How much mineral spirits?

A tablespoon or two.

What is the mineral spirits in the media for?

Zero

Mineral spirits keeps the dust down.

It will renew your media indefinitely if you use it every time. I'm still using walnut media I bought over 15 yrs ago. Really cuts lube off cases and brass comes out shiny. I never use polish anymore.

I've been using some kind of liquid polishing compound for fiberglass boat hulls. It also reduced the dust to zero and polishes my case twice as fast and I also haven't changed my media for about 15yrs.

I throw in used dryer sheets also to help collect the fines buy don't get many anymore.

Thanks, I didn't know if the mineral spirits was a new mouse trap or what it was.

119er said:

That worked great!
Granted, my media was old and it was taking quite a while to see results. But after adding a splash of paint thinner my cases were shiny as can be in about 2 hours(was taking longer) . I'm done with the polish for now, I have a gallon of this stuff.

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Old school stuff still rocks. Don't let the common core progressive hand wringers stop you from learning the ways of the ones who came before.

I was thinking that a 1/2 gallon bottle of Beefeaters was going to help me put up with the whole polishing situation in a nutshell. That's the kind of spirits I would try. Recommend a glass full--on the rocks.

Put about 1 tablespoon of Nu-Finish car wax in the media, mix up good, best shine you'll ever need.

FROGO207 said:

I was thinking that a 1/2 gallon bottle of Beefeaters was going to help me put up with the whole polishing situation in a nutshell. That's the kind of spirits I would try. Recommend a glass full--on the rocks.

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Well, you gotta walk it through a room with a bottle of vermouth on the wall, than point it in the general direction of a jar of olives. The perfect martini after loading chores.

I you add to much it won't hurt anything, just give it awhile to evaporate

You want to use mineral spirits to thin out a polish like Nu Finsih. MS by itself is not going to do much.

If you want to hold down dust use a few drops of Mineral Oil (Ballistol or pure Mineral oil from the drug store.

I have a related question, people use nufinish in the media too, but I can't tell if it's nufinish polymer WAX, or a car POLISH. When I think nufinish, I think of the wax (but it's not wax) not a polish which would have a fine cutting Agent, but in my mind a tumbling process would probably benefit from a polish, not a wax. Which is it?

I use Nufinish, "The Once a Year Car Polish".

Obviously people have been doing this with good results so this is probably a silly question but do any of you guys who use mineral spirits in your media worry about the oil residue destroying primers?

If you just use mineral spirits without all that other stuff I see on here then there will be no oily residue. What tiny amount of dampness may remain will evaporate immediately. In 30 yrs I can't remember ever having a primer that wouldn't detonate.

JUST mineral spirits alone is what I use in my media, no polish, no wax, no oil etc etc. My brass comes out very shiny if I leave it in there several hours. Myself, I don't care if it's shiny as long as it's CLEAN. I tumble once with walnut and MS to clean the brass, then after sizing rifle brass I tumble it again in fine ground corn cob and MS to remove lube. Then I make sure the flash holes are clear and load them up. KISS principle.

Splash of mineral spirits and Brasso...A little dab will do ya.

Before my brass goes in the tumbler, I soak in hot water, vinegar and Dawn for half an hour or so. I rinse the brass in clean hot water and dry in the sun. At this point, the brass is clean enough to reload. Most run it though the tumbler for a couple of hours to make it pretty.

The lead salts that everyone is so afraid of, goes down the drain. If you tumble dirty brass, you could contaminate the area around the tumbler with airborne lead salts.

Don't use Brasso ! It has ammonia in it, will breakdown the brass structure of the metal. YMMV

jaysouth said:

Before my brass goes in the tumbler, I soak in hot water, vinegar and Dawn for half an hour or so. I rinse the brass in clean hot water and dry in the sun. At this point, the brass is clean enough to reload. Most run it though the tumbler for a couple of hours to make it pretty.

The lead salts that everyone is so afraid of, goes down the drain. If you tumble dirty brass, you could contaminate the area around the tumbler with airborne lead salts.

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Try replacing that vinegar for citric acid. Cleans better and doesn't tarnish the brass that much.

I do this because all the brass I get is range pick up, and it's usually dirty with mud or sand. If I'm loading for a match, I decap after the wash and run then through a sonic cleaner so as to get the primer pockets clean.

I haven't tried mineral spirits yet. So far I've been using a metal cleaning solution with good results, but I'll give them a try.

Nordeste,

1. I am cheap. A couple of tablespoons of white vinegar is pennies. The equivalent amount of citric acid is dimes.

2. You are correct about a slight amount of patina that the vinegar may sometimes leave behind. This always goes away in the tumbler with lizard litter, mineral spirits/car polish, and a dryer sheet.

If I were not going to tumble, the citric acid would be a better solution.

Search youtube for the video of noted pistol shooter Jerry Miculec using a concrete mixer for a tumbler.

For EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about citric acid solution for cleaning brass, follow this link: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?83572-Citric-acid-brass-cleaner