Ultrasonic recipe for brass cleaning
- Thread starter steviegee
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Meateater69
Well-Known Member
Why exactly do you "need" to clean the brass is the first pertinent question? What is "improved" by the case being shiny? Quick neck brush should be fine
In a 2l ultrasonic cleaner, 2 teaspoons (10g) of citric acid off eBay and about 50ml of cleaning fluid, you can use sonic cleaning fluid, I use James Sea Clean as I have a load left from my diving days or just a non-Ammonia household cleaner. Read the label on the expensive proprietary cleaners, usually <5% Phosponates, <5% non-ionic Sulfactants, <5% Cationic Surfactants, then read the labels on cheap household cleaners, they are very similar.
My cleaner has a heater so I run it at 70C for 15 minutes and then rinse thoroughly, if you have no heater, then use hot water. I do this to get the primer pocket and inside of the case clean.
Comes out looking like the one on the left, and then I tumble to polish. If you leave it in too long or forget to rinse, the Citric acid continues to act and it looks like the one on the right after a couple of days. From what I have been able to find out, this is a surface reaction that doesn't affect brass strength but I chucked it in the discard pile anyway. Lots of info on the web about using mild citric acid to clean as well as other stuff, just avoid anything with ammonia. I ordered some brass case cleaner from Carbusonic, they sent brass cleaner with added ammonia, so be careful.
My cleaner has a heater so I run it at 70C for 15 minutes and then rinse thoroughly, if you have no heater, then use hot water. I do this to get the primer pocket and inside of the case clean.
Comes out looking like the one on the left, and then I tumble to polish. If you leave it in too long or forget to rinse, the Citric acid continues to act and it looks like the one on the right after a couple of days. From what I have been able to find out, this is a surface reaction that doesn't affect brass strength but I chucked it in the discard pile anyway. Lots of info on the web about using mild citric acid to clean as well as other stuff, just avoid anything with ammonia. I ordered some brass case cleaner from Carbusonic, they sent brass cleaner with added ammonia, so be careful.
long_range_rob
Well-Known Member
Personally I clean the brass do I can inspect it for cracks, dings and any other damage.
Thanks again you've been a gr8 help
I'll give that a try too, thanks alot
As long as you don't tumble them too long, you'll be fine. Wet tumbling is a bit more involved, with cleaning up and drying afterwards, but it does give the best results. Everything else either takes forever (vibratory dry tumbler) and is loud, or never gets the case completely clean (ultra sonic). They work, just not as completely as wet tumbling.
As to why you need clean cases? Well, you don't. The gun will still go boom, and the bullet will still go where its supposed to. But let me ask you this. Would you climb into a high end Lotus or Ferrari with Italian leather seats, covered in dirt and grime?
If folks want to shove dirty cases into a budget rifle like a Savage Axis, I see no issues with that. But on a high end firearm, with a high grade barrel/chamber, it boggles the mind why you would want to put dirty brass in it. My current match rifle, with all it's accessories and attachments, runs well north of $10k. Thoroughly cleaning brass, so as to limit any damage to the chamber, magazine feed lips and inner mechanisms (grit and debris coming off the cases), seems like a prudent thing to do.
JMTCW...
Ali
Well-Known Member
Hornady One Shot Sonic Cleaning Solution 32oz HORN-043355 - Reloading UK
The Hornady Lock-N-Load Sonic Cleaner One Shot Sonic Case Cleaning Solution will take your case cleaning to the next level. The unique cleaning solution is designed specifically for cleaning brass, and is extremely efficient and effective at removing buil
www.reloading.co.uk
This is what I use with good results
Here's the ingredients from the Safety Data Sheet for the Hornady Case Cleaning solution, it's basically just citric acid and a non-ionic sulfactant for £30 a US gallon. It is conveniently presented though and it says it will do 260 case cleaning cycles so it saves the trouble of mixing it yourself, but it is essentially a couple of teaspoons of citric acid granules and a capful of floor cleaner.Hornady One Shot Sonic Cleaning Solution 32oz HORN-043355 - Reloading UK
The Hornady Lock-N-Load Sonic Cleaner One Shot Sonic Case Cleaning Solution will take your case cleaning to the next level. The unique cleaning solution is designed specifically for cleaning brass, and is extremely efficient and effective at removing buil
This is what I use with good results
Yeah. But there is a difference between clean and polished. I like clean brass. My US delivers clean brass -just not polished. The problem with people using US cleaners is that they are often too small and used for too short a duration. Mine runs 55 minutes a cycle, 104F temp and the solution is black when completed. Frankly though, as long as the primer pockets come out clean, I hardly care about the rest of the case. Hate cleaning primer pockets.
The only time I appreciate shiny is when I'm looking for spent cases in the grass... but then, from a suppressed AR, it won't be shiny anymore by the time it hits the ground. If spent brass were seeds I'd have a plantation by now. ~Muir
The problem with the ultrasound cleaner and citric acid is that if you run too long, you start getting an effect on the case, a milder version of what I have shown above. I used to run 70C and 30 minutes at half-wave, then 30 minutes at full-wave but it took six or seven hours in the tumbler to polish them up. Through experiment, I found that 15 minutes of full-wave at 70C got the primer pockets and inside of the cases clean and then I could tumble to polish for a couple of hours. You are right about capacity though, with a 2l bath, I do a max of 50 full-size cases or 100 .223 cases at a time.
Wet tumble or ultrasound, I think you need a wet step to clean the primer pockets and the inside of the case. I didn't like wet tumbling, I found it too messy and as I clean before sizing I had to make sure there were no stray pins left inside the cases. With the ultrasound and dry tumbler, I can just leave them running as needed at the back of my home office while I work. I can ultrasound, rinse off in the bathroom sink and then throw them straight into the tumbler which drys them as it polishes.
I went through a number of US cleaners from those made for dentures, to a light weight Hornady, and finally to a commercial grade. Never looked back. I run Hornady concentrate cleaner at 6 oz of concentrate to 1 gallon distiller water. The cases are clean inside and out and the primer pockets are likewise. They are then hot (140F) water rinsed -thoroughly- towel dried, and finish dried in an old food dehydrator. Hour and 45 minutes, start to finish. (more or less)
No problems so far. ~Muir
No problems so far. ~Muir
MTLEADFARMER
Well-Known Member
Gucci guns don't like dirt.
I'm old school so still use a dry tumbler, because it is all that there was when I started reloading, and still does what I want it to. I.e. to clean the outside of the brass sufficiently to keep the dies from being scratched, and knock out loose powder residue from the insides. And after resizing a brief run simply to remove any resizing lube. Tbh plenty at the club told me I didn't need one.
It does this in 30 minutes or so whilst I am getting on with other things. Or if I want a high polish or lustre on something that wasn't already shiny before firing, a few hours. Even heavily tarnished stuff looks (externally) like new, or better, after an overnight run in the garage.
This basically takes me no time at all, other than picking out the cases. Whereas a wet process, be it ultrasonic or steel pins or whatever would need more equipment effort and time, not to mention rinsing and drying, which is not to be under estimated if you're not set up for that.
My tumbler has a sealed lid, so when running it doesn't fill the room with dust. When I want to take out the brass I turn it off, let it rest for a few minutes, only then open it and fish out the brass with a wire mesh scoop that I bought in a Chinese supermarket.
There seems to be an obsession with primer pocket cleanliness, my dry tumbler doesn't really touch that, but a quick twirl with a pocket cleaner takes out the relevant particles, i.e. those that might interfere with correct primer seating. Also do a few strokes with an inside neck brush or even a twirl over the necks with some scotchbrite or steel wool if they are still a bit sooty. But the biggest batches I might do would be 200 or less.
I have experimented with a small ultrasonic but found the process to be a bit of a faff and not entirely satisfactory. But it was a very basic small machine..
I'm quite sure that a heavier duty one would have worked far better, I've seen what they can do in commercial/industrial applications, and are nowadays quite affordable. Far better value than the small things usually sold to reloaders. But I don't have the space, or the, inclination, to get one for my small reloading quantities. Likewise wet pin tumbling, I'm not inclined to "invest" in something that realistically would only be used for a few hours/year.
BTW, the reason distilled water is recommended is nothing to do with it being ultra pure (it certainly won't be after the machine has run for a few seconds) but because tap water contains a lot of dissolved gases. The way US cleaning works is by micro cavitation on the surface of the workpiece. . If you start off using e.g. tap water with a lot of dissolved air, most of the energy just goes into liberating the dissolved gases rather than actually working. It may look as if it is, even visibly fizzing, but a lot of the energy may be being wasted until those gases are mostly gone. Which can take a long time.. The way to get the gases out is to boil/simmer it for a while, or e.g. just collect the cool boiled water left unused in your kettle in a container with a lid., bit by bit. Distilled water obviously doesn't have much dissolved gas in it.
Never tried steel pins.
FWIW, some say that you can over-do surgically clean on inside necks. But I have measured internal case capacity before and after at least ten reloads without internal cleaning and found no measurable reduction from powder residue left inside. So yes, they don't look surgically clean inside, but what's left in there I can't see having any effect,, at least at my level.
@steviegee , since you are new to reloading, I would suggest that brass cleaning might be low down on your priority list, other than the basics. Outside of the case, primer pocket, inside neck. None of which need any particular high-tech equipment.
FWIW there are those who "clean" their brass simply by sloshing it about in the same kinds of solutions as suggested for other wet processes, citric acid and a little detergent, or a commercial product. Indeed if you read the Frankford Arsenal steel pin tumbler instructions they suggest that you could first start by doing so with no pins inside, just the brass plus potion.
Platinum Series Rotary Wet Tumbler 7L
The tumbler can effectively clean without the use of stainless media pins with a mixture of Frankford Brass Cleaning Solution and water (use of media pins ensures primer pockets and inside of cases are perfectly clean)
I'd say that the Hornady solution is rather different to just citric acid and detergent.
It does this in 30 minutes or so whilst I am getting on with other things. Or if I want a high polish or lustre on something that wasn't already shiny before firing, a few hours. Even heavily tarnished stuff looks (externally) like new, or better, after an overnight run in the garage.
This basically takes me no time at all, other than picking out the cases. Whereas a wet process, be it ultrasonic or steel pins or whatever would need more equipment effort and time, not to mention rinsing and drying, which is not to be under estimated if you're not set up for that.
My tumbler has a sealed lid, so when running it doesn't fill the room with dust. When I want to take out the brass I turn it off, let it rest for a few minutes, only then open it and fish out the brass with a wire mesh scoop that I bought in a Chinese supermarket.
There seems to be an obsession with primer pocket cleanliness, my dry tumbler doesn't really touch that, but a quick twirl with a pocket cleaner takes out the relevant particles, i.e. those that might interfere with correct primer seating. Also do a few strokes with an inside neck brush or even a twirl over the necks with some scotchbrite or steel wool if they are still a bit sooty. But the biggest batches I might do would be 200 or less.
I have experimented with a small ultrasonic but found the process to be a bit of a faff and not entirely satisfactory. But it was a very basic small machine..
I'm quite sure that a heavier duty one would have worked far better, I've seen what they can do in commercial/industrial applications, and are nowadays quite affordable. Far better value than the small things usually sold to reloaders. But I don't have the space, or the, inclination, to get one for my small reloading quantities. Likewise wet pin tumbling, I'm not inclined to "invest" in something that realistically would only be used for a few hours/year.
BTW, the reason distilled water is recommended is nothing to do with it being ultra pure (it certainly won't be after the machine has run for a few seconds) but because tap water contains a lot of dissolved gases. The way US cleaning works is by micro cavitation on the surface of the workpiece. . If you start off using e.g. tap water with a lot of dissolved air, most of the energy just goes into liberating the dissolved gases rather than actually working. It may look as if it is, even visibly fizzing, but a lot of the energy may be being wasted until those gases are mostly gone. Which can take a long time.. The way to get the gases out is to boil/simmer it for a while, or e.g. just collect the cool boiled water left unused in your kettle in a container with a lid., bit by bit. Distilled water obviously doesn't have much dissolved gas in it.
Never tried steel pins.
FWIW, some say that you can over-do surgically clean on inside necks. But I have measured internal case capacity before and after at least ten reloads without internal cleaning and found no measurable reduction from powder residue left inside. So yes, they don't look surgically clean inside, but what's left in there I can't see having any effect,, at least at my level.
@steviegee , since you are new to reloading, I would suggest that brass cleaning might be low down on your priority list, other than the basics. Outside of the case, primer pocket, inside neck. None of which need any particular high-tech equipment.
FWIW there are those who "clean" their brass simply by sloshing it about in the same kinds of solutions as suggested for other wet processes, citric acid and a little detergent, or a commercial product. Indeed if you read the Frankford Arsenal steel pin tumbler instructions they suggest that you could first start by doing so with no pins inside, just the brass plus potion.
Platinum Series Rotary Wet Tumbler 7L
The tumbler can effectively clean without the use of stainless media pins with a mixture of Frankford Brass Cleaning Solution and water (use of media pins ensures primer pockets and inside of cases are perfectly clean)
That's not quite correct. The citric acid is in a buffered solution, which is different. I expect it to have a higher pH (less acidic) than the straight acid that does indeed react with the brass (I suspect by de-zincifying the outer surface minutely, leaving it more coppery looking and susceptible to tarnishing). I'm not sure what the diethanolamine is for, it will also add a slight buffering effect, but may also be in there as a corrosion inhibitor.
I'd say that the Hornady solution is rather different to just citric acid and detergent.
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