How do you Handle Brass

[Will Ketchum]

My biggest complaint about shooting black powder besides the loading of the ammo is the brass.

What steps do you take to get the brass ready to reload and to keep it from getting grungy?

Do you decap at the range?  What solution do you use to keep the brass from corroding before you get it home?

Any thought would be welcome.

[Arcey]

I put an empty mouth-wash bottle in the shower.  As my bar of soap (Ivory) gets too small to use I bust it up and drop it in the bottle.  The morning of a shoot I'll half fill it with hot tap water.

Dump the brass in the bath after each stage.  Shake the bottle up.

Use a box cutter to cut the top of the bottle off.  Poke a few holes in the bottom with a nail.  Rince with hot tap water until it runs clear.  Shake them up during rinsing.  Let them dry and tumble in uncooked rice.  I quit using polish, shiney brass just doesn't go with Black Powder cartridges.

Size and decap when I get around to it.

They'll sit in the soapy water for a long time without a problem.  Just keep the bottle cap tight.

[Lars]

With Pyrodex and Goex what I do is did pretty much as Arcey. Took jug of soapy water with me and put brass in it after each stage. I immediately dry the well rinsed brass in the oven at about 200F and then put it in vibratory polisher. Lack of immediate drying can result in green Cu hydrocides inside the cases.

Now that I use 777 and Swiss I simply put the brass in some totally dry container and keep it dry until I have time to rinse it well with cold water. Then it is into the oven and then the vibratory polisher. IF the brass should get wet, for example, because it fell on dew-covered grass or it was rainy, then it gets rinsed and dryed ASAP.

IF one uses excessive BP lube, then a good soak in soapy water, preferrable hot soapy water, and a good rinse in hot water, before placing in oven is recommened.

IF I leave the washed brass in vibratory polisher long enough, it is as clean and bright as when new. Often I take it out once it is clean and smooth on outside, but, before it has become bright.

What can be difficult to remove from BP brass is the black coating of CuS or other black Cu salts that will form on outside if the brass gets wet and burnt powder residue gets on them or if the cases have blowby of powder gasses (e.g., 45 Colt, 44 Mag/Special, 44 Russian, etc.). Once on the cases this CuS, etc. can take agressive measures to remove, such as vinegar, hard cleaning media.

Sticking with original BP rifle cartridges in rifles, as well as using moderate to full BP loads, greatly solves the problem with brass from these rifles.

Normally, my BP brass will be at least as clean and bright as brass used with nitro loads.

Lars

[Virgil Ray Hality]

I shoot BP (Goex).  I put the spent brass in a canvass bag when at the range.  When I get home:

1 - I dum it all into a jug with hot watter and shake it. rinse it, and repeat this till the water is mostly clean.
2 - I add hot water and dish soap and shake shake shake it.  Then rinse and shake with lots of cold water until the the water runs clean
3 - I leave the brass to air dry in the basement.
4 - when the brass is dry I drop it in a tumbler with corn cob media, just a trace of brasso and a couple of handfulls of spent primer caps.
5 - I tublme for about 4 hours and the brass is very clean and shiney.

Thats it.

[alex]

When I was first told to try this, I though yea Right!! However I'm a big believer now and every single one that I have told about it and has tried it is a convert. Why make this a harder job than it needs to be.

I decap at the range and drop into a plastic jug filled with water and a little Dawn Dish washing deterigent. When I get home I dump the water in the jub, rinse the brass and then dump the WET BRASS into a midway vibrator filled with ground WALNUT  Hulls, let run for a few hours and thats it, comes out bright, inside and out.

It's important that you drop in wet and use ground walnut hulls. It really makes for a very simple clean up.

Alex

[Driftwood Johnson]

I don't go to any great lengths to clean my brass. It goes into my brass bag after every stage, then into a jug of water with a few squirts of dish soap for the ride home. The ride home does a good job of agitating the water and keeping everything in suspension. Once home, I rinse it out a bunch of times until the rinse water runs clear. Then I either lay it out on a cookie sheet covered with paper towels and let it air dry, or throw it in the oven at around 200 degrees for 45 minutes. After it is bone dry, I throw it into the tumbler for a couple of hours.

I do not care if my brass ever gets brand spanky shiny new again. It usually winds up a dull brass color. The important thing is to:

1. Wash away any grit that may have gotten on the brass. Once the grit is removed, it cannot scratch or damage your dies.

2. Dilute any BP fouling on the inside and outside of the brass. A lot of folks talk about 'neutralizing' the acids or bases in the fouling. I don't give a hang about neutralizing. I want to Dilute it, with lots of water. If you get your brass wet right away (the end of the match is plenty soon enough) and then dilute the rinse water with plenty of clean water, the battle has been won. I have on occaision allowed my brass to sit for too long in my dirty brass jug, sometimes a week or more. All the fouling settled out of the water and coated the brass again. The brass turned an ugly black color. I was afraid I would lose that batch. But after plenty of rinsing and tumbling, it was all useable, even though some of it had some black stains on it.

As I said, I don't care about brass being shiny. I want it clean and grit free. Shiny is just cosmetic and does not make it shoot any better.

I also never clean primer pockets separatly. I just wait until everything is bone dry, and start reloading.

[Singing Bear]

I put my used brass into a wide mouth jar of water and Dawn dish soap.  When I get home, I rinse and put them in a bucket, spritz some Kaboom, add a little water to cover the brass and go at it with a toilet brush.  Kaboom will get that fouling off, but it does need agitation.  The brush works well and the brass comes out nice and shiny.  Rinse well and air dry.  Takes less than 10 minutes.

I recently tried the stuff on smokeless brass.  Had about 1000 cases to clean.  In my small tumbler, it would have taken close to 3 days.  With the Kaboom, it took me less than an hour to clean them all.

[Will Ketchum]

All right, I give up.....what is Kaboom?

Will Ketchum

[Wildcat Will]

Kaboom is some purple cleaning stuff you can buy at Lowes.  Personally I put all my brass 45 and shotshells in a bottle with water and a little dish soap.  When I get home the water is usually black.  I take the garden hose and stick it in the bottle until the water is clear, shake the bottle a couple of times, empty the bottle and repeat.  Then I put them on a cookie sheet and into the oven at 200 for about 15-30 minutes.  I know the primers out of the shotshells after I dry them because they seem to come out easier than if I wait until after they are cleaned.  I put them in a vibrating cleaning for a couple of hours and then start the loading process again.  I agree it really does not matter how they look it is more a matter of getting the residue out. 

[Singing Bear]

Actually, Kaboom is clear, but comes in a purple bottle.  Pretty.    Another pard discovered this and I tried it out.  Some have questioned it's ingredients.   I just got real tired of taking days to clean brass and don't care.  I even gave up on getting them super shiny like I used to get them with Brasso, because even that took hours.    So long as they're not black, I'm happy and this stuff fits the bill just fine.  The brass actually starts to shine while you spray the stuff on.  Light fouling comes right off and a bit of brushing, like I described, gets the heavier black fouling off easy enough.

Give it a try.  If you don't like it, use it for it's intended purposes.  Cleaning the tub. 

Yeah, okay so the stuff might be a bit potent.  So has some said about Brasso and it's ammonia content.  Been using the stuff for several years and have had no unusual amount of brass failures.  Only the occasional split case which is expected when much of one's brass is going on over a dozen reloads. 

It's a caveat.  Your choice.    The main thing is to clean off anything that could harm the loading dies and everyone's solution works fine. 

Oh yeah, I decap when I reload. 

[44caliberkid]

Pretty much like the others here.  Take the brass home, throw it in a bottle with Dawn dish soap (I add some vinegar if it's APP powder) let it soak, shake it up everytime I walk through the kitchen, then rinse after a couple hours.  Sometimes I dry it in the oven, sometimes I put it in the vibrator wet.
   I've never heard of de-capping at the range, sounds like a lot of work for nothing, but, to each his own.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Howdy, I.Will!  And y'all others, too!

Call me weird.  I've been called MUCH worse.  I LIKE shiney brass: however, CLEAN and grit-free is much more important!

I've tried many things.  I quit taking a bottle of liquid to the range so I wouldn't have so much to carry out of the truck.  (Hey - when ya walk with a cane like me this becomes more important!)

When I've got everything unloaded, I do the standard thing: I dump all the fired cases in a jar with some kind of soap'n water in it.  The soap just makes the cleaning a little easier, 'cause as I understand it, the WATER is what neutralizes the salts created by firing: I suppose you could simply rinse them in water and get the same effect.  Anyhoo, I have a jug with H2O and Simple Green.  I chose Simple Green 'cause I have a gallon jug of it!  Dish soap or hand soap I believe would do about as well.

Whan they've soaked and I've shaken 'em enough (I've left 'em in the solution as long as a week) I rinse 'em thoroughly about 4 times and then spread them on an old towel to dry.

Now some will tell you to use walnut media, uncooked rice, throw 'em in wet and tumble without the primers and other ways.  I won't dispute them, 'cause I'm bettin' that ALL those methods work.  What I do is this: I bought some cleaning media called "Tuffnut."  (Lyman sells it, I believe.)  When I used it the first time I DIDN'T like it!  It has a red polishing rouge impregnated in it that seemed to get all over and it really didn't clean/polish any better than what I was using before; pet store crushed walnut & a little paint thinner to clean, and pet store crushed corncob with Midway liquid polish to shine.  Well, Jeff I says to myself - for indeed, that is my name let's try this Tuffnut  again.  This time, I added a bit of paint thinner/brushcleaner to the mix and it was great!  Tuffnut  is crushed walnut, but more coarse than what is sold as cleaner by Midway, etc. or the pet stores.

Well, that's whut I do.  After using BP I don't think it's POSSIBLE to get them free of all stains, unless you use the ceramic stuff that Dick Dastardly sells, but this Tuffnut  does a great job.  And it works on smokey-less cases, too! (Yes, I still use smokey-less powder: I actually have and shoot guns that aren't cowboy!! )

Keep yer powder dry!  See ya at the Convention!

[Ol Gabe]

Ketchum,
What caliber brass are you talking about, Revolver/Rifle or 45-70, etc.? Although the concept is basically the same, it is also a little different.
After many suggestions and reading tons of comments on other threads, I have learned that if you decap 45-70's right away after shooting a Relay or Herd, drop the brass into a large gallon jug filled halfway with Moosemilk (1 part Ballistol, 6 parts Water), the aggitation driving from Herd to Herd will help shake loose any crud inside. As an aside here, I use Moosemilk in a plastic bottle, a pull-top works good, filled with Moosemilk, pour some down the rifle barrel and then run a Bore Snake through after decapping, it does a great job! After bouncing in the jug for 2-4 hours, when you get home simply rinse in sink or stick a garden hose in the jug til the water runs clear. I sometimes scrub the inside with a small brush in Dawn and warm water in the sink to get the last of crud out but usually don't even do that. Air-dry on a towel in the sun. Then its off to the Corncob or Walnut media and Vibrator cleaner. The brass comes out slick as a whistle and has a nice Patina look to it, I'm not hung up on eye-blasting flashy brass, but if you want it that way you need to get a 'Thumblers Tumbler' and some of D.D.'s 'Ceramic Media', that stuff works slick!
So, basically, follow the numbers:1. Decap 2. Drop in a cleaner mixture of your choice and swab Rifle/Revolver 3. Rinse 4. Air-dry in the sun 5. Run through a medium cleaner of your choice 6. Reload 7. Shoot and repeat process again.
A neat jug to use is the gallon one that Sidewalk Salt comes in, the stuff you buy to spread on Ice in the winter, the top has a hinged lid and slots, cut out one slot and then leave the lid on, when you drain it, the brass stays in and the liquid and crud slides out!
One thing you don't want to do is add Kaboom to Moosemilk, it won't mix and makes a terrible mess!
Many others have some really neat methods for cleaning and will no doubt chime in, mine works for me but may not for you, good luck in your search.
Best regards and good cleaning!
'Ol Gabe

[Montana Slim]

...C'mon Will, just resolve to have cartridges with panache', style...patina....yeah, that's it. Don't fret what they look like...it's how they perform. My brass cartridge cases are looking well-used also. I just wash with soapy water, rinse & dry. Then tumble for 1 hr. I usually remove the primer first, but this is simply my choice to ease my method of reloading.

I've had great results using nickle-plated .38 cases, but I don't recommend nickled cases for other calibers, they often have brass cracking or peeling nickle problems.

The tarnished cartridge brass "color-coordinates" well with the frame of my 66', though!

[john boy]

* ... throw in the gun cart at the range
* ... at home, put in plastic container with some liquid laundry soap and hot water
* ... Swirl, rinse and pour off water
* ... Put wet brass in shaker, top off - walnut and 1/2 cup of 240 grit aluminum oxide
* ... Shake for a couple of hours - Done

[Howdy Doody]

I use a jug that has a wide mouth that cat litter comes in. I made it period correct by painting cattle brands all over it's white suface. I suppose it is about a gallon size. I add to it a dash of Dawn dish soap and about 12 squirts of Kaboom and about a quart of water and at a match I just remove the lid and dump the brass. By the time I get home I just rinse a few times with hot water and dry the brass in the sun. The only ones I tumble any more is the nickle plated stuff. The rest is clean enough to reload as it is. 
I only decap on the press at the time of reloading. Works well for me.

[Ol Gabe]

H.D.,
I'm gonna give your recipe a try on 45-70's and see how clean they get. Kaboom is a great product, it just doesn't go well with some things like Ballistol, never tried it with Dawn! I'm thinking that with all the bouncing and shaking the brass will get on the trek around the range and 1.5 hrs on the slab to get home, it ought to be shiny as slick and shiny as a Hound's Tooth!
Best regards and good shooting!
'Ol Gabe

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Ive never heard of KABOOM! in Canada.  I asked a friend who has one foot in BC, and the other in Idaho.  His reply was; - "Oh yeah, its like CLR on steroids"!

Do you guys have CLR?  It stands for Calcium, Lime & Rust.  It does the same as kaboom, I think.

As a coincidence, I use CLR as a liquid case cleaner, just like Kaboom.  Put some in a plastic jar, with my dirty cases, and shake until I am happy about their appearance.  Don't leave it to long as it etches brass.  blackpowder cases are washed with soap before hand.  All cases are cleaned/rinsed in soapy water after, and then dried.  I vibrate if I want them shiny.

I'll reread this thread and see if I can improve things as cleaning cases is quite time-comsuming.

[Will Ketchum]

Sir Charles,  we have CLR here.  I use it to de-lime faucets and coffee makers.  It works great.  maybe I'll try it on my brass..

Will Ketchum

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Will;   Thanks for the response to my post.  I hope you will start with a small lot of brass until you catch on to how it works for you.. I often use little mops, made from skewers with cleaning patches tied on with dental floss to physically remove the carbon before rinsing.  Do rinse, as i've left a few cases unrinsed and they feel sticky.  I know it is time consuming, but doing it while viewing TV means that I am actually doing stuff, thus only wasting Part of my remaining brain cells.