Brass Cleaning Questions

[JustinN]

I know have a tumbler and a sonic cleaner...so when do I use each? What are the advantages vs disadvantages of each?

Also, I have the lyman red tumbling media, and I've used it once (2 hours later brass was super clean and shiny) but I notice the inside of the cases is now red...is that a problem?

[Bawanna]

I used to get the same results with the red tumbling media. I just use reptile bedding from a pet store now. Throw a cap full or so of liquid car wax in with it. Get real clean which is what you want but not quite as highly polished unless you leave it a long time, but you also don't get the red.

The sonic cleaner is the ticket for those places you can't get at like the inside, but it will also knock off the shine some.

If you sonic clean first all will be clean, when you tumble you'll get the red, kind of a vicious circle.

I don't use Sonic much, don't have a large one, just a little one for jewelry. I don't like dealing with the wet and drying.

Tumbler alone works well enough for me.

[Bawanna]

Same goes for primer pockets, some say deprime first which means you either tumble first or run dirty brass through your dies, then deprime, then sonic or tumble again, but the primer pockets fill with media if you tumble.

I leave the primers in when I tumble. If I was to sonic, I'd probably tumble a bit, then deprime, then sonic.

[JustinN]

I use a universal depriming tool first, so I always deprime dirty.

About the red dust, do I need to clean it out of the shell, or is it ok?

[downtownv]

I have both 6 of 1 or 1/2 dozen of the other.

[mr surveyor]

I use the universal deprime die first, then they go into my ancient (1983 vintage) ultra-sonic tub. I don't care a bit about shiny, but I do like clean ... inside and out.
Dry time don't mean squat to me .... I generally deprime and clean shortly after a range trip, so there's plenty of dry, processed brass ready for the next "load day" anyway.


jd

[TucsonMTB]

I know have a tumbler and a sonic cleaner...so when do I use each? What are the advantages vs disadvantages of each?

Also, I have the lyman red tumbling media, and I've used it once (2 hours later brass was super clean and shiny) but I notice the inside of the cases is now red...is that a problem?

For bottle necked rifle cartridges, Bawanna hit the nail on the head. Tumbling is sufficient. The residue inside the case is not an issue, in that it does not effect accuracy. Conventional wisdom is that the carbon that remains in the neck area is useful in that it provides uniform drag from round to round in the critical neck area. I only load 30-06, but have tried just about every permutation that I have read about except neck turning and have achieved the best accuracy by just tumbling.

For straight walled, pistol cartridges, Mr. Surveyor's approach works best for me. Removing the primers before ultrasonically cleaning cases results in clean primer pockets which make the reloading process more pleasant. With the light, taper crimp I use on 38 special cases, clean cases seem to have a slight edge over leaving the inside as fired. From my reading, I believe that is also the current version of conventional wisdom for straight walled cased. Admittedly, my reloads are more accurate than the cheaper commercial offerings from the foreign manufacturers but slightly less accurate than premium Federal ammunition.

I am just sharing my opinion based on experience and experimentation to date. I am kind of lazy, so the least I can do while achieving reasonable accuracy, the better I like it. Admittedly, doing more, like carefully cleaning bottle necked cartridges and necks, has resulted in less consistent (less accurate) 30-06 rounds, for me.

As you experiment, you may experience different results. I am sure we will all be interested to hear your opinion several hundred rounds from now.

Best of luck, sir.

[Bawanna]

What's everybody think on his red dust inside the case. Half of me says it's not a big issue, but half of me thinks it should be cleaned out.

Is it really dust or a residue hard film. Maybe blowing them out quickly with a compressor or a swap on a stick to get any loose stuff?

In hindsight I answered my own question. Tumbling doesn't do anything inside the case. It has to be just dust, so a tap on the bench, air compressor or swab would be more than enough to knock it out and shouldn't be a problem.

[muggsy]

I squirt a little Visine into the cases. Visine gets the red out. Seriously, the red won't hurt a thing. I resize and deprime and then sonic clean the cases. I then tumble the cases in a crushed walnut medium. You can used compressed air or a paperclip to remove any medium from the flash holes. I bought 25# of crushed walnut polishing medium from Harbor freight for $25. Enough to last a life time. You can't tell my reloads from factory new ammo.

[JustinN]

Excellent to hear. I didn't want the red coloring to cause a problem with my loads. I'm fixing to load up some 45-70...that little Marlin rifle I got is a blast to shoot (pun intended). It is fun to see the reactions at the range to what is making so much noise...

[marshal kane]

Excellent to hear. I didn't want the red coloring to cause a problem with my loads. I'm fixing to load up some 45-70...that little Marlin rifle I got is a blast to shoot (pun intended). It is fun to see the reactions at the range to what is making so much noise...

IME, the red dust inside the case is just polishing rouge that has coated on top of the powder residue that's sticking to the case. It will not affect performance when you reload the case. If you want to really split hairs, it might affect erosion in your bore bit but only after you've fired a few million rounds.