tarnished brass: 5.56 and saltwater

[z7]

i have 200 pcs of badly tarnished, once fired 5.56 brass that was shot in m16 rifles, exposed to a varying level of salt water and left to sit. some is hardly stained, others are liked the attached. these cases were tumbled in walnut for 6 hours.

would you shoot them? about 40% show significant tarnish (1/3 of one side of the case. . . so 1/6 of the case)

 

[Walkalong]

The stain is OK, but the pink bothers me. Trash them.

 

[rcmodel]

No.
Toss them.

The zinc has been leached out of the cartridge brass.
Which can lead to brittleness.

Not worth the risk.

rc

 

[jwrowland77]

No question, into the recycling bin

 

[z7]

when RC and walkalong agree they are trash, i yield, into the recycling they go.

thanks

 

[Jesse Heywood]

Beauty is only skin deep. Where corrosion goes below the surface, things get ugly.

 

[rcmodel]

when RC and walkalong agree

Hey!
We Always agree.

Most of the time!

It's in the fine print in the contract.
So we have to agree to keep the big checks coming in from THR.

(Not true! That is supposed to be a joke.)

rc

 

[FROGO207]

5.56 brass is so plentiful that it is not worth taking the chance of a case failure. Any brass that shows pink when polished is an automatic recycle for me FWIW. Hopefully the others are in better shape and can be reused. It really bothers me when I can't reuse brass as it seems a waste but safety trumps the wallet.

 

[Walkalong]

I had to trash 400 .45 ACP cases because of this many years ago. It really hurt my feelings (Young and poor tightwad) to do so, but, as posted, safety first.

 

[g.willikers]

Yuk.
Even if they were still structurally sound, they are just too ugly.
Even a brass scrounger like me would be embarrassed to hang on to those.
Toss 'em.