Dimitri,

You must be right - At my age I get all those symtoms even with a morning cup of coffee - and thats a completely different acid.

It wouldn't be Hydrogen monoxide would it?

Deadly poisonous stuff - it kills hundreds each year and is served in homes and cafe' s all over the world!

BTW - my degrees are in theology not in chemistry - what are yours in?

Paul,

I'm taking Tool and Die in college lol. I learnt all this in Grade 12 Chemistry

Hydrogen monoxide is really deadly I almost died because of it a couple of years back! (tried learning how to swim .. never agian).

Anyways its beyond me why people would use acid on priceless rifle brass or themselves.

Alot of people shoot there brass up to 30 times with light reloads so what do you think will happen if you soak it in acid all thouse times taking off layer by layer of brass ??

Dimitri

Well .......... ahhh........... anyway if you need some I have a unopened bottle of it. G96 Brass Case Cleaner that is..................

Dimitri,

I have fired the brass I am using in my 3006 at least that many times and I think it would have failed long ago without the zinc in the alloy.
I only used a mild acid - salt mixture once when I found some baddly corroded brass that my dad had used years before - after cleaning it with a vinegar-water-salt mixture it looked a lot better but then I found out it had murcury based primers (old military brass) and through it away. Haven't used the "wet" system since.

Women use acids to peal the layer of "dead" skin off their face to provide a younger look. they call it chemical peals but it sounds barbaric to me. Shaving is as rough as I get with my face - and not all that often at my age.

Paul

Dimitri wrote:

Paul, I'm taking Tool and Die in college lol. I learnt all this in Grade 12 Chemistry Hydrogen monoxide is really deadly I almost died because of it a couple of years back! (tried learning how to swim .. never agian). Anyways its beyond me why people would use acid on priceless rifle brass or themselves. Alot of people shoot there brass up to 30 times with light reloads so what do you think will happen if you soak it in acid all thouse times taking off layer by layer of brass ?? Dimitri

Shave???Only when I have to...

shrpshtrjoe wrote:

Howdy. Has anybody ever tried this stuff. It's a liquid case cleaner, you emerse your brass in this solution and they claim in less than five minutes you have clean perrty brass it's supose to clean the primer pockets as well. Joe

Gidday Joe. I have never heard of that product name so it is an unknown to me, but I have a bottle of Birchwood Casey Case Cleaner Concentrate. I tried it once using it as per the directions and found that it didn't greatly impress me, didn't really clean the cases much at all.

Joe, I am with Bushy on this one, use a Case Tumbler (I have to get one). Not only that, but a tumbler is a "set and forget" tool....you don't have to watch or time its action. I have seen several different types of media for them and they all work. One that has a bit of a following over here is made up of small pellets of a nylon type material, works well.

Reading the back of the Birchwood Casey Case Cleaner Concentrate package it states:

Contains Phosphoric Acid and Glycolic Acid

Now, as far as I am concerned acid is acid. (Dimitri and Paul...don't pick on me, I ain't been to college or university!) Acid and metal don't mix, well not without one eating into the other. I believe that the cleaning agent should attack the dirt and not the case.

Also, My ball and chain would gut me if she found me "cooking" my cases in the oven. I'm no metallurgist, but wouldn't the heat in the oven have an effect on the brass?

Just as an experiment I once tried mag wheel cleaner on some old cases I had. Now I figured that if this stuff is gentle enough to clean alloy wheels it wouldn't damage the cases. To cut a long story short, it sort of cleaned the cases, didn't appear to do them any damage, BUT.....I lost every finger nail on both hands and I was in agony for several days. The acid in it actually penetrated under my nails!! Had to walk around with surgical gloves on with a burn cream called Silazine in them.

Also, apparently there are some acids that are very detrimental to our health and can accumulate in the body....this is not a good thing.

I wipe my cases over to give the outside and inside neck a clean and remove sizing lube, clean the primer pockets with a wee little tool I have and that is it. sometimes I put a small bore brush in my drill and give the inside of the necks a quick pass to clean them. So long as they chamber and extract easily I figure that is all that matters. If I wanted pretty I would buy new cases every time.

Cheers, Vince

Quote::

Also, My ball and chain would gut me if she found me "cooking" my cases in the oven. I'm no metallurgist, but wouldn't the heat in the oven have an effect on the brass?

If you dont heat it hot enough to anneal it or anything it should be fine. At 100F I dont think it should do anything to the brass but I know nothing about heat treating thats for me to learn in another term in college

Anyways maybe Bushmaster can answer that for you better.

Dimitri

Vince wrote:

Gidday Joe. I have never heard of that product name so it is an unknown to me, but I have a bottle of Birchwood Casey Case Cleaner Concentrate. I tried it once using it as per the directions and found that it didn't greatly impress me, didn't really clean the cases much at all. Joe, I am with Bushy on this one, use a Case Tumbler (I have to get one). Not only that, but a tumbler is a "set and forget" tool....you don't have to watch or time its action. I have seen several different types of media for them and they all work. One that has a bit of a following over here is made up of small pellets of a nylon type material, works well. Cheers, Vince

Howdy Vince. I have a RCBS case tumbler it's all I have ever used. I saw this product advertised and was curious to it's worth. ( LOL) I didn't think it would get this much responce I will stick with the tumbler ( per everyones responce ) it doesen't sound like I'm missing anything with the liquid.
Joe

Plain old vinegar, a drop or two of Dawn dishwashing detergent and about 5-10 minutes in the ultrasonic cleaner. Brass is clean inside and out including the primer pockets.

Usually though I just use the Lyman tumbler because I'm not that much of a clean brass freak....

I make my own brass cleaner using:
1 qt water
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup liquid detergent
14 cup salt

drop the brass in and agitate 3 or 4 times for about 1/2 an hour soaking in between agitations. rinse with hot tap water. lay flat on an old towel or paper towels to dry.
this process cleanes off all the gunk

mc223,

Welcome to the forums!

Thanks for that tip!

Dimitri

Here's a link to an interesting article on how to use an ultrasonic cleaner for cleaning up your brass.

UltraSonic Case Cleaning

I purchased a small 2 1/2 pint capacity ultrasonic cleaner similar to the one used in this article and used the "Clean and Shiny" process and solutions. I also picked up some free 200 ml, 250 ml, and 400 ml glass beakers that a school was going to throw away for holding the solutions and the brass while it is in the ultrasonic cleaner. Here's the list of the solutions used and the time it takes for each session:

CLEAN and SHINY
24 minutes - 50% Vinegar + 1 Drop Dish Soap per 8 ounces water
380 seconds - Birchwood Casey (BC) Case Cleaner
380 seconds - Hot Water
380 seconds - Distilled Water
Total: 43 minutes
Cost: $2.00 per gallon for the Vinegar and $4.00 per gallon for BC cleaner.

I cleaned over 500 of my .17 Remington casings with this method and they came out nice and clean, both inside and out, including the primer pockets. I used a hair dryer (don't tell my wife) to blow dry the casings and made sure I didn't get them too warm and shrink them down to .12 or .14 caliber.

I think, from now on, I'll use my universal decapping die to deprime my fired casings and then run them through the ultrasonic cleaner. I wouldn't recommend setting the glass beakers right on the bottom of the stainless steel tub though. That might cause damage to the motor inside. It also isn't the most efficient way to get the solutions vibrating at top speed and thus cuts down on the efficiency of the cleaning process. Here's my case cleaning setup.



Here are a few of the casings I cleaned up.





This process does require quite a bit of time, not only during the cleaning process, but also the drying process. However, other than restarting the ultrasonic cleaner every so often and draining off liquid and adding new liquid, there are other tasks you can do while waiting for each cycle to end.

The nice clean brass saves wear and tear on your dies and the chamber of your rifle as well.