Baking brass to dry

[michaelnel]

I am another sun-dryer. I live in the California Sierra foothills where daytime highs are 90-100F for months on end. No rain, no clouds. I tumble my decapped rifle brass in a Thumler's Tumbler, rinse several times in clear water, then stick 'em into one of these and put it out in the sun to bake:

Then my brass is, pardon the expression, "fresh as a spring morning"!

 

[rogn]

Im a bit lazy and don't have a need to have beautiful brass, just clean and serviceable. I decap- such as mil surp once fired- the immerse the brass in a hot solution of 2-3 qts of boiling water and a heaped teaspoon of citric acid. I slosh about 200 762 nato brass in a container for 10 minutes, agitate a few times while waiting, then rinse in hot water tumble in a mesh bag. Then it goes out doors on sunny days or into the furnace room (100*+), stir or shake a few times and its usually dry in 1/2 hr. Small betties just sit on top of the furnace-140* or so. Brass comes out clean, rarely with tarnish, primer pockets are not shiny, but greatly improved. Interiors look good.Best of all the citric acid "passivates" the brass and retards tarnishing. You can reuse the solution with some freshening several times. And my wife is never mad at me, at least not about brass cleaning.

 

[Joe R]

djtjr said:
Guys I just stainless tumbles some brass and to accelerate drying I put it in the oven at 200 for 30 mins. It's very dry but also incredibly hot to the touch. I just don't know what 200 feels like but also assume that my oven is not so far off that 200 on the dial is hot enou to actually change the molecular structure of the brass which I assume would have to get up over 500. Am I reasonably safe in this assumption is there a way to test it? Any other thoughts or comments on using this method to accelerate drying?

I normally use an RCBS media separator to spin the brass after the stainless pin cleaning. After the pins have dropped out and the brass is left in the basket I add a small hand towel and give the brass another few (5-10) tumbles. by that time the outside of the cases are dry. I just put them on a cookie sheet (I do about 100 .308 cases at the time) and bake them at 150 degrees for 30 minutes. They are hot to the touch but cool off in 10 minutes. I have reloaded the cases right after it and the next morning gone off to a match without any issues.

1. Hair dryer
2. Five gallon bucket
3. And five minutes on the hi setting and 100% dry.



4. Screw up your wife's oven and "YOU" will feel the heat.

bigedp51, I really like this solution, I won't have to shuttle between garage and kitchen. Great idea.