Cleaning dirty 22 ammo

[jay61581]

I recently inherited my Dad's gun and reloading stockpile and found a bunch of rimfire ammo. Some of it wasn't properly stored so it acquired a nice layer of dust and crud...what's the best way to clean it up?

I think some time in the corncob media would have it looking good again but some people have strongly advised against that.

Ideas?

 

[Pinecone]

The problem is, .22 is externally lubed bullets, so if you clean them, you may end up with no lube.

 

[BigJimFish]

I would not be comfortable tumbling live .22lr rounds. Rimfires in particular can be a bit sensitive and with all that atomized corn cob media if one went off you might just start yourself a fire like a grain elevator going up. Idea's, I don't know, wipe it off? I recently fired some pretty surface oxidized old Winchester T-22. It shot just over .4" at 50 yds. Wish I had more of that ugly old oxidized ammo.