crusty cases

[orionengnr]

I just bought some 30.06 cases..about 600 of them. The price was right, but when I received them I am prety sure that the 06 part refers to their vintage.

This is someone's great grandaddy's WWI brass. I've seen crusty bras, but this is tarnished beyond belief. I put 50 rounds in my Frankford Arsenal tumbler for 4 hours, and it looked, ummm...a little better. Another six hours next day, plus a capful of NuFinish, and, ummm...a little better. Another six hours...and another.

Right now I am at 24 hours tumbling with the same 50 rounds. Some look pretty good (50%). Some look pretty bad, and some still look like junk.

This is ridiculous. What can I use to pre-clean the remaining rounds?

 

[scrat]

NOTHING. if anything you clean them to see enough brass then put them in a bag and take them to your local recycler. I would not trust them at all. you see what your seeing is on the outside. how do you think the inside looks. im imagine the same or worst. By the time you get those cases to anywhere to them looking good. how thin and brittle do you think the brass is now. disgard them recycle them but please dont use them. your safety is too important.

 

[jmorris]

I’m not extremely particular about having my brass looking like a mirror; however, if it hits our black land soil and gets wet once it does get discolored quite a bit. After reading about the vinegar solution I decided to give it a try. I have a bucket of brass that is heavily tarnished (too far gone for even me) that I keep for recycling. I used a handful for this test.

I used the solution of :
1 pint water
1 cup vinegar
1 table spoon salt
1 tea spoon detergent

After shaking for 10 minutes in the mix, I rinsed them off in the sink.

The solution did clean almost all of the tarnish of the brass, in the process, it turned many a pretty pink color (not sure if that’s any better than black). I’d say it works, sort of, but with the time spent you could chunk them into the recycle bucket and pick up 10 times the amount from the range.

Before

After

 

[CBS220]

Nice fruity brass

You don't happen to shoot it from one of those "Hello Kitty" guns, do you

 

[jmorris]

It may look fruity but it made it to 1st place master ESP last Saturday at the Louisiana state championship. Once it was clean I just couldn’t chunk it back into the recycle bucket.

 

[Grandpa Shooter]

I have loaded 30-06 rounds that are Lake City Arsenal dating back to 1946. I got them from a friend of mine 12 years ago. Many of them are spotted and some have green spots. I cleaned them up with Scotch brite pads and have shot them. They are still accurate and I have reloaded them. If the corrosion is bubbling the surface you can recycle them, but it has been my experience that the brass manufactured back then is much better quality than what is made now.

If you can't resize it, or it cracks that would be a different thing. Obviously you need to decide for yourself what you want to do. If you believe it is dangerous, don't reload it.

 

[evan price]

I can't recall the specific chemical reaction, but I have heard that when the brass is pink it is because of leaching out of a specific metal in the alloy of the brass, and it causes it to become brittle when it is pink. I'm sure some chemist can explain better than I.

 

[345 DeSoto]

J MORRIS - Have you ever tumbled up any of the brass that you've cleaned in your solution? Just curious to see if it brightened up after the wash...

 

[jmorris]

I did tumble the batch above but it didn’t make a huge difference. That brass had been in the dirt for months but still worth $1.75/#, that’s why I had it. I tried the above recipe to either prove or disprove its effectiveness. It made a huge difference in the way the cases looked, and maybe as Evan pointed out, the ones that came out pink were too far gone. However, the load I use is a fairly high pressure load and none of the cases failed. Again, you would have to have too much time on your hands or an exotic round to make this worth while on a large scale. Range brass is plentiful around here.

 

[Smokey Joe]

Back to the beginning...

Orionengr--You have 24 hrs. of tumbling on that brass, and it still looks funky. IMHO, it's too far gone to bother saving. By the time you have it cleaned up to usable, you could have worked overtime for 1/2 that time and used the overtime $$ to buy some decent brass.

You've given it the old college try and then some. Now it's time to face up to the fact that you got took, and bought some junk brass sight unseen. You can recover some of your cost by selling it to a scrap dealer.

Putting more work/time/money/effort into that brass @ this point seems to me to be pointless. (Of course, I'm the guy who pooh-poohs those who resize and reload steel cases instead of getting decent brass, too. I do not favor exercise for its own sake.)

Fortunately, free range pick-up .30-'06 brass is plentiful (at least in my neck of the woods) and most of that is brand new store-bought once-fired. It's not as if we were dealing here with some rare, precious hard-to-find
cartridge brass. The time you would put in to rehabilitate yr crusty old brass could instead net you a similar amount of free range '06 brass.

Well, good luck however you see that. And as always, the journey is part of the destination.

 

[orionengnr]

I guess I need to take and post some pics. My camera generally takes pics that have file sizes too large to post. Gotta work on that.

My cases do not look as bad as the "before" pic. The worst of mine look about like the best in that pic. Dark and tarnished, yes. Green, no.

Edited to add: Yep, just took three pics (a "before", an "after-good" and an "after-less good") and none of them is up-load-able. Wish I had my old Sony Digital Mavica back...

 

[scrat]

from what i have heard the pink in those cases is the zinc leaching through the brass. The cases were left in the vineagar too long.

also if you want a booster for your tumbler add some rice. yep good old rice. way better than media

 

[orionengnr]

finally got pics down to size (I hope)

First pic is brass as delivered

Second pic is what the better ones look like

Third pic is what the less-nice ones look like (after 24 hours in the tumbler)

Still looking for less-damaging cleaning methods--the vinegar seems to be quite agressive, as evidenced by the color change.
Funny thing is, on the black tarnish marks, Scotch-Brite seems to do little or nothing. Scraping with the edge of another case takes off a little--maybe they are painted black...

 

[Grandpa Shooter]

Here is a picture of what my old 30.06 rounds look like after being cleaned. Obviously they vary greatly in finish. If I find one with a "bubbled" surface I can't clean, I pull it apart and save the bullet. The powder is good fertilizer.

 

[Avenger29]

Please just chuck the brass. It's far better than trying to salvage the cases- sounds like they are far too gone.

 

[Master Blaster]

Brass is cheap compared to fingers and eyes.

.45 acp is a low pressure round 30.06 is a high pressure rifle round.

Recycle the brass, you can buy lots of brass for the $200 emergency room deductible, you may be saving.

 

[Avenger29]

Remember, you are setting off a contained explosion with very high pressures. Better to toss the brass and buy fresh- don't want to ruin a rifle, either.

 

[evan price]

Orion, if those three pix are what you are dealing with, you have no big problem there. I've seen "brand new" surplus ammo that looks like that, and it shoots just fine. Most of the 30-06 brass I sold as military arsenal surplus brass for ten cents each looked about like that untumbled- don't expect to get every last trace of tarnish off the case without weakening the brass chemically.

I'd shoot them.

The things to watch for are crumbly, pitting corrosion that leaves a dark spot that looks like dandruff clumps. The center case on the last pic looks like that. Those are deep and it's best to toss them. If it is just stains, let it be. I've got brass that has been damp and then tumbled that looks kind of mottled- it's actually kind of neat looking.

 

[ilbob]

I don't think the appearance of the brass affects how well it shoots.

When I was a poor student, I didn't even have a brass cleaner. I just tossed a handful into a dirty sock, tied the end off and threw it in the washer with the rest of my dirty clothes. They came out clean and dry after the dryer, but not real shiny.

Some of the 38 special cases I shot back then (25+ years ago) I am still shooting today. I would not be surprised if some have been reloaded 100+ times. Mostly with 38 special I shoot light target loads.

 

[coyotehitman]

I had some old 38 brass that was tarnished black. I tumbled it for many hours, but it only became a nice shiney black. As an experiemnt, I used regular Flitz paste type polish on a cloth and in a matter of minutes, it looked like brass again. Does anyone know if regular Flitz paste polish has ammonia in it. The website alludes that it is safe on brass, but it smells like it has ammonia in it. I only did this with one piece of brass, but on older/obsolete brass, it would be worth the time it takes to polish a batch.

 

[qajaq59]

Toss it. Then write down the name of the supplier so that you never order from him again. It just isn't worth the risk of wrecking a rifle or youself.

 

[33rowdy]

A dumb thought...Would mineral spirits, or something like parts cleaner do any help of loosing the stuff off? Or is that a bad idea?

 

[Walkalong]

To be honest, it does not look too bad, but it's your call. The safe thing to do is scrap it, but I have shot the same kind of stuff (surplus) with no problems.

 

[Racktracker]

Part of your problem is that you are not filling your tumbler full enough. Vibratory tumblers clean better when they are at near max capacity. I fill mine about 2/3 full of media then add as much brass as will fit. It will do a much better job of cleaning.

I have to say that the brass in question does not look that bad. I wouldn't throw it away period. In reality, how much time do you really have invested. Its not as if you are running the tumbler with a hand crank. Throw it in over night then check it. Take the clean ones out, throw the not so clean ones back in and add more to make up for the ones that you took out.

If you are gonna throw them away, throw them my way...nothing wrong with them other than they need a good cleaning. Now if they was pink like the pistol ones above I would say pitch them. Since the pink is a sign that the zinc has been leached out leaving copper. No telling what might hapen there.

 

[orionengnr]

Part of your problem is that you are not filling your tumbler full enough.

^^^^
Please do not make unfounded assumptions. My vibratory tumbler was filled correctly, thank you.

As I stated, I average 40 hours of tumbling per batch--8 hours per day for one work week--to get them to the state shown.

Finally, my tumbler quit working last week. The motor will not turn with power applied, it just "hummmmms". With power removed, it turns. I contacted Fankford Arsenal, they said to send it in and they'd warranty it.