Brass cleaning ... what am I doing wrong

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Dazza9t9

Well-Known Member
Good evening everyone,

need a little bit of advice. After totally screwing up my last brass, between to much citric acid and trimming to short. I purchased some more once fired brass. I did some reading and did the following

so I de-primmed the cases, cleaned the primer pockets and the necks.

then I put the cases in the ultra sonic with the required amount of sea clean 2,
After a 15 min cycle I rinsed the cases in boiled water and then in the oven at 180 for 20 mins, then turned the oven off and let them cool.

Before I put them in the oven they were bright and shiny, after I took them out the oven they are tarnished a little. In some areas they are gone blue, like burnt titanium. This wipes off

the cases are clean inside and out. So happy with that, but is this outcome normal? The bluing and tarnishing?
 
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after the oven

I am not overly concerned on appearing as long as they are safe to use.

but if there are any pointers
 
A pal of mine would say that what you're doing wrong is cleaning your cases. His view is that you don't need to, so why bother - and the result is that his cases are grubby. The ammuntion nevertheless shoots fine.

I like cleanish cases, so I just shove them (overnight, sometimes) in a vibratory cleaner with crushed walnut-shell. No wet, no acid, no oven. No weird marks.
:)
 
Where did you read this advice?
I think you might have overcooked them on Regulo 5.
They might now be a bit brittle... that would be my worry.
 
Maybe you are over cooking the cases.
Rinse in hand cool tap water & cook in the oven at 130 degrees for twenty minutes works for me after steel pin tumbling with citric acid & ecover detergent.
Nice shiny cases!!!
Ian
 
Spin them up in some wire wool and see how they come out. My personal opinion is that your brass is fine. You need to be getting over 250deg centigrade before you start changing the makeup of hardened brass.

As Dalua says, there is some mileage in not bothering to clean your brass but for most of us, we probably do, if not just to be kind to our sizing dies.

A few pointers for you:

I dry my brass in the oven. You will get some discolouration which is fine but there is no need whatsoever to bang them in at cake baking temps like 180 degrees. All you are trying to do is boil away any excess water in the cases. Before you put them in the oven, give them a good dry and rattle around in a towel to remove most the water, then just put them in the oven on about 110 degrees for 10mins or so. As long as the temp is over 100 degrees, you will boil off the excess water.

I only clean my brass once as part of the reloading process. This is always after full length resizing to get rid of the lube on the outside and any that might have got inside the necks. It also removes most of the baked on carbon and crap from the inside of the case and the primer pockets clean up as well (although to be honest, as long as the flash hole is fully clear, clean primer pockets matter not)

I deprime cases (universal decapping die)
I make sure all cases are free of mud, grime, any sort of detritus. I spin the necks quickly in wire wool by hand to ensure no crap will be going in to my dies.
I then chuck them all in a plastic bag with a couple of drops of lube and shake em up.
Then FL resize
Then in to the ultra sonic cleaner (1 part distilled white vinegar, 1 part hot water and a dash of fairy liquid) for two 8 min cycles, shaking the basket inbetween each cycle. How many you can do in one go depends on the size of your cleaner. I can do 50 large or 100 small cases at a time but some folk will need to do less if they have a smaller USC
When finished, remove, chuck in sink with an inch of water in and swill out. Pull the plug and refill again and add some bicarb (not much, half teaspoon if that) to neutralise any acid the initial swill did not get rid of.
Then excess moisture shaken off in a towell and in to the oven on 110-120degs for 10mins or so.

Remove, and if a cocktail stick comes out clean.... oh hang on, wrong recipe.
 
Rinse well in hot water then drop them onto a sheet or two of kitchen roll. Tap each one out in turn of the kitchen roll then leave to dry (on top of an Aga is a good place if you have one). If you don’t rinse them well they’ll tarnish. I did one put a batch of mine in the Aga to dry off and ’blued’ them as you did but this didn’t seem to affect them.
I tumble mine in a dog chew tub driven with an electric drill. in the tub I use s/s media, washing up liquid, 1 teaspoon of citric acid and then fill to the brim with water. Cheap as chips and after a 20min spin/tumble, the cases are gleaming inside and out ready for a good rinse and drying.
 
Dazza9t9 said:
snip...
so I de-primmed the cases, cleaned the primer pockets and the necks.
snip...
Click to expand...

If you are going to put them in an ultra sonic cleaner, why do you bother to clean the primer pockets and necks? The U/S does that.

Dazza9t9 said:
snip...
then I put the cases in the ultra sonic with the required amount of sea clean 2,
After a 15 min cycle I rinsed the cases in boiled water and then in the oven at 180 for 20 mins, then turned the oven off and let them cool.
snip...
Click to expand...
I don't know anything about Sea Clean 2 are you following the instructions regarding dilution rate precisely?
What power is your U/S unit?...mine is 240 watt and I find a couple of 5 or 6 minute bursts with a shake up in between is enough.
Why do you rinse in boiled water? I rinse under the hot tap then into a Soda Bicarb rinse to counter the Citric Acid I use in the U/S, and then a final rinse under the hot tap or boiling water from the kettle which means the cases are well on the way to drying after rolling and spinning in a towel. Then they are left in a tray on top of a night store heater.

Dazza9t9 said:
snip...
Before I put them in the oven they were bright and shiny, after I took them out the oven they are tarnished a little. In some areas they are gone blue, like burnt titanium. This wipes off

the cases are clean inside and out. So happy with that, but is this outcome normal? The bluing and tarnishing?
Click to expand...

What sort of oven? How does the thermostat work? How evenly is the heat distributed?

I wouldn't have the oven up as high as 180˚C, you only need to evaporate the water residue by taking the temperature above ambient...it doesn't need to boil.

The degree of tarnishing does seem excessive. But I would guess the colouration most likely is contamination from the Sea Clean not being rinsed off thoroughly...given that it is on some and not others, and on some necks where the brass is thin and some heads where the brass is thicker. If it was from overheating it would tend to be just on the thin neck area.

If it wipes off easily, fine. If you want the cases shiny you could give them a wipe with an Autosol polish as a final stage which gives them a bit of protection too.

Alan
 
I would say that you have probably ruined yet another batch of cases. Please do not think of using them.

Put them in an oven set at 180C ? madness.

Water boils off at 100C. Or evaporates rapidly at far lower temperatures. Airing cupboard, top of a radiator, whatever.

Bung them in an oven set at 180 C, OK perhaps just possibly if it was a fan oven and they were in a basket suspended in free air, and the thermostat accurate. But why choose 180 ? Anything over 100 would boil off any water in a few minutes.

But if an ordinary oven, maybe just in a baking tray, possibly just rested on the bottom of the oven, not even on a rack, electric element underneath or gas burner at the back ? Do you think that you just turn the dial to say 180 C or gas mark whatever, and it just works, precisely ? Whether there is a big roast inside, kilos of wet meat, expected to be heated up rapidly to cook (monitored by thermometer), then the outside browned off. Taking several kilowatts of 'leccy, or rather a lot of gas (my preference, and that's just for home cooking, not commercial stuff)

Or is it just a tray full of brass cases needing a little drying off ?

Fact is that some of those cases have clearly been overheated to potentially disastrous levels. Scrap them all, and try, yet again, to do things correctly. Which does not mean roasting them in an oven. 180C is a reasonable temperature to roast a chicken or a joint of other meat. In an oven designed for cooking food. Not for drying brass. Not a precision controlled laboratory thermal chamber

Nor would I ever put brass into an oven that I also eat from.

Seriously, think for a few seconds before continuing down this path. Some of those cases appear to have discoloured due to over-heating, to excessive levels. If it was just some sort of adverse reaction to the chemicals that you are using, they would all look the same. You are doing something grossly wrong, probably by bunging them in the oven to dry them off. Absolutely unnecessary.
 
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Nothing wrong with drying your cases in the oven @Dazza9t9 , just turn down the temperature a whole lot so the cases don't get that blue colour - just the heat that does that. 180 Deg C isn't hot enough to damage the cases so they're fine to use. I've done it once before where I forgot that the cases were in the oven.

You may want to rescue the previous cases that you binned too. Cases that are slightly too short shouldn't be a problem, especially if you're not crimping.
 
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Thank you all for your input.
the colouring does just wipe off easily.

however I’m a little worried to use them. Low after reading some of the comments.

they where placed in the oven at 180 due to reading it from various places including a search on here, an old post stating as long as it does not go over 400. I was going to go with 110 but on further reading went to 180.

I cleaned the pockets before u/s just to be sure the thick was out, I only give them a brush out with a pocket brush.

I cannot seem to get the cleaning process right. This is my second attempt, first one I think I added to much citric acid. After taking advice I went to the sea clean, which I did dilute to the required amount
 
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