since some gun magazine writer dreamed it up, again his observation.

[Dick Dastardly]

Since this topic started with Tumbling with Lemon Juice and got hijacked, I'll apologize.  Let's take the killing power of various bullets to another thread and leave this one for the brass cleaning considerations.

Me bad.

DD-DLoS

[Driftwood Johnson]

Some of us like loading ammo that sparkles.  The very clean brass runs great in our reloading equipment, loads great in our guns and is easy to find in the grass.  Besides, some of us like to be clean shaven, others like whiskers.  Clean brass vs dirty brass is like that.  It's a quality thing.

Dick

I know you are selling a product to make brass shiny, however brass that has been thoroughly rinsed, then tumbled runs just fine through reloading equipment. It does not need to be shiny. Slides into chambers easily too. Shiny is nice, but it does not function any better than stained brass that has been thoroughly rinsed. As long as any grit has been washed away and the brass tumbled a bit, it is plenty smooth enough for our purposes. If you want your brass cosmetically pretty, it is just that, nothing more, cosmetics. Shiny brass is easier to find in the grass though, I will concede you that.

However I stand by my original point that vinegar is likely to leach the copper out of brass alloy, leaving a higher percentage of zinc, which can make the brass brittle. I don't let any acids anywhere near my guns or my brass.

[Dick Dastardly]

I agree on the acid/brass observation Driftwood.  I believe that TSP is basic and it's what I use as an adjunct.  I really like the way it gets rid of the excess splash of lube on the cases.

As for shiny vs just clean, you're right.  It's a preference.  I guess I just like stuff that sparkles.  Us riverboat gamblers are like that. . .

DD-DLoS

[john boy]

I believe that TSP is basic and it's what I use as an adjunct.

Dick, on the other side of the meter ... The pH of a 1% solution is 12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisodium_phosphate

This is interesting:  A gallon solution of the burnishing solution that I use has a pH of 7.59.  With a 1/4 tsp of TSP, the pH only drops to 7.43.  Measurements taken with a calibrated laboratory pH meter.  Gotta be some sort of a chemical reaction going on!

On the flip side, Lemon juice has a pH of 2.3.  So Slim, being correct as you normally are ... I'll stick with the Burnishing solution & TSP - because I like shiny brass as well as I like CAS levers with brass frames.  Where we differ, clean insides of the cases are important to me.  Not especially for CAS but for BPCR reloads

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy John  Boy,

I agree on the clean insides of brass.  Clean means consistent volume and that equals one more load variable eliminated.

I don't have a ph meter but I do know that TSP is slippery when wet.  Acid isn't.  I like the way that the TSP helps get rid of the splashed lube residue on the brass.  That's the stuff that was giving me a kickin' fit with grey looking brass.  Turns out the brass was clean but had a film of PL-II bullet lube on it.  PL-II is like that.  It coats stuff and leaves a teflon like film.  Gun barrels and innards benefit from that coating action.  Brass don't.

I'm thinkn' that Lemon Juice might be slower to remove that PL-II bullet lube film from the brass.

DD-DLoS

[Chaa Duu Ba Its Iidan]

Hi,
I've just started reading the BP forum I read all the replies for this topic.  Yeah, I got confused (?) when the conversation went from brass to bullets, but I agree that putting lemon juice into the polishing media is a bad idea because brass is a soft alloy and it will be weakend (make that, damaged) by the acidic lemon juice. 

For a rather graphic demonstration, next time you buy or catch fish for dinner, fillet them, squeeze a couple of lemons over them (or use a concentrate, diluted 50/50 (1:1) with water) and wrap in plastic wrap or use a covered glass bowl (don't use an aluminum or copper pan!!).  In a couple hours, the fish will be "cooked" perfectly.

Please forgive me if the following appears patronizing and boring, but some people don't understand this stuff:

Brass is a soft alloy of copper and zinc, heated to a high melting temperature, so the zinc essentially goes gaseous and bonds with the copper.  There are various alloy-types of brass, with the ratios of copper/zinc being manipulated to achieve the proper alloy.  For instance, a simple brass alloy is 19:1, or nineteen parts copper to one part brass.  Applying an acid to any resulting alloy can act as a leaching agent and either change the alloy ratio itself or act on the molecular structure to embrittle the alloy.  Also, brass can be "work-hardened" just by firing a round, subjecting it to tremendous pressures and expansion and subsequent, lesser contraction by cooling.  We also work harden brass when we resize the brass in a partial or full-length resizing die.  As the brass case becomes harder, it becomes more and more brittle.  That's why we see casing cracks in brass that has been reloaded numerous times.

So, if you use acidic lemon juice, something similar, or for that matter, any chemical agent whose effects on your brass you can't predict, you stand the chance of decreasing the useful life of your brass.  Brass is an investment and we should be careful with it and get as many reloads out of it as we can.

I agree, with the method of cleaning your used brass using a "pinch" (maybe a couple teaspoons) of  TSP (Tri-Sodium Phosphate) in a gallon of hot tap water.  I don't use soap because I think soap is too hard to rinse off.  I let my brass dry for a couple days, sometimes turning a small fan on it.  I don't add anything to my tumbling media. I tumble my brass dry, and I don't add anything to the natural media other than very small, natural hardwood blocks (not shavings).  I use walnut hull bedding from PetSmart or similar and I also use cracked corn from the feed store (you gotta keep this organic media very well-covered our you will get mice!  ).  But, I tumble my brass longer, for two and a half hours. 

Here's a tip that could be useful in competition.  Let the brass cases dry completely first, before you tumble.  If you don't, you could wind up with two problems.  First of all, you could get media stuck in your primer pocket(s), which is a pain in the ass because it slows you down and wastes components.  Second, even though your primer pocket(s) may be clear, residual moisture could have caused media to clump up inside the case and you could load rounds that have moisture-laden media blocking the primer pocket from the inside.  Loading powder and ball over this clump of wet media can cause a number of different ignition problems.  I grant you that this is a rare event, but I've seen it often enough in several CAS reloads that we've taken apart to check for cause of failure to make me be careful of how I clean and tumble brass.  If you use a wet media, check every shell after they dry with a chopstick or a bamboo skewer stick or something.  This is a good habit to get into in any event when you're reloading for competition.

Chaa Duu Ba Its Iidan

[Drayton Calhoun]

I remember the old Birchwood Casey liquid case cleaner. Forgot and left a batch of plated cases in the solution for a couple of days, it removed every trace of nickel plating. In regards to the use of citric acid on brass. It isn't just to make them shiny. It will also remove any trace of corrosion on the brass. As with all things more is not always better. Short term cleaning and not every time. Thorough (or however you spell it, been a long night on night shift, lol) rinsing with fresh water and prompt drying should not cause any problem. Remember this, BP fouling is extremely hygroscopic and the acids produced by the fouling are far worse than a diluted citric acid solution if used in moderation.

[Fox Creek Kid]

For all the hand wringing nervous Nellies, I have been using lemon juice for years and am the person who first mentioned this. I have NEVER lost a case due to this after years of usage. I do however anneal my larger BP cases, e.g., 56-50, 50-70 & 50-90. I feel that based on my YEARS of usage that all this acid fear is tantamount to pole vaulting over a mouse turd. 

[Gypsy Bob]

NOPE ... NO lemon juice, I like to use my home brew beer when I clean my brass, it tastes MUCH better...but, to each his own....LOL

[Drayton Calhoun]

For all the hand wringing nervous Nellies, I have been using lemon juice for years and am the person who first mentioned this. I have NEVER lost a case due to this after years of usage. I do however anneal my larger BP cases, e.g., 56-50, 50-70 & 50-90. I feel that based on my YEARS of usage that all this acid fear is tantamount to pole vaulting over a mouse turd. 

When I was in the Navy, we used orange kool-aide (AKA Bug Juice) to clean brass firefighting equipment due to the verdigris from contact with salt water. Never had any damage. It's the citric acid that destroys the corrosion.

[Yakima Red]

I rinse my brass in the hottest water available after popping out the primers and air dry.

Then I put them in my Lyman 2400 with walnut media and some FLITZ polishing liquid.

Shiney as new. IMHO shiney brass is the only way to go. Smooth reloading and O so easy on the dies.

Besides, blinding your compition at the loading table just might give you that edge.....