How do you Handle Brass

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Two reasons for this post;

1. to keep this thread near the top, and

2. I've found KABOOM in Canada, at Superstore.  Just maybe ignored the obvious?  Maybe I'll try some.  There are a lot of good tips in this thread.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Gotsum KABOOM!, from Walmart!  Also found it in other stores, maybe I just don't pay attention to housecleanin' stuff?

[sundance44`s]

Kaboom! sounds like its just made for the holy black ! i`ll have to give it a try .

[Dick Dastardly]

I looked around at this thread so as to not repeat myself and didn't see anything, so here goes.

At the match, dump spent brass in wide mouth plastic bottle with water and Dawn dish washing detergent.  Shake it now and then and rinse it out when I get home.  Dump wet brass in tumbler with Ceramic Porcelain media and some diluted solvent concentrate.  Tumble three hours and brass looks better'n new.  Dry brass in tumbler two with corncob media for a few minutes and shake it out in a french fry basket.

Dump brass into LEE Pro 1000 progressive loader and load 'em up again with Mav Dutchman boolits over a compressed charge of FFFg Holy Black.

It's quick, easy and I have new looking and working ammo.  I like clean ammo.

DD-DLoS

[fourfingersofdeath]

Dump brass into LEE Pro 1000 progressive loader and load 'em up again with Mav Dutchman boolits over a compressed charge of FFFg Holy Black.

DD-DLoS

Do you drop the powder with the Lee Auto disk powder thrower? What bout wads, compression, etc. I'm about to embark on BP loading of 44/40 ammo. I have a spare old Redding power thrower which was fitted with a big hopper made out of plastic stormwater pipe. I was thinking of making up a brass reservior for it, but if the Lee works ok, I'll go that way.

Not meaning to hijack the thread, this thread has answered a lot of questions for me and the big container of soapy water was what I felt was needed. I was on the right track there (for once  )

[Lucky Irish Tom]

Can't add much, but I put mine in soapy water at the range and follow the same process as Arcey, Will and some of the others.  One  caveat to what Arcey said.  I came home from a match one day and the granddaughter had been taken to the hospital, needless to say processing the brass went right out the window.

About three weeks later I got home from work and spied the closed botlle with brass in water and soap.  Shook it up rinsed it all off, dried it, and tossed it in the tumbler for a bout 2 hours.  No harm no foul, I am still shooting those shells.  I am not sure how they would have faired in something more caustic like CLR or KABOOM!

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy 4-fingers,

Yes, I do use black powder with both the LEE auto disk and LEE perfect powder measures.  No booms.  My 44 Mag stuff gets loaded on a LEE Pro 1000 progressive.  Everything else goes on the LEE Classic turret press.  All are stuffed with Big Lube™ bullets directly on the powder.  The bullets do the powder compression nicely.  Dang near as fast as loading heathen fad smokeyless powder and a LOT more savings.

Loading your 44-40 (44WCF) ammo would be the same as my 44 Mag only different dies and brass.

Just remember, for really nice sparkling cleaner than new and twice as pretty brass. . . . .

1.  At the match, spent brass goes in wide mouth jug with soapy water.  Shake now and then to impress the onlookers.

2.  Back at the ranch, rinse brass and tumble Three hours in DD Ceramic Porcelain tumbling media with a rotary tumbler.

3.  Shake out in french fry basket, rinse and tumble dry in old corncob media.

4.  Put 'em back in the press and reload beautiful sparkling clean brighter than new ammo.

DD-DLoS

[fourfingersofdeath]

When you tumble dry in old corn cob media, do you do that in a normal vibratory (is that a word?) cleaner?

Even though a lot of people poo poo the Lee1000, I have found them to be a good little press and have several. I buy a whole new press rather than fiddle with interchangeable bits. Once set, left alone.

I have changed all of my guns for 44/40s and will use my old 1866 as a backup/loaner rifle.

Thanks for the help amigo
Mick.

[Dick Dastardly]

Actually more tumbling is redundant, but it's a quick and easy way to dry the brass.  I don't like water marks on my brass and this avoids them.  It matters not which kind of tumbler is used for drying and the extra tumbling adds nothing to the shine.  It's just a very easy way to get the brass dry inside and out.

Yer rite about the little LEE progressive.  Lots of pards are too ham handed to learn how to use them, but they do turn out lots of very fine ammo.  I really like their primer feed.  I've only had one flipped primer in the last year and that's probably cuz I put it in upside down.

Love 'em 44-40s, but if I were to start over it would be 38-40s.

DD-DLoS

[Two Rivers Marshal]

Still new to the dark side, the first shoot, just dumped the casings into my old bank bag I keep all empty shells in, brought em home and rinse with dawn and hot water.  Last shoot, snow was on the ground, almost all of my brass was green by the time we got home.  Was a tad nervous but did the same rinse and let em dry on some paper towels.  Figure next shoot I'll bring a jug of soapy water with me.

Tumbling, I use ground walnut shells.  Recently decided to buy some new media.  Bough some of the Tuffnut.  First time I ever used it.  A good portion of my shells were completely filled with the media stuck in the cases.  Took some digging to clean em out.  Will say they were shinier than new cases but had this film inside of em.  Went back and bought regular walnut.  Removed all but a handfull of the Tuffnut and filled it back up with the regular walnut media and been using it since.  The polishing rouge from the tuffnut makes em shine just like new and the regular walnut cleans them up rather nicely.  Figure if it gets where they aren't getting shiny, will toss in another handfull of the walnut with rouge.

[Montana Slim]

If you soak your brass right away, be careful not leave it in there too long...overnight, days or a week ...or you'll get a nasty surprise 

Slim

[Adirondack Jack]

I store ammo in 1LB Folgers plastic coffee cans.  I go to a shoot with one can with ammo in it, and one with water with a few drops of dish soap and a splash of vinegar in it.  Empties go in the "dishwater" and might stay there a week or more. CAUTION:, if a week turns into a month, you may get primers fused to the cases, refusing to decap, tearing half the primer off when ya run em through the decapper.  Best idea is after a day or a week in the pickle jar, rinse the brass and dry it (I use the oven, set at 200 for a little while (danger lurks if ya screw up and toss a loaded round in with the empties, as ya get a LOUD boom and momma gets really irritated and you get to clean the oven (don't ask).  Once dried I tumble em right away then they are ready for reloading.  I don't tumble till shiny, just git the grit off.  Dank stained brass is cool

[Mad Mucus]

Dump mine straight into a container of water'n'dishliquid, run under a tap 'til water clears when I get home, drain and air dry on paper towel overnight, then tumble for an hour. I like the stained look plus it helps distinguish them from my smokeless cases.

Mucus