Richard Boothroyd’s Blog

We all like our brass to be nice and shiny, don’t we ?   I’ve never had a tumbler and don’t feel like buying one now I’m on the downside of my shootiing life.  It’s not a problem with rifle cases because they are easy to polish by hand and it doesn’t need doing more often than every tenth use or even more.  9mm cases are more of a problem as more of ‘em are used and being small cleaning by hand is not an option.   I’ve had respectable results with a proprietory cleaner, RG I think.  The cases are nothing like as bright as tumbling but are at least clean and not too dark in colour.

The NRA investigated a few years ago.  The arsenals wash brass in warm 4% sulfuric acid but that has some minor problems for small scale amateur use.  Various things like salt and vinegar solution and tartaric acid work reasonably but the cases tarnish afterwards.  Frankford Arsenal said that citric acid works quite well without significant tarnishing.  The NRA confirmed it and said that the cases don’t look like new cases or tumbled cases but are clean and bright.

So I got some citric acid from my local pharmacy.  It comes in little white granules about one or two mm diameter and disolves easily in warm water.  Dirt cheap, about R15 per kg.  Solution is 5% or more in hard water.  15 minutes is enough pickling time.   It cleans the cases thoroughly but does not leave them bright as the NRA said.  It leaves them similar to the proprietory case cleaner, perhaps slightly duller.   I’d describe them as very clean but very dull, no brightness at all.   I’m happy with rthat for handgun brass.

I don’t mind cleaning rifle cases the hard way.  I recently cleaned a batch of military brass that was dark brown almost black in colour.  I use a short length of wood dowel sanded to a close fit in the case neck, chucked in an electric drill gripped in my bench vise.  The wood dowel is slit down the middle with a hacksaw.  That allows it to be shiimed in the slit and thus maintain a tight fit for fifty cases before a new dowel is needed.  It takes only a few seconds of application of steel wool that you get at the supermarket to get a polished finish.  If the steel wool is applied lightly the finish is very like new brass but somewhat more yellow.  If applied more aggressively it polishes smoother more like a tumbled finish.  I found I could do about 60 per hour.  I don’t mind spending two hours polishing 100 cases, when I won’t need to do it again until I’ve fired 1000 rounds or more.

In between polishing rifle cases don’t need much cleaning.  With light cast loads the necks get black from gas blow back but that cleans off in seconds with paint thinner.  Every five uses I’ll wash them in hot soapy water and pickle in the citric acid.

[Originally posted to SATalkGuns -- Admin]