Wondering about the safety of using this brass. Not THAT big of a deal, it's 13% of a batch of 3000 range brass I bought to load plinkers with. It was in REALLY bad shape when I got it. I experimented with different ways to clean it up. I vibrated some in walnut shells, some I tumbled in stainless media (the clear winner), and some I put in a bath of very dilute vinegar (about a cup of household vinegar in a gallon of water.) Most of that stuff turned out fine after tumbling, but the last 400 cases or so ended up spending a week in the dilute vinegar solution. It looked really bad when I dried it off, but no problem, it would cleanup in the tumbler.
Only problem is that it did not clean up, at least not like I expected. I tumbled, and tumbled, and tumbled, and it still looked bad. I finally realized that it was super clean, but still looked like a tarnished penny. Then I remembered reading about some process (I think it was exposure to ammonia) that leached the zinc out of the brass turning it pink. I'm red/green colorblind (which doesn't mean I cannot detect red, just have vastly reduced sensitivity to perceiving the color red), so I asked my son about the color and he said that it had sort of greenish tint. In any event, while clean and sort of shiny, it is still as dark as when I got it.
Question: could I have changed the metallurgical properties of the brass and reduced its strength. Is it still safe to load, or should I write it off? It is not worth taking chances for $40 worth of brass if there is any legitimate question, but on the other hand, I don't want to waste it if it is perfectly safe but just not pretty.
Update: I went here first, but while awaiting replies I did more research, and on another shooting site, several people attested to the safety of using white vinegar solutions (and much stronger than the one I used); however, they did mention tarnishing. I would have thought that tumbling in stainless media could remove any tarnish, but apparently not. I will leave this up as I highly value the opinions I receive on this site.
Only problem is that it did not clean up, at least not like I expected. I tumbled, and tumbled, and tumbled, and it still looked bad. I finally realized that it was super clean, but still looked like a tarnished penny. Then I remembered reading about some process (I think it was exposure to ammonia) that leached the zinc out of the brass turning it pink. I'm red/green colorblind (which doesn't mean I cannot detect red, just have vastly reduced sensitivity to perceiving the color red), so I asked my son about the color and he said that it had sort of greenish tint. In any event, while clean and sort of shiny, it is still as dark as when I got it.
Question: could I have changed the metallurgical properties of the brass and reduced its strength. Is it still safe to load, or should I write it off? It is not worth taking chances for $40 worth of brass if there is any legitimate question, but on the other hand, I don't want to waste it if it is perfectly safe but just not pretty.
Update: I went here first, but while awaiting replies I did more research, and on another shooting site, several people attested to the safety of using white vinegar solutions (and much stronger than the one I used); however, they did mention tarnishing. I would have thought that tumbling in stainless media could remove any tarnish, but apparently not. I will leave this up as I highly value the opinions I receive on this site.
Last edited:
