The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Tactical Rifle & Carbine => Topic started by: billt on November 03, 2009, 11:17:01 AM
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Most everytime I go to my club range there is usually a lot of .223 and 9 MM brass left there by fellow shooters who don't reload. I pick this stuff up off the ground until my back starts getting sore. I usually bring a box when I go to put it in. When I get home I sort it out. A lot of it is dirty from laying there for God knows how long.
The first thing I do is run it through 2, 480 second cycles in my Ultrasonic Cleaner with hot water and a squirt of "Dawn" dish soap, and the stuff comes out as clean as new inside and out. I rinse them out in hot tap water, I then spread them out on a old terrycloth bath towel that has been relegated to the garage for car drying. After a few hours out in the Sun they're ready for reloading. Brass is getting expensive, and this is a great way cut costs and get to shoot more without spending any more than you have to. Bill T.
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If it works it sounds good. As you probably know most reloaders use a vibrating tumbler using corncob and/or walnut media. I'm not sure if there is any issue with powder and lead residue mixing with water. If you only use the ultrasonic cleaner for the brass there probably isn't an issue with lead cross contamination.
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I've been a scavenger ever since I started reloading. Brass is by far the most expensive component and anything to cut on that cost helps. I don't have an ultrasonic cleaner so I simply dump all the brass in an old collander and rinse to get all the dirt off. Then I throw it in a tumbler for about 12 hours. Brass comes out clean and shiny. Only problem I've found is I get a lot of military brass that I can't punch the primers out of. Pain in the butt sorting it out, but still better than paying through the nose for brass. (If you can find it.)
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If it works it sounds good. As you probably know most reloaders use a vibrating tumbler using corncob and/or walnut media. I'm not sure if there is any issue with powder and lead residue mixing with water. If you only use the ultrasonic cleaner for the brass there probably isn't an issue with lead cross contamination.
Never thought about water in the media, but I always dry my brass before dumping it into the tumbler.
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As you probably know most reloaders use a vibrating tumbler using corncob and/or walnut media.
I do as well. I use the Ultrasonic primarily to clean them inside and out. I then resize and deprime. I like to run all of my "pick up brass" through the Ultrasonic cleaner first to remove any dirt, grit, and assorted crud from the cases before I resize so not to risk scratching my dies with foreign material. After I resize and deprime them, I then put them into my tumbler, (I use a Dillon Magnum FL-2000), with corn cob media and a healthy dose of Dillon Rapid Polish. They come out better than new, and are ready to be run through my Dillon Progressive. I think I posted this before, but I bought my Ultrasonic Cleaner from Harbor Freight. It is an inexpensive model, but it works great. For anyone who might be interested, this is the model.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95563
If you buy one sign up for Harbor Freight's E-Mails first. They send out printable 20% off coupons almost weekly. Bill T.
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Here is a very good article on Ultrasonic case cleaning. The unit they show in the article is similar to mine, and was purchased from Harbor Freight as well. Bill T.
http://www.6mmbr.com/ultrasonic.html
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Never thought about water in the media, but I always dry my brass before dumping it into the tumbler.
I don't pre-clean my brass at all. I do a pre-sort to get most of the odd brass out and try to get the sand and grit out. Dump it in with corncob media and a little bit of brass cleaner/polish in my Lyman tumbler and let if run for a while. In a couple of hours I check it and if it is not shinny enough I let her run a bit longer. I reuse the media several times before starting with new.
It is dry tumbled (no water) except for the small amount of cleaner/polisher.
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Thanks for the info. ;D I've been picking up brass for years, even before I started reloading. But I've always had problems with the media and cleaning the primer pocket. I hate doing them one at a time with a primer pocket brush, and if you de-prime first you always get media stuck in the primer pocket. ??? This I'm sure will solve much of that headaches with cleaning the brass :).
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I just returned from my clubs pistol range this morning. I was the only one there. I scrounged through all of the brass buckets and came home with a bunch of 9 MM once fired cases. After you've been scrounging as long as I have, the once fired stuff becomes real easy to identify.
I'm so bad one time Melanie and I were at a ATA Trap shoot and I was scrounging the 55 gallon garbage drums for 12 gauge cardboard boxes. There were a bunch of nice ones way at the bottom. I fell in digging for them. You can imagine the laughter when they saw this guys legs sticking out of this barrel. My buddy only pulled me out after he made me promise to give him half of the boxes. I had no choice! ;D Bill T.
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In addition to reloading I cast my own bullets. I get wheel weights from my local tire shops. With this as my base I can add tin or antimony to get hardness I want. Last month I picked up approx. 155lbs of wheel weights, that works out to 957 .357 158gr SWC or 630 .44 240gr SWC.
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I always come back from the range with more brass than I had when I went there.
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Hornady announced this today in their new offerings
http://www.hornady.com/store/Lock-N-Load-Sonic-Cleaner-and-Accessories
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I always come back from the range with more brass than I had when I went there.
So you are the guy who has been picking up my brass!
>:(
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Never really thought bout the wheel weights thing we use to use wheel weights for muzzleloading never used it in a regular bullet. Sounds like a good survival thing would keep you occupied smelting and casting or ya could make and sell ammo to your neighbors.Another benefit to picking up brass is finding brass that your buddy can use i just telll him i want in on the next range visit if i give ya this brass. ;D
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Yesterdays Suarez newsletter had this about picking up ammo at the range, it only concerns UNFIRED stuff and is probably not relevant if you make any effort to sort and clean, but worth keeping in mind.
http://warriortalk.com/archive/index.php
Thoughts On Ammo Scrounging While Training
Richard Coplin, S.I. Staff Instructor
No one can argue that the price of ammunition has increased substantially. The last two years have seen unprecedented cost increases in all areas and ammunition hasn't been spared. What cost just under $100 per 1000 rounds is now often well over $200.
The type of training provided by Suarez International is very firearm-manipulation intensive. Multiple drills involving clearing malfunctions and keeping the weapon running result in well-polished skills and a certain amount of ammo dumped into the dirt during the process.
The question is: "Is it worth picking the ammo up and putting it back into my weapon?"
On several occasions I have witnessed first hand, the problems associated with ammo scrounging during training.As tempting as it is to pick up what you just ejected during a manipulation, I would caution against it. I have seen .40 S&W get into a 9mm pistol, didn't work out for the 9mm. I have seen .223 cause a major stoppage in a 5.45X39 AK. I have seen a 5.45X39 get jammed into the breach of a .223 AK and cause a stoppage requiring the talents of a gunsmith-to-be to get it cleared.
There are other examples but you get the point. It can cost time wasted trying to fix a boogered up weapon as well as being potentially dangerous. Additionally, unless one has a back-up firearm for the course, it is possible to become a cheerleader instead of a student for the remainder of the day.
What of the cost of the lost ammo if I don't pick it up? My calculations are that it is nominal. In an average two day class I have never dumped more than 50 rounds of ammunition into the dirt during the entire course.
Depending on what type of ammunition you bring to training the cost will either be greater or approximately the same but calculating an average of $0.25 per round (I train with Wolf, Brown Bear or Golden Tiger primarily for long guns and Wolf or S&B or Federal for pistols) the cost for the course
for simply letting the ammo stay where it fell is $12.50. Even if you were very generous with your ammunition and threw away 100 rounds it would still average out to $25.00. That sum, taken in the context of a course, is nominal and can be balanced out by simply shooting one or two rounds instead of three to five on several drills.
There is also the very real possibility of getting some nasty ammo in your gun. I nearly blew up my favorite snubby using the reloads given to me by the family of my recently deceased (former Chief of Police) neighbor.
If we are training at a level that does justice to our expenditure of time and money, we will be somewhat pushed to our physical and mental limits. This means that we may not take the time to look closely at what we have scooped up off the ground. Mistakes under these circumstances are not rare.
One other downside of ammo scrounging is the likelihood of missing important instructions or those little gems of wisdom that the instructors often give at the end of a drill. Bent over, focused on the dirt is not the most conducive state for receiving information.
Bottom line:
I would recommend that you let the ammo lay in the dirt, but if you are going to pick up unfired ammunition, keep it separate from your training ammo and sort it out after class, never during training.
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My club range has a can for any UNFIRED ammunition that were duds, didn't chamber correctly, or what ever. I never touch the stuff. I figure if it didn't work for them, it most likely won't for me either. I NEVER fire ammunition that I don't know the source of. Bill T.
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hey Bill,
Wanted to thank you for the ultrasonic cleaning suggestion.
I cleaned my brass this week using ultrasonic and Citranox as a cleaning aid and the brass came out looking like new.
http://www.2spi.com/catalog/supp/citranox-liquid-acid-cleaner.php
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Good deal, I'm glad it worked out for you. Thanks for the tip on the Citranox, I'll have to give it a try. Looks like good stuff. Bill T.