brass cleaning?

[TrxR]

What is your brass cleaning procedure for your bolt action target rifles? How important is it to clean the inside and out of your precision brass? This brass would be coming out of a single shot rifle and will never see the ground.

Thanks

 

[#40Fan]

That question is like a seating depth question. Many different answers. Find what works for you. Good luck.

 

[Toby Bradshaw]

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...ont-clean-brass-thread.3953395/#post-37235179

 

[MikeMcCasland]

I used SS pins for a few years, and made the switch back to traditional dry media. I ran into issues related to case mouth peening.

Everyone loves pretty brass, but it doesn't seem to make it shoot anymore accurate or consistent. In some cases less so.

 

[JimSC]

I like clean brass for primer seating. I have noticed a difference in SD with consistent primer seating and no matter how you clean I believe you should at least do a manual cleaning on the pockets if you don't use wet + stainless. Never noticed any difference in SD's when dry tumbled or wet so I wet clean with 1 tbs car wash detergent and a half tsp of lemishine. They look good, they shoot good and I am a happy camper

On a practical side I think you could see potential defects in the brass easier on a clean case than one with a patina

 

[Brians356]

Join the fun! Cleaning cases into gleaming jewelry is one of the fastest-growing hobbies.
-

 

[Mozella]

......... snip................How important is it to clean the inside and out of your precision brass? ....... snip.........Thanks

Depending on who you talk to, cleaning the inside and outside of your brass is absolutely critical and must be done every reloading cycle, or it makes absolutely no difference at all, or you can clean the outside if you want, but under no circumstances clean the carbon out of the neck, or leave the outside alone but be sure to wrap a brush with fine steel wool and carefully clean the carbon from the inside of the neck.

If that is not confusing enough, why not ask about which cleaning method is best, ultrasonic, dry corn cob, or wet stainless steel?

Do not ask these questions late at night in a bar full of drunk reloaders unless you like fist fights. People are passionate about cleaning brass.

 

[Richard Coody]

What is your brass cleaning procedure for your bolt action target rifles? How important is it to clean the inside and out of your precision brass? This brass would be coming out of a single shot rifle and will never see the ground.

Thanks

wipe the outside off with a clean rag dampened in ballistol, clean the primer pocket with a hand tool i like the crockagator, lightly chamfer and debur the necks with a hand tool, i run a wilson decapping rod through the flash hole just to be sure it is clear and lightly brush out the necks with a nylon brush before charging.

 

[cw308]

I switched to wet tumbling after 25+ years of cleaning with dry media , didn't like the buildup inside of the case an some trapped media on the inside of the shoulder area , would always see media at the press . I have two tumblers , one single drum tumbler from Harbor Freight for small amounts and a Tumblers B tumbler for larger amounts . Pening problems may be caused by overloading or not enough water . I use Sun liquid detergent works much better then Dawn , stopped using the LemiShine . I full size every time using RCBS case lube inside the neck area and case body . Trim an chamfer every time , use the Imperial dry lube on the inside for the case necks with a cleaning mop , seats like butter and stop the bonding effect between the brass case neck an the copper from the bullet . Brass looks brand new with every reload inside an out . May not make a difference but every case starts out looking the same . Sizing is smooth , seating is smooth and groups are consistent . I stopped tweaking my loads once I found what works . Enjoy shooting much more without changing every little thing to see if it will group tighter . Only way to group tighter groups is to bolt down the rifle remove yourself from the rifle but what is the fun in that . When my barrel wears out , I will start all over again better then every time at the press and scale .

 

[Liven The Dream]

I asked my Wife how She did it ?? I start today .

 

[Papa Charlie]

I am sure you will hear many different answers to your question here and there really isn't a bad answer as many different methods work. Here is mine:

1) Vibrator with Walnut Shell media for 3 hours, Lyman 1200 Vibrator Tumbler
2) Decap, Lee Decapping Die
3) Anneal, I made my own automatic torch annealer
4) Resize FL, Redding FL die
5) Neck size, Redding S-Type die
6) Remove resizing lube, I use Redding water soluble so a quick wash with a little dish soap and hot water and it is all gone, rinse
7) Dry in convection oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes (I don't preheat), rounds stacked neck down on paper towels to pull out moisture
8) Clean primer pockets, RCBS cleaner
9) Chamfer and debur the necks, RCBS Carbide tools
10) Run nylon brush in necks and case interior
11) Seat primers
12) Inspect interiors with light to ensure no foreign materials
13) Load Powder
14) Final inspection of interior
15) Dip bullets in dry carbon for extra lube
16) Seat bullets

I don't worry about making my brass look pretty, I run them in the vibrator for the 3 hours as I find it removes all the excess carbon. It also ensures that I am not running a dirty cartridge into my dies and causing excessive wear.

The nylon brush makes sure that there is no media left or loose carbon. I don't want to remove the neck carbon because I believe that it acts as a lubricant. I also bend the brush stem enough to put a slight crescent shape in it to get a better wipe of the case body interior.

I don't remove the primers until after the media so that I don't get media stuck in the flash hole. It just saves time and my experience is that the media doesn't get the pockets clean anyway so it doesn't save any steps and again, I don't want to run dirty cartridges into my dies, not even my decapping die.

 

[NorCalMikie]

Clean with SS pins maybe every 4th. or 5th. firing to avoid "gold dust" in the cleaning solution and, be ready to lube the case necks because they got "too clean". The burned powder in the case necks acts as a lube for bullet seating. Try seating in SS cleaned case necks and you'll see for yourself.
After, that "tumble" in dry walnut shells with NO additive.

 

[cw308]

Making the cases really clean , even the primer pockets with wet tumbling , has nothing to do with the cases looking pretty .

 

[swadiver]

i spit on mine. works great

 

[dcali]

I've tried dry tumbling in corncob, walnut and rice, with and without additives, ultrasonic with various solutions, and just not cleaning at all.

They all suck. Dry tumbling gets dust and media all over and takes forever, ultrasonic requires small batches and water/solution, and not cleaning gets dirt and carbon all over your hands and equipment.

I think ultrasonic sucks the least, and so that's what I do. I don't think it matters - it seems like it's more about cleaning than shooting, so pick your poison. I won't say it can't *ever* matter, but I doubt 99% of shooters would ever see the difference.

 

[pirate ammo]

i spit on mine. works great

tie them up in your dirty socks and throw them in the washing machine,,use soak cycle if you want,,heavy duty,,when done throw in dryer,,,,please consider this is in joking only,,,
it will destroy your socks,,

 

[memilanuk]

I went from corncob to walnut, to rice, to ultrasonic, to wet tumble with ceramic to wet tumble with SS pins... and finally back to just plain corn cob. Simplest, easiest, if a bit slow - though not really once you factor in the time to make *sure* that the cases are fully dry. Throw a dryer sheet in the mix keeps the dust to a minimum, and a decapping die after the last step before charging with powder takes care of any media that might find its way into a flash hole.

 

[#40Fan]

I have tumbled with corn cob, walnut, with and without additives. I have sonic cleaned. Now I wet tumble with SS pins. 4 1/2 hours total time with SS cleaning, including 2 - 30 minute drying times.

 

[270WinDude]

I'm no source for BR. Cleaning primer pockets is my primary concern and almost always use some sort of custom tools and a q-tip over the several I've purchased specifically for the task. At the end of 100 rounds I'll have a pile of carbon on the table and 100 nice and shiny weight sorted brass. I just recently started really focusing on cleaning the outside of the necks as I am having strange issues after neck sizing where it feels the OD is not at all concentric. To solve that I now clean my lee collet sizer every session and wipe some hoppes around the neck to remove carbon and sometimes size, turn, size and that seems to help. I keep shooting tighter and tighter groups since I've started and with better consistency so for my level of shooting this works. I currently and for no real logic, stay away from cleaning inside of cases more then a nylon brass brush and blowing in it.

Instead of a new thread... I just had a question pertaining to this...

How much carbon builds up inside the brass? If I'm getting a lot out from the primer pockets is it possible that inside my brass has a thick layer of carbon that could effect my internal ballistics and interact with the ignition/powder? -if so I might change my method here...

 

[jr600yd]

Ask a question you’ll get 100 answers. This is what I do. I don’t shoot benchrest so take it for what’s it worth.
After firing cases I wipe the neck off with 0000 steel wool. Keeps the carbon out of my FL die. I SS clean the cases about every 10 firings. Yeah, it gets the carbon out of the necks but also out of the case body. Don’t know how thick the buildup of carbon is in the neck or body but it’s got to be growing after every firing. The other 9 firings cases go in the vibrator with a little polish after FL sizing long enough to remove the case lube. After that is the usual case prep routine, load, shoot and repeat.