Lee Loader

^^^Very easy and quick, actually...

Citic acid, detergent and hot water in a sonic cleaner. Citric acid passivates brass. I give cases 8 minutes and then hot water rinse, dry and tumble in walnut media with a few drops of polish added. For really shiny, picture quality brass I chuck in drill and polish with superfine steel wool. This somewhat defeats the passivation.

Boiling water over 90% capacity of the drums with a small shot of dish soap and about 1/4 tsp lemi-shine. Tumble for a hour with no pins. Rinse in hot water. Then put them in coffee cans with no lids in the bed of my truck in the Texas sun to dry. Driving doesn't disturb them and the breeze helps dry them.

This is easier than anything listed above.

Yesterday afternoon while I mowed my yard, I tossed a batch of deprimed 32-20 Win cases in treated walnut and they were ready to work with when I finished my chores. That's how I used to do it and will go back to it. I have a whole table dedicated to SS pin cleaning in my garage. All that can go away now.

All very interesting processes to clean brass...

Dry media is 50X more of a PITA to clean out of and off of the brass than anything else.....plus media stuck in the primer pockets and flash holes has to be picked out......plus the brass doesn't come out clean after three hours of annoying noise.

That's my take but others have their own opinions. I will post another pic later.

GasGuzzler wrote:plus media stuck in the primer pockets and flash holes has to be picked out

Well, the stuck pins seem to be a problem with these microscopic cases. I have no experience with those, the smallest I load is .38spl, and no bottle necked cases.

I'm talking about DRY media has to be picked out of (all) flash holes.

Once again, I wet tumble WITH NO PINS.

GasGuzzler wrote:I'm talking about DRY media has to be picked out of (all) flash holes.

I just finished "vibrating" 50 cases each in Frankford Arsenal Walnut and Lyman Corncob Plus against steel pin washing with the GunTap detergent. So 150 32-20 Win cases. These cases have always been a bit greasy with alox from my TLC313-115-RF so I thought it would be a good comparison. All three media ran 2 hours each.

The FA Walnut is fine, so there is no way it can plug a flash hole, but the dust is considerable. This fine powder media is no match for the alox on the case necks. I've never used the corncob but have always heard "walnut cleans better than corn, corn polishes better than walnut." These cases were spotless, no lube, and polished brighter than new cases. When I dumped the cases in the separator pan, I could see that every case had media in the flash hole, but with my standard aggressive shaking, all the flash holes were clear (already checked every one). There was no dust with the corncob. The SS pin load were not clean nor polished. In fact, all the cases and pins were fouled with alox. I ended up having to wash the pins twice with Dawn Ultra, rinsing them between the two washes, to get them clean. Both cleaning runs were an additional hour each. I dried the SS pin tumbled case for an hour and then put them in the Lyman Corncob Plus and at the end of an hour, they looked like the original test batch.

GasGuzzler wrote:Once again, I wet tumble WITH NO PINS.

I do like washing my cases before decapping and will do that with Dawn Ultra in the rotary tumbler for about 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the load, and then send them to the drier. The wash will also keep my corncob cleaner. From there, I will be using my older FA Case Tumbler (vibrator) with the Lyman Corncob Plus.

Here are what the 32-20 Win cases look like after the two-hour run. A little soot left in the primer pocket but one turn of the case against the Lyman Prep Center pocket brush and it was gone.



Picture has been updated. Case is greasy will alox when ejected. The load is a max of H110, one of the cartridges that I've selected to consume the remaining powder with. Still have 3 lbs to go. My Lil'Gun load, max as well, does not leave the dirty case. I guess it forms the case against chamber faster. The SS pins sure didn't like it, wish I would have gotten a picture of that greasy mess. I was so discussed, that I almost threw pins & brass in the garbage!

Picture & last paragraph added anove.