Pink Color on brass after Sonic Clean

Pickled the brass, to much lemi. Try just a little dawn and water. If tumbled the copper color will go away. If left to long in the lemishine it could destroy the brass or weaken it.

I just recently cleaned 1200 9mm cases in my ultra sonic and mine is a 2500 ml (basically 2 quart) model.
When I make my solution, I put a slightly rounded teaspoon of lemi- shine in, not running over but slightly rounded on top, and a dribble of Dawn, That's been my normal recipe for many years. The Dawn isn't necessary but I proved it doesn't raise the ph of the lemi-shine when it's put in so I still use it.

I got one pink case out of the 1200 cases that were ran in batches at 16 minutes a batch. If I find a pink one I pitch it. It was all pink. I've only seen like 5 of them in 10 years.

Short of that one they were all shiney, clean, and yellow.
I don't let them sit in there and soak after cleaning, I dump them out and rinse them in the sink as soon as it times out. I usually fill the other basin of the sink up about 3" of clean water, hose them off, and dump them in there to rinse them good.

Are you dumping your batch out right away and rinsing them or leaving them in there until you discovered it timed out? That will do it.
What size ultra sonic do you have?

You said you used a dab of lemi-shine, measure it with a teaspoon, start with a level teaspoon and work up. You need to know how much your putting in so you can repeat the process with accuracy when you find how much works the best in your machine.

Now can't use that much if your using SS pins in a tumbler. You won't like the results from what some have been saying. Apparently there is some kind of reaction happens with the stainless steel pins impacting the brass if you put in to much lemi-shine, and it doesn't take much with the rotary tumblers and pins.

This is the pink one
This is the rest.

That recipe I stated in my last post is only for pistol/revolver brass.

If I'm cleaning rifle brass I cut the lemi-shine in half. Rifle brass seems to be more sensitive to it.

The 9mms in the pics above came from "Once Fired Brass.com" and that was it's first cleaning. If you clean it every time it's fired the brass is easy to clean. If it's old scrungy stuff that has never been cleaned and fired many times it will not come clean like these the first time.
With the up surge of new shooters out there the brass that comes from these sights are a much higher concentration of truely once fired brass than it was 5 years ago.

Not an issue. Fire away.

They weren't in the stuff to long from what you said, there probably fine. The coloring should only be on the surface, maybe sacrifice one and smash the neck to see if it lost its hardness. The copper color is from the zinc bleaching out and mostly copper left.

What Troy was touching on is called dezincification and like he said, the zinc is being leached out.

This is bad for brass as it weakens it and you could get a failure when fired. Which is a bad thing for you and your firearms.

Look it up, you can read about the affects, there's also no way to fix the issue. If it's truly happening, then yes, recycle the brass, don't use it.

Check the pink ones, I have noticed the brass coated steel ones come out of my wet tumbler a funny pinkish/orange.
(I check them all with a magnet after I clean them since I am dealing with pins then already)

I checked mine with a magnet as soon as I found it, not plated steel. 10 minutes in there shouldn't do it unless he put in way to much lemi-shine.
But I have found that some cases just do that and like my pictures above, I had one out of 1200 that turned pink and the rest were normal.

I use picked-up brass a lot of unknown history. The only pink cases I ever picked up were "Browning"-stamped cases. I don't know what they were made of but they went in the trash brass container.

I have run across this too, mostly when they come out pink, they are brass coated steel....but not always, it pays to check ....

My sonicating bath solution is 1/2 tsp citric acid and 10-15 drops Dawn dishwashing soap in about 2.5L water for ~ 20 minutes per batch of brass. I've had a few cases turn pink in spots, but not the whole case. I've loaded them up and shot them without issue. This is what's happening.

Mk-211 said:

zinc is being leached out.

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troy fairweather said:

The copper color is from the zinc bleaching [leaching] out and mostly copper left.

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Too much acid, you’re leaching zinc from the brass. Less acid in your mix. Easy.

Mk-211 said:

What Troy was touching on is called dezincification and like he said, the zinc is being leached out.

This is bad for brass as it weakens it and you could get a failure when fired. Which is a bad thing for you and your firearms.

Look it up, you can read about the affects, there's also no way to fix the issue. If it's truly happening, then yes, recycle the brass, don't use it.

Click to expand...

Baloney.
There is not enough citric acid (1/2 teaspoon) for 20 minutes to weaken the brass.
10-15 drops of soap in 2.5 litters? Must be a suds bucket!

@Rule3 - guys do it all of the time. Whether it’s a mistake of laying the brass out to dry without rinsing, or dumping brass, Lemi-shine, THEN water into the barrel, or locally high concentration of lemi where they dump it into the top of the water and brass, whatever, guys accidentally leach zinc from their brass all of the time.

Varminterror said:

@Rule3 - guys do it all of the time. Whether it’s a mistake of laying the brass out to dry without rinsing, or dumping brass, Lemi-shine, THEN water into the barrel, or locally high concentration of lemi where they dump it into the top of the water and brass, whatever, guys accidentally leach zinc from their brass all of the time.

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Read my reply again. Sure you can discolor the brass with a bit too much citric acid. vinegar or a few drops of lemon. Not rinse it or whatever.

That is NOT going to weaken the brass or make it unusable.
I tested several acids diluted in distilled water and got the pH down to 2.xxx. Citric acid 1 tsp in 1 gal of water. Left it for 20-30 minutes, Rinsed it. Did not phase it.
Also tested phosphoric acid, vinegar Nada nothing.
Also have documentation from several chemists, beyond the scope of this thread.

Anyone tried a mild solution of muriatic acid? Drop cases in, dump cases out, rinse profusely and dry.
Stephen

You do know that the Chemical name for muriatic acid is HCL, right? It is just a less pure form of hydrochloric acid which is Hydrogen Chloride dissolved in water. I don't know why anyone would want to use a "strong" acid for cleaning cases when a "weak acid" will do the job just fine. It does take longer for Citric acid to work but Citric acid doesn't eat holes in your clothes and skin if you get it on you, diluted or not.

I use 1/4 teaspoon of Lemishine per pint of water. 60 mins in an ultrasonic cleaner and no pink color. During my experimenting days using too much Lemishime OR leaving the brass in the solution too long caused the brass to turn pink.

I wish reloaders (and cooks) would stop using the terms "pinch", "dab", "sprinkle", "touch", etc. These terms tell us nothing.

Dollop is the one that gets me. What the hell is a Dollop? @marchboom , Your using basically the same amount of Lemi-Shine as I am.
1/4 teaspoon per pint equal a full teaspoon per 2 quarts. It works very well and get my primer pockets 95% clean.

tightgroup tiger said:

You said you used a dab of lemi-shine, measure it with a teaspoon, start with a level teaspoon and work up. You need to know how much your putting in so you can repeat the process with accuracy when you find how much works the best in your machine.

Now can't use that much if your using SS pins in a tumbler. You won't like the results from what some have been saying. Apparently there is some kind of reaction happens with the stainless steel pins impacting the brass if you put in to much lemi-shine, and it doesn't take much with the rotary tumblers and pins.

Click to expand...

Yes...measure for success! When using chemicals to clean, being accurate with the amounts is critical to good results...and figuring out where you need to go to change things for the better if need be.

With respect to the SS pins in conjunction with Lemi Shine...given that Lemi Shine has a low pH (acidic), the presence of dissimilar metals (stainless steel and brass in this instance) would mean that you're likely to have some amount of galvanic corrosion take place. Reducing the amount of Lemi Shine would mitigate that. (As would time in solution.)

How much of an effect the galvanic corrosion has would be based on the type of stainless steel the pins are made from and the amount (and resulting pH in solution) of Lemi Shine used.

Anybody who thinks that "if a little is good, a lot must be better" when it comes to cleaning chemicals doesn't understand how the various processes work.

For example...Dawn dishwashing soap is an excellent grease/oil remover (as anyone who's ever gotten their hands dirty working on their car knows). But you must have some water present for it to do it's job. Too much Dawn is just wasting your soap and your time once you get to a certain point.

Bleach is also another excellent agent to use for certain jobs. But whereas a little in the washer brightens those whites, too much means burnt/discolored clothing or clothing that is so chemically burned it falls apart.

So yes...measure the amount added and adjust accordingly for best results.