Salvaging dirty primed brass.

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jr_roosa

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In my new collection of reloading gear, I have some primed .30-06 and .30-30 brass that was lubed (somewhat heavily) years ago and is now covered with gunky congealed case lube.

I also have some loaded .30-06 rounds with equally nasty gunk on the outside.

Any ideas for how to get the gunk off without compromising the primers? I'm leaning towards some solvent (alcohol, windex, Hoppes # 9, or non-acetone nail polish remover...all handy in my house) on the corner of a rag, but I'm paranoid about either making the brass too sticky to extract, too greasy, or inadvertently doing something dangerous.

Plan B is to put powder and bullets in them, shoot em up, and then run them through the polisher in the usual stlye.

-J.
 
I wouldn't want that stuff in my chamber, personally. Try some mineral spirits on a rag, not Hoppe's and definitely NO windex as the ammonia will quickly degrade the brass (ammonia is a copper solvent). If you are careful the primers should be okay. The other option is to load them and then tumble them.
 
Go to an oilfield supply store and get a 40 lb bag of LCM, which is walnut hull, remove the dust, then treat a bowlful with solvent that won't hurt the brass and tumble. I use a Dillon vibrator usually, but when I have to clean primed brass I use a Thumbler's Tumbler.
 
Just run them threw the tumbler and they will come out clean and you should still be able to use them. Then you can load them and shoot them. no need in wasting primers in this day in age.

I had some primed 308 brass that was sitting in a box outside for about 10 years threw cnetral Texas summers, NJ winters and summers and virginia summers and winters. Tumbled it loaded it and shot it every single one went boom.
 
Ifishsum:Cartridge brass is 70% copper and 30% zinc. Ammonia leeches the zinc from the brass at a rapid rate, the longer the contact, the more that is leeched. A small reduction in the % zinc will cause the brass to be brittle and can cause catastrophic rupture of the case.---Try this experiment: put a dab of Brasso (high ammonia content) on a case that is trashed; let it sit for an hour, then remove Brasso. You will see the brass is now redish. This is the copper showing on the brass that has lost zinc.
 
I would not shoot them.

Congealed case lube & dirt is sure to raise chamber pressure, and also increase bolt-thrust, as it will allow the case to slip in the chamber much easier then it should.

You can wash them by hand with acetone or pure denatured alcohol solvent on a rag. Neither one will hurt the primers unless you soak the cases in it.
(Rubbing alcohol from the bathroom cabinet is mostly water.)


Or just tumble them.
That won't hurt anything either, even if you do get tumbler media in a few flash holes! :p

Wondering though, why someone primed them with case lube still on them?
That right there is one good way to contaminate primers!

rcmodel
 
Wondering though, why someone primed them with case lube still on them?
Click to expand...

Yeah, now that I think of it, if it was case lube it should have been wiped off by the sizing die. I'll have to take a closer look now to see what it really is.

It's a small number of cases, but so long as I can just get away with a wipe-down with some solvent then it's no big deal. I'll avoid the windex...that's exactly why I thought I'd ask here since I had no idea the windex would trash the brass.

I'll probably toss them rather than tumble them since I'd spend the whole time waiting for one to blow a hole in my brand new tumbler.

Thanks for the advice.

-J.
 
Nevermind...the .30-30s were just resized without polishing them, primed, and then stored in the box. The "gunk" was just powder residue from inside the cases stuck to the light lube on the outside.

The .30-06 rounds had bad corrosion so in the dud box they go.

Thanks anyway!

-J.
 
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