Don't you have some grips to refinish???

Naw their drying right now, ammo's all loaded, steak has been eaten..... I got plenty of time to pick on you.

Holy crap Batman!!! You need to get a life!!!

Check to see if you camera has a macro setting. Seems most of the digitals do.

I did find some really filthy brass to play with today. This is stuff that someone picked up at the range and gave to me. There are bug nests in a few of the cases! I thought I'd thrown it out. I'll get some pics and start playing with cleaning tomorrow.

Take your subject outside into the natural light and turn the flash off!!! (gets rid of the flash wash out)

chambered221 wrote:

:lol3: Holy crap Batman!!! You need to get a life!!!

I got a life it was just interrupted by rain today or I would be throwing lead down range today. So in turn gives ne time to pick on you.

I guess I'll have to have one of the kids show me how to really use the camera. I know how to turn it on and take a picture. Oh I know the batteries are always dead when I grab it.

To be honest I don't tumble my lower power stuff any more.

My low-power stuff will probably outlast me. So they get a quick once over visually and go into the press for reloading. I got several hundred cases for each pistol caliber and I know the history on it all so..... if I get some pick-ups they get the full treatment first time through and go into the low-power batch.

Full-power revolver stuff gets the full treatment though and 1-ata-time attention. They get reloaded twice max then usually go into the low-power batch if they need a trim. I don't shoot full-power stuff that much any more so...

Stains don't bug me. If they are sound I'm not too picky how they look.

YMMV.

Bushmaster wrote:

Geeeezzzzz...I'm surrounded by children....

I do believe you just set yourself up for another old joke!!!
Yup...Probably...

Should I... NNAAAAAAAA!!! He probably already knows... "lackadaisical", Chambered, you definately need to go rest after that one. Go and take 2 asprin and call me in the morning.

BTW Wiersy, I can't believe you let a little rain stop you from shootin...

A little rain ain't nothing. But not really into playing in the mud puddles anymore.

d_hoffman wrote:

Should I... NNAAAAAAAA!!! He probably already knows... "lackadaisical", Chambered, you definately need to go rest after that one. Go and take 2 asprin and call me in the morning.

Shouldn't you be writing someone a traffic ticket!!! Be sure to brush the powdered sugar off your shirt first.... oh yea... ya got some jelly on your chin too!!!

WOW straight for the scatter gun!!!!! :rofl2

...jelly on his chin....

I finally got to try Bushy’s brass cleaning formula consisting of 1 cup of water, 1 cup of white vinegar, 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of dishwashing detergent (I used “Dawn”). He had warned that you shouldn’t leave the cases in the solution for too long as it caused some pink spots on the case and could possibly damage the brass. I was curious about the solution’s effect so I conducted an experiment to see what damage it might do and how long it might take.

I had some cases that had been picked up on the range after considerable exposure to the elements. Some of them actually had “mud dobber” nests built inside them. I had soaked the cases in soapy water to remove the bugs but they had no other cleaning before trying this cleaning solution.

For my test I used ten cases, all from the same manufacturer, and they were treated as follows:
1. Control, nothing done to clean it.
2. Tumbled clean only for three hours, using walnut hull.
3. Soaked for 15 minutes, rinsed with warm water, dried and tumbled for three hours.
4. Soaked for 30 minutes then rinsed with warm water and dried.
5. Soaked for 45 minutes then rinsed with warm water and dried.
6. Soaked for 60 minutes then rinsed with warm water and dried.
7. Soaked for 75 minutes then rinsed with warm water and dried.
8. Soaked for 90 minutes then rinsed with warm water and dried.
9. Soaked for 105 minutes then rinsed with warm water and dried.
10. Soaked for 120 minutes then rinsed with warm water and dried.

The tumbled-only case did not get clean, but the tarnish was shiny! All of the cases that were soaked looked pretty good but there were still some visible dark spots on them. The case that was soaked and tumbled looked OK. The pink discoloration that was mentioned earlier was visible and increased slightly the longer the case was soaked.

After the cleaning process I wanted to see if the brass had become brittle from the soaking. I lubricated and sized each case in an RCBS sizing die. I used an RCBS expander die to bell the case mouth a little more than I normally would to see if any case mouths split. None did.

Then I got wondering how quickly the solution could work. I did another batch of six cases and used a two minute interval. I found that most of the tarnish was removed in about 2 minutes and it was pretty clean at 4 minutes. The pink color was first seen on the case that was soaked for 6 minutes. The photo shows the un-cleaned “control” case with the cases that were soaked for 2, 4, 6, 8,10 and 12 minutes.




About this time I thought “what the heck” and soaked a case for 24 hours. It looked bleached out and was definitely harder to size! The photos below show how etched the surface was. Notice how pink the base got. However it didn’t split in the sizing/expanding test.





A final test would be to load and shoot the cases to check for splitting but I really didn’t have the time for that.

One big concern I have is that, with cases that have not been deprimed, some of the solution could get trapped in the primer pocket and do some damage if left there very long.

Normally I don’t pick up used brass at the range unless I know that it is “once fired” factory stuff. Otherwise I don’t really know how often the cases have been used or how hot the loads may have been. However even the cases I have stashed can get tarnished over time. Normally that doesn’t bother me too much as long as I don’t see any pitting.

Based on this experiment I think I would use this solution in the following manner: deprime the cases with a universal deprimer, soak for about 5 minutes, rinse well with hot water, dry thoroughly then tumble as usual.

This wasn’t a very scientific test but hopefully you can get something useful out of it. I had fun messing with it and playing with the camera’s macro features!

Very interesting. I had pretty much the same result with a couple minutes in lime away, and rinse. I did deprime all of mine prior the soaking so the media could dry them. I even had a brain fart and ran a 10mm into the die set for 40 S&W. The case didn't split but it got a lot shorter with some new curves to it.

I loaded 10 - 9mm that I had used in my "experiment". No problems at all with cycling the gun and no splits cracks dents or errors.

Sorry I haven't figured out if my camera has a macro thingy let alone how to use it if it does. lol

Wiersy, LOL! Usually the macro setting on these digital cameras has a little flower symbol. I used an old Sony Mavica CD-500 to take the pics I used for this thread.