how to clean brass?

For the revolver cases that never touched the ground you could probably get away with wiping them off. I used to use a cheap ultra Sonic cleaner. Then I discovered wet pin tumbling makes my cases look new. I didn't really care if my brass looks new but the shiny ones are easier to see while trying to retrieve it off the ground after shooting something that ejects the brass on the ground.

If you are like most of us you will soon find out it starts off like a bad habit. Then you will find yourself getting more into it than you ever thought.

Wet tumbler without pins is what I do. I have vibratory tumbler, have ultrasonic, have pins... all too much work.

Tumbler and crushed walnut shell. Cheap and easy.

Are you processing 50 cases st a time or thousands ?

Brass,hot water and dawn in a big container, shaken not stirred, works for small batches.

Deprime first before wet tumbling.

Varminterror said:

Wet tumbler without pins is what I do. I have vibratory tumbler, have ultrasonic, have pins... all too much work.

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Wet without pins is by far the easiest and is more than adequate. I generally use pins as it does not add very much time or work.

You're not going to be cranking out a ton of loads on a Lee Classic Loader, so a bucket with some dish soap and maybe a dash of citric acid would work fine.

thunderbyrd said:

i just now have discovered the Lee Classic Loader. yes, indeedy, i can imagine have a couple or 3 of those here at my house very soon, for .45acp, 9mm, and maybe .38 sp.

so my basic newbie question is how do i clean my brass prior to reloading? do i have to buy a tumbler or can i clean it in hot water and dish liquid?

i suppose i could buy some new, clean brass just to learn on, but that's not the purpose of reloading.

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If your sizing die is carbide, cleaning and lubing your brass is unnecessary. Just wipe off any grit you see.
If your sizing die isn't carbide, go buy one. Lee carbide dies are pretty inexpensive, cheaper than a tumbler and less work than washing IMHO.

Laphroaig said:

You're not going to be cranking out a ton of loads on a Lee Classic Loader,

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If the OP is anything like most of the rest of us, in a year or two he’ll have quite the collection of reloading tools. Along that line of thinking;
For small batches, hot water and dish or car soap is fine. When getting into more volume I’d start off with a vibratory tumbler and cob Media with a little case polish. They’re inexpensive and easy to use. Even later you might want to consider a rotary tumbler. Everybody has their own favorite routine. Some like just functional ammo and some like showcase ammo.
There’s a basic right way to do it - the cases need to be clean enough to function properly and just as importantly, clean enough to properly inspect for issues prior to loading. After that, the sky, your temperament, patience and desire is the limit. You could hand polish every round with Brasso or Mother’s polish if you so desire.
As for me, I’ve used vibratory, wet rotary tumbling, and ultrasonic. I no longer have the ultrasonic, I occasionally wet tumble but all my cases go through the vibratory.

Howdy from a fellow Kentuckian.

I use a vibratory tumbler with cob media sometimes. I also have walnut but, eh, I don't like the dust from the cheap walnut I use.

I also wipe the cases clean with a rag and process them. Sometimes I'll use a spritz of lighter fluid on the rag sometimes not. This is sufficient. I do things simple most of the time.

I want to build a wet tumbler with pins. Just for the option to clean the inside of the cases good once in a while.

Varminterror said:

Wet tumbler without pins is what I do. I have vibratory tumbler, have ultrasonic, have pins... all too much work.

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+1 here....the pins and chips both stay packed away

Get a text on reloading. Get some reloading manuals, lots of basic info. I reloaded for 12 years before I got a tumbler. I just wiped each case with a solvent dampened rag while I was inspecting it prior to reloading. I had no scratched dies or chambers and if I wanted BBQ brass, I woud polish the case with 4/0 steel wool and Pledge. Google is your friend; https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+clean+hand+gun+cases+for+reloading.&atb=v275-1&ia=web

Case cleaning is probably the most talked about but least important part of reloading...

Old NRA brass cleaning formula;
1 Pint water
1 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon dish detergent
Mix. Add brass. Slosh/soak until brass looks clean.
Rinse thoroughly.
Dry...

I like a vibrating tumbler, but if I didn't want to wait or if it was broken etc - I'd just wipe the cases with a rag treated with a bit of mineral spirits or sovlent, and give them a few minutes to dry or just wipe with after with a clean rag and size and deprime. wipe the lube off the cases with a shop towel. my understanding polishing and tumbling etc. is mostly a cosmetic effort. I like shiny, but shiny not really needed.

I never clean large volumes of brass at one time so I just use a Harbor Freight rock polisher and walnut hulls.

thunderbyrd said:

i just now have discovered the Lee Classic Loader. yes, indeedy, i can imagine have a couple or 3 of those here at my house very soon, for .45acp, 9mm, and maybe .38 sp.

so my basic newbie question is how do i clean my brass prior to reloading? do i have to buy a tumbler or can i clean it in hot water and dish liquid?

i suppose i could buy some new, clean brass just to learn on, but that's not the purpose of reloading.

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Another fellow Kentuckian here from the southeast. I clean in a multitude of ways depending on what mood hits me, but to your question. You don’t have to buy a tumbler if all you want is clean brass. If it hasn’t been on the ground too long or in mud, you can probably just wipe it off with an old rag, but the simplest and cheapest way to actually clean your brass is to drop it into an old milk or water jug with a drop or two of dawn. Fill half way up with warm or hot water, shake vigorously, rinse a couple times, and let it dry. It won’t be “like new” shiny, but it will be clean and function fine. If you decide to upgrade later, you can do anything from an old rock tumbler to a vibratory cleaner to any other number of setups. It just depends on how shiny you want your brass, and how much you want to spend.

I use ss pins in my wet tumbler. It took me a few attempts of trying different ways to separate pins from brass. I ended up using the basket from my ultrasonic as a strainer into some small plastic tubs. Takes me about a minute to separate.

I never thought of using my tumbler with out the pins. I will have to give it a try sometime. I do small volumes of cases at one time. I use a mixture of water, dawn, and some citric acid crystals made by lemishine. Tumble for 1 hour and they come out like new.

I bought the tumbler and pins on eBay for about $80 through separate sellers. My ultrasonic cleaner was also on eBay for around $50. If we're to do it again I would have just went with the tumbler although the Sonic cleaner has some other good uses as well. Different strokes for different folks do what you think will suit your needs.

thunderbyrd said:

i just now have discovered the Lee Classic Loader. yes, indeedy, i can imagine have a couple or 3 of those here at my house very soon, for .45acp, 9mm, and maybe .38 sp.

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John Joseph said:

If your sizing die isn't carbide, go buy one.

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I'm not sure how much use you'd get out of a carbide sizing die if you're loading ammunition with a Lee Loader.
Edited to say: As far as I'm concerned, using any kind of tumbler to clean the amount of brass a person is going to be loading with a Lee Loader seems like overkill. That's not to say I have anything against Lee Loaders. I started with a Lee Loader myself, just like a lot of other handloaders, I suppose. Back then though, I just wiped my cases off with a rag, and if there was too much "charcoal" in the primer pockets, I carefully scraped it out with a small screwdriver. It wasn't until I got a regular loading press and was loading sometimes hundreds of rounds in a session that I bought a tumbler. And even now, I don't tumble cases all that often.

I started off wiping them off with solvent on a patch or rag. Then I started with a similar solution to the NRA cleaning solution listed above. I use hot water, a squirt of dish soap and a teaspoon of Lemishine powdered citric acid. I deprime the cases then stir them around in the solution for 10 or 15 minutes. Then I spread them out and dry them in the oven for a while at 225 F.

I’ve actually got a box of 38 special plinking loads that I have reloaded many times over without cleaning them at all. The most they normally get is a primer pocket cleaning, and sometimes not even that. They’ve taken on a patina that I kinda like, so I just keep loading them back up.

One of the reasons I think I've gravitated towards revolvers as a reloader is the fact that you don't have to chase your brass. Then the fact it never hits the ground. Accuracy what's that? I probably shoot my revolvers much more accurate. Isn't that what we are all after is accuracy?

If I’d known how much easier a revolver is in that respect I’d have gotten one years ago.

Varminterror said:

Wet tumbler without pins is what I do.

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This right here.

I've never seen the Lee classic reloader until now. Watched a YouTube video to see the steps from front to back. In my opinion after seeing you say you could see yourself buying two or three of these I would suggest you just look into buying a simple stage press. I think the cost would level out and be much more efficient as well as accurate. Just my 2 cents. Especially if you want to load for several different pistol cartridges

thunderbyrd said:

Could somebody go into detail about the sizing die? Thanks

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I'm not sure how much "detail" you're looking for, thunderbird, but you don't have a conventional sizing die (like John Joseph was talking about in his reply) in your Lee Classic Loader kit. A conventional sizing die is screwed into a loading press, and when you run your expanded (fired) cases up into it, it "sizes" (actually resizes) them.
As I remember it, with your Lee Classic Loader kit, you'll be using a "sizer die" of sorts to resize your expanded cases by pounding the die down over them. I might be wrong about that though - it's probably been 45 years since I used a Lee Loader.
Edited to say: I agree with Waterboy 3313. If you are planning on loading for several different cartridges, I think you'd be better off getting yourself a single stage press. Besides, if you had a press, you could do as John Joseph suggested and get yourself carbide sizing dies for resizing your handgun cases.