brass cleaning trick

Howdy gents,

Has anybody tried the mild household acids for wet cleaning of brass?  They work well, fairly quickly, and very cheaply.

A recommendation from George Nonte's old tome, “Cartridge Conversions,” involves a solution of 2/3 white distilled vinegar, 1/3 water with a pinch of table salt and a couple drops of liquid dish detergent.  Make enough solution to just cover your brass, then wet-tumble in a rock polisher or case tumbler. 

The acid solution itself, without the need for an abrasive medium, will clean both the inside and outside of the cases.  If cases are decapped prior to tumbling, the primer pockets will also be washed. Even very dirty brass will come out the bath with a “sparkle” on the outside, while the inside will be noticeably cleaner as well.

Lemon or lime juice is also a good brass cleaner, but the best cheap acid I've found is the citric acid powder sold in the “canning” or food-preservation section of grocery stores.  Apparently, the ladies use it to acidify certain canning recipes. You can get a jar of the acid powder for a few bucks.

My little $19, one-quart Harbor Freight rock tumbler, dosed  with 3/4 teaspoon of the citric acid powder, along with a drop of dish soap and enough water to cover 35 or 40 7.62 NATO cases, results in very clean brass after an hour of tumbling.  If you want even prettier cases, let the tumbler run for 2 or 3 hours. 

The action of the very mild acid is supposed to be “self-limiting,” so, theoretically, the tumbler could run all-day-long without harming the brass. But, I've never found the need for more than 2 or 3 hours of tumbling time, even with the grimiest of cases.

After draining the acid bath, I generally tumble the brass a second time, for 10 minutes or so, in clean, fresh water with another drop of dish soap added. The dish soap is said to promote some sort of surface corrosion protection for the brass when the sudsy water is drained off. 

Spread the cases out on paper towels to dry for a day or so, or, if in a hurry, place the cases on paper towels on a cookie sheet and dry in your oven at 180 or 190 degrees for half-an-hour or so.

Before loading, double-check to make certain primer pockets and case interiors are fully dry.  If wet tumbled with the old primers still in the primer pockets, it might take a day or more to fully dry in the pockets.

I think it's better to de-prime before tumbling.  Not only do the primer pockets get cleaned that way, but drying time is also greatly reduced.  Decapping with the Lee Universal Decapping Die allows virtually all calibers to be deprimed without fear of scratching dirty cases or dies.  Just resize your cases, or neck-size, after the brass is clean and dry.

You might not get that “jewelry-like” gleam produced by a full day of tumbling in a dry-abrasive medium, but wet tumbling will give you very clean cases, very cheaply.

And, if you're like me, you"ll take pride in being a tight-wad while enjoying the quickly-cleaned brass.

Happy trails,

-- Cary Gunn --