Brass cleaning

[Fred Blacker]

Hi everyone.
How is everyone currently cleaning their brass?
I am currently hand cleaning them all using auper fine steel wool one the out side of the neck and a nylon brush inside the neck. I then clean primers pockets with a Hornady hand tool.
Wondering what everyone else does any why.
I am considering buying ever an ultrasonic cleaner or a wet rotary tumbler. Just after others opinions and experience.
Cheers.

[chappo (Greg Chapman)]

I use both. 16 min in the ultrasonic after neck sizing and shoulder bump then 10 min in stainless pins. Brass comes out cleaner and shinier than new. SS pins are awesome but if you run them longer than 30 minutes you get neck peening on the inside and outside edge of the neck. I only do this prior to length trimming my cases.

If you have some filthy brass that needs a trim anyway send them to me and ill polish them up for you.

[Peter Cross]

Cleaning brass whats that Fred ?

But seriously when I do get the inclination to handle nice shiny brass, which is very seldom I might add, I throw them in the ultra sonic cleaner.  This cleans the inside neck wall and primer pockets, the brass comes out clean but not real shiny. If you want to go to the next step and really impress the blokes at the range you need to throw them into the tumbler with a bit of Brasso and crushed walnut media, (Now I have read that the ammonia in the brasso is not a good idea, but I know blokes who have done it for ages with no ill effect)  There are probably other compounds you can get that do as good a job but I have never bothered to research any of them.  

Then you take them to the range pull the trigger and they come out dirty and you wonder why in heck you spent all that time cleaning them.


This is the sonic cleaner I purchased, got the 3.2 litre one.

https://tinyurl.com/y2y5p6xu

[Rob V]

Hi Peter..
Does that sonic cleaner heat the water or do you have to put warm water in it..
cheers

[Peter Cross]

Hi Rob,

it has a heater in it too

[Stuart Pethy]

haha my brass cleaning
wipe outside of case with a rag, brush in/out of neck, lube FL bushing die, wipe off lube with rag, manually clean primer pocket, then load and repeat

i used to use a SS tumbler cleaner and while it got your brass clean as i made for other problems, if you left them in to long your necks got dented up and you had to trim and chamfer again, then it cleaned all the carbon out of necks which made seating pressure vary big time (even tried lubing necks and bullets but didn't help) which cause my rounds not very accurate  
so i stopped cleaning but if i do i use a dry vibration one with crushed walnut

[David Dundas]

Hi Fred


You would buy one of those ultrasonic cleaners and tell the wife its for her jewlery, that way you are not buy more gun crap. Of course you will have to clean all the jewlery she has and probably for her freinds as well but she will soon forget about it and it can go to the reloading shed for good.

Cheers

DAve

[Shaun Stoffels]

I tumble my brass before sizing. Leave them in for a few hours. I don't like anything on the outside of the case that can transfer into the chamber, so I always shoot nice shiny brass .

I then lube and size.

Then wipe off with fresh rag to take all lube and residue off.

Then prime, load and seat.

I used to tumble after sizing but found that after time, media would get stuck in the case and be very hard to get out. Went to brand new media and no more tumble after sizing, no more problem.

[John 23 Harris]

I have tried all the methods .

After much effort I now leave them dirty as I believe it’s redundant.

I brush the necks and clean the primer pockets .

Ultrasonic cleans too well and makes seating pills difficult.
Stainless pins to much of a pain cleaning the pins and separating them.
Vibe tumbler is great for a bright finish but is useless at cleaning anything else.

Closest to a clean now is wiping case lube off with my t shirt.