Vinegar, Water Salt dishsoap mixture to clean brass

[Front Royalty]

At what point will I need to full length size? All of the cases have only been fired in my 116. What signs should I look for?

When the bolt barely closes on neck sized brass, its time to FL size!

[bigedp51]

Brass has gotten to expensive to screw it up. Too many chemicals that are harmful to brass in the OP. I like simple and easy that works well at my age. I wash my deprimed brass in HOT water, about a quart with a tsp of Lemi Shine. I use an old plastic coffee can and snap the lid on when they are all submerged. After about 20 minutes or when the water cools off enough to get my fingers in I pick um up one at a time and give the primer pockets a spin with a Q-Tip then put them all back in and let soak until the water is ambient temp. I give them 3 clean water rinses, shake them out and lay out on paper to dry. Gives the brass all the clean and shine I want, plus I don't think that shinny slippery stuff grips the chamber walls as firmly. Vibratory tumblers tend to put nicks in the necks which will scratch the heel of your flat base bullets, not as big a concern with BT bullets.

The military used sulfuric acid to clean the brass so the mixtures posted above are mild in comparison. And die hard competitive do not like removing the carbon from inside their case necks and would never wet tumble with stainless steel media. Many liquid cartridge case cleaners contain acetic acid and vinegar is 3 to 9 percent acetic acid. And Lemi Shine is citric acid and lemon-lime Kool-Aid is 97% citric acid but sadly you will have green fingers if you clean your brass with it. Bottom line, your chamber pressure is the hardest thing on your brass and not what you clean your brass with.

"Military arsenals use a heated 4 percent sulfuric acid dip with a little potassium dichromate added. The solution is heated until bubbles rise slowly without it boiling and the cases are dipped into it for 4 -5 minutes using a basket of copper screening or plastic. A final rinse using plain hot water is followed by hot water with Ivory™ soap in it and the cases are left to drain and dry. Because of the use of heated sulfuric acid this method is probably impractical for home use but is given here to show what can be safely used."

http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm#Solutions

[nhyrum]

The military used sulfuric acid to clean the brass so the mixtures posted above are mild in comparison. And die hard competitive do not like removing the carbon from inside their case necks and would never wet tumble with stainless steel media. Many liquid cartridge case cleaners contain acetic acid and vinegar is 3 to 9 percent acetic acid. And Lemi Shine is citric acid and lemon-lime Kool-Aid is 97% citric acid but sadly you will have green fingers if you clean your brass with it. Bottom line, your chamber pressure is the hardest thing on your brass and not what you clean your brass with.

"Military arsenals use a heated 4 percent sulfuric acid dip with a little potassium dichromate added. The solution is heated until bubbles rise slowly without it boiling and the cases are dipped into it for 4 -5 minutes using a basket of copper screening or plastic. A final rinse using plain hot water is followed by hot water with Ivory™ soap in it and the cases are left to drain and dry. Because of the use of heated sulfuric acid this method is probably impractical for home use but is given here to show what can be safely used."

http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm#Solutions
Some of the chromium in the potassium dichromate probably gets deposited on brass making it harder. More brittle, but harder. Not much chromium would be deposited though, but that's probably why it's added is to help deposit a little of what was removed. Not 100 perfect sure, I'll have to break out my old college text books.

[Texas10]

My 1949 edition of The Ideal Hand Book No. 36 by The Lyman Gun Sight Corp. has a "tried and true" method for cleaning brass that involves a five second dip into a mixture of Sulphuric Acid, Potassium Bichromate (2 oz. each) and 1 qt. water, followed by a five second dip in Sodium Cyanide, 1/4 lb dissolved into 1 qt water. It further warns that mixing the acid and cyanide together gives off deadly gasses..DUH!:violin:

Can you imagine how many "no-fly" lists a person would be placed on if one were to try to mail order those ingredients today?! You'd probably find yourself looking down a collection of barrels from every LE agency in the nation when the "big brown truck" arrived to deliver your package….:o

I guess the world was much simpler in 1949.

[Hippy]

I do my decapping, resizing, trimming, and chamfering/deburing before I clean my brass. I use a rotary tumbler (Thumblers Tumblers) with stainless steel pin media. What goes in is hot water a pinch of Leme shine and a couple of drops of whatever my wife has on the counter for dish soap. The results are amazing. At this point I could never go back to dry media In a vibratory bowl.

#2.