White Rice Brass Cleaning Is Real

[chkunz]

Just my 2, but I tried the rice and it was a mess. Kept having to clean the rice out of the primer holes. I was using the hard white rice.

My experience also. I have been using one part Simple Green and seven parts water for many years now. Tumble for two hours or less.

 

[jcm800]

I like the Lizard Litter walnut media. Easy way to get rid of the dust is pour some Into a bucket and take it outside when there is a light breeze. Pour into another bucket a couple times. Wind will do the rest.

 

[Straightshooter1]

Just my 2, but I tried the rice and it was a mess. Kept having to clean the rice out of the primer holes. I was using the hard white rice.

Having to clean rice out of the "primer holes" suggests you're using the wrong rice (like, long grain rice). To keep that from happening, medium size rice needs to be used and with this only a few primer pockets get a piece of rice stuck in them, but easily comes out (using a very small flat head screwdriver) and nothing in the flash holes.

 

[Flouncer]

Off topic mostly but hey !! Is the acetone base Goof Off safe to clean scotch tape adhesive off of gold coins ? Thought I would ask before I devalue some . . .. . .

 

[JPB4BAMA]

Not an easy solution in 223.
I tried this with normal medium grain white rice that I had from Costco, albeit not Nishiki. What a pain. It did pretty good at cleaning the exterior, but every case was PACKED full of rice. Some came out by touching it to the tumbler, but that is not a time effective process. Tired an ultrasonic toothbrush and that worked pretty good, but still rice wedged in the case. Ultimately had to dig it our with a small screw driver, a dental pick and finally had to borescope each piece to be sure, and there were still some that I thought were clean that were not and had to re clean them.
All that said, I'm sure that on a larger case it would work really well, but my experience on the 223 was 3 extra hours on 100 cases. Maybe next trip to the store I'll get some good sushi rice and try it again before I give up.

 

[divingin]

I tried this with normal medium grain white rice that I had from Costco, albeit not Nishiki.

Nishiki rice is a normal Sushi grade medium white rice. The variety goes by the names Nishiki and Kokuho Rose, among others. It is essentially the same as Calrose; all these are strains that were developed to be grown in the US.

FWIW, I've tried rice (had the same probs as JPB4Bama) and Buckwheat Groats (got white buckwheat powder all over everything, including stuff near the tumbler.) I've gone back to using walnut shell in a fine grit (media blasting grit ordered from an online tool place.)

 

[MGYSGT]

Ground up Zilla brand walnut shells (Desert lizard bedding) works outstanding and will not get stuck in flash holes or primer pockets because its so fine. But... It also needs a car polish added to it for the shinny crowd who like to "show off" ; ) Lasts a long time and is cheap at 15$ for a 10 liter bag. If you do mind a little dust, just throw in a used bounce, dryer sheet and no problems. And even that lasts for several uses.
Dan

Just make sure it doesn't have anything in it that will clog and fill the cartrigde case (clay)

 

[danny]

I don't know why this method of brass cleaning isn't more popular. I saw back in the late 2000s guys talking about this cleaning media. Welp, I tried it recently. I tried white rice alone for a few hours. OK. Clean, but not radiating shiny. So, I added "Goof Off" to the rice. Bling Bling, like the ring! Shot or long grain don't matter. I've got a batch on its 10th tumble and I think it's about done. $1.80 a bag for 5 months of tumbling ain't too bad in my book. Just three steady stream swirls of the Goof Off is all that's needed. 2-3hr tumble time too. Just FYI (No ammonia is in Goof-Off)
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I tried Rice some years ago. It cleaned really well and was cheap, but it was a pain in the butt. The kernels were getting stuck in the flash holes.

Danny

 

[PhilC]

About 15yrs ago I bought 5 large zip lock bags of fine ground corncob and walnut at a gunshow. Bought a new 10lb container of Lyman media last year.

This is about 60 cases from a load of brass just out of one of my Lyman 1200s after 2hrs with fine corncob, haven't even wiped the dust off yet. The first stage was 2hrs in my other 1200 with Lyman treated corn cob. I tumble prior to removing primers so I don't fight media in flash holes and clean pockets with a Sinclair uniformer. How much cleaner does it need to be?

 

[JMayo]

Lizzard media is cheep ....

 

[Old Navy]

Nail polish remover is 100% Acetone.

 

[RegionRat]

Nail polish remover is 100% Acetone.

Sometimes, they throw in girly stuff like scents and lotions to remedy the strong solvent odor and the skin drying. Check the ingredients if you want to avoid those. YMMV

ETA: Acetone vapors are an extreme hazard for flash ignition and have a 2:1 vapor density so be very careful to avoid ignition of the vapors.

 

[Old Navy]

Sometimes, they throw in girly stuff like scents and lotions to remedy the strong solvent odor and the skin drying. Check the ingredients if you want to avoid those. YMMV

ETA: Acetone vapors are an extreme hazard for flash ignition and have a 2:1 vapor density so be very careful to avoid ignition of the vapors.

Should have said the bottle I have is 100% Acetone. I worked in Maintenance at a rocked manufacturing plant. We bought that in bulk. It is nasty stuff to work around. Fresh air respirator only when cleaning with it.

 

[K9TXS]

By using either wet or drying media cleaning, I always deprime first. After processing wet or dry, the next step is using compressed air around 40 lbs air pressure and blow through the cases at both ends. The wet processing still needs to dry some but the dry method is ready to go.

I've started going back to the dry media method because it's less work and the shine last longer. Using the wet method, my brass look great, new in fact, but that only last a short period of time and then starts to tarnish.