Fired/washed 45 Colt brass corroded?

[sigfreud]

Hi folks, I'm planning to reload some warmish 45 Colt for a Henry big boy steel carbine. I bought some range brass online with Starline headstamp that have been washed & cleaned, but the cases showed up with these silver/grayish discoloration. Do you think these cases are safe to reload assuming no cracks etc? Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[AJC1]

Hi folks, I'm planning to reload some warmish 45 Colt for a Henry big boy steel carbine. I bought some range brass online with Starline headstamp that have been washed & cleaned, but the cases showed up with these silver/grayish discoloration. Do you think these cases are safe to reload assuming no cracks etc? Thanks for your thoughts.

Wet or dry tumble them shiny and do a close inspection... your butts on the line...

 

[JmacD]

What he said. Possibly could be said your eyes and hands and rifle on the line…

 

[Rule3]

How many did you buy?
Where did you buy them?
Contact the seller

Could be just residue from washing
Take some fine steel wool and buff them to see if they get shiny or use some Flits or other polish

 

[Walkalong]

Tumble them with polish and they'll be OK. Any water, and worse, sweat, will do that.

 

[sugarmaker]

Range brass often shows a degree of corrosion in addition to being full of dirt/sand. Should clean up after being washed with a strong stream to clean out the insides then dried and tumbled for a couple hours. Also sometimes contains discarded reload cases, I toss those.

 

[SingleActionAndrew]

Looks like Outdoor range reclaimed brass to me. Been rained on etc, if old can be hard to deprime

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

I wash my BPC cases in a little Dawn detergent and rinse them in clean water, then dry them in the toaster oven on the medium light setting. I got some white/gray discoloration like that before I started using Dawn and was just dunking them in water if I didn’t rinse thoroughly. Could be they’re stained by Holy Black and didn’t get rinsed enough.

 

[Palladan44]

I wouldn't load anything spicy in them at the very least.
I'd use some factory new from starline, or some new factory once fired brass for any 45 Colt +p style loads.

I learned my lesson firing old tarnished 357 magnum brass of unknown origin. Lots of split cases, but could have been a bigger problem like a CHS. Brass either gets work hardened or gets brittle with age (corrosion accelerates Age)

 

[buck460XVR]

Tumble them with polish and they'll be OK. Any water, and worse, sweat, will do that.

^^^ for the most part, I agree. Polishing should show you if it's just surface residue or corrosion that has gone beyond the surface. Seems to be a lot of residue left on the cases, could be from what the seller used to clean them with. Starline is pretty thick brass, if you cannot find deep pitting after a good polishing, it should be okay.

 

[CQB45ACP]

Whatdya think @9mmGoon? Safe to shoot?

Thought a recently anointed expert should weigh in

 

[sigfreud]

Thank you everyone for your comments, I talked to the seller about the issue with the brass. He is a good guy, sent me new clean brass and let me keep the old brass. To be safe, I will stick with the new batch of brass for my spicier load.

 

[EricBu]

Decap a couple...see if the primers are corroded and cause a ringer. If those were sold as cleaned...I'd complain. Some crappy brass peddlers wash, and bag wet...giving you something like you got. If they decap clean, and tumbling cleans them up, you'll be fine. If they ringer when you decap...inspect closely. Btw, corroded brass that ringers can be a pain to save, even if the brass is useable.

 

[Pivot Dr]

Soak them in a citric acid mix for say 1/2 hour, dry them and tumble. They’ll probably be just fine. The citric acid will get rid of the corrosion and make it easier to inspect for flaws.

 

[lightman]

I would rub the corrosion with a piece of steel wool to remove it then scratch that spot with a fingernail to see if its eaten into the brass. If not, I would tumble and load them.

 

[Ethan Verity]

I bet the original shots were with black powder, and it had some time to marinate before being cleaned up to be resold. Heck, that may even have originally been my brass... Sometimes when feeling lazy, I will just leave my black powder empties behind because I don't feel like cleaning both the brass and the gun. They always get snatched up though.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

As said above, just tumble with polish and inspect before loading.
We should be doing that every time anyway.

 

[Kaldor]

Hi folks, I'm planning to reload some warmish 45 Colt for a Henry big boy steel carbine. I bought some range brass online with Starline headstamp that have been washed & cleaned, but the cases showed up with these silver/grayish discoloration. Do you think these cases are safe to reload assuming no cracks etc? Thanks for your thoughts.

Tumble them, give them a quick looking over. Load em, shoot em.
If I was betting man? Id say they are just fine, just light tarnish. Ive picked up far worse, SSTL tumbled it, and had no issues. Those cases are probably still in rotation.