advice on removing old dried on case lube?

[thorborg]

Wood lathe HAHA thats awesome!
I have a Frankford Arsenal platinum i think its called. I guess i could put dry media in it..?
The though of using the pins dry did cross my mind. Or more pass through.

Your machine will definitely work dry. so will an old rock polisher, or maybe a shoebox filled with walnuts rouge and brass strapped to your pan head Harley or old Triumph kidney buster on the next road trip.
I prefer ground walnut shells salted with rouge as dry media for either brass (sans primer), or already loaded (since there is a propensity for the media to catch in primer holes requiring inspection). If I need a mirror shine I use corncobs. I'd pass on the dry pins. the point of the wet is to carry off the stuff you are trying to clean. unless the brass is already clean and you are looking to abrade, texture or polish depending on the dry grit type and size, Pins won't clean very well dry with nothing to carry off the residue so still need washing, or at least rinsing, of both the brass and media afterword to remove whatever your trying to clean. You may be able air hose off the dust I suppose. The walnut shells will absorb the goo and / or stick to the shells and you just throw it away after a few uses ( depending on how dirty the brass is maybe five or six times) when it becomes loaded. If you take your time and look around some, walnut shells can be had for cheap. Keep your bags sealed so it will stay bone dry. Powdered rouge, my preference, gives a sweet shine albeit a slow clean. Works really well for best bright shine with soft corncob. Many other things like carbide, silicon, aluminum or coarser iron oxides etc. will work as a media fortifier, some faster though some not as forgiving.
To over simplify, Rouge is finely ground rust so some thought as where residue may be left without harm is needed but in fifty years I have never found ammo with little rouge here or there an issue..
For best economy, buy your media and polish compound separately looking for best price.

 

[Dr Prepper]

Wow thanks for the great write up thorborg!
I think what ill do is play around a little. Some barely have any lube a few are somewhat bad. I think ill towel them by hand, then fully load them up. And tumble them dry with some media as many of you have suggested. (And yeah. Not the dry pins. For sure)

Thats interesting about the rouge. I now theres MANY diff. Kinds. I do a fair amount of polishing. My last job was a medical instrument tech. TONS of polishing. Things you dont want to know!
Hmm. I wonder if thats whats in the brownells bore brite? The red oxide rust colored one obviously not the green flavor.

Well, all good advice. I think i have my answer(s)
Wish i could have deburred the flash holes prior to priming but oh well. Next time around (hopefully there is a next time..) (God i hope sniff and blow get sent packin')

 

[coop44]

If you can get her to sit still for it, warm soapy water and a brisk scrubbing with a stiff bristled brush ought to do the trick.

 

[Caveman Jim]

Wouldn't wet


Lotsa folks vibratory tumble loaded ammunition. Some folks use rice to remove lube, some folks use whatever media in there vibratory, without concern.

Haven't done so, as don't reload rifle (yet). Read a bunch.

Common misconceptions voiced against doing so are some type of breakdown of powder when doing so. Debunked.

Similar concern over primer strike. Never heard of any.

I use the Jasmine rice because it is harder than most common brands and works great for dirty and grimy cases. I have Tupperware containers labeled and filled with the proper amount of different media that I use so I can change them out quickly without a time consuming hassle.

 

[Caveman Jim]

Interesting. Well i guess ill have to ask around my small group of cohorts and see if any have a tumbler. Only a couple reload.

I love the input. Keep it coming if you have any other "voodoo that you do".

If you ever head to the beaches in Grays Harbor give me a PM, I have a few Thumblers that will easily handle the job.

 

[Dr Prepper]

Thanks Caveman, Yeah i feel like jasmine rice might be pointier than most other media and clean the case rim area better too. Would probably be fine to even use on the unloaded cases. I kinda doubt it would contaminate the primers??
I might pick up a costco size bag of jamsine here in the next couple days.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[baker3gun]

Tumbling loaded ammo affects the burn rate of the powder.
The composition of the powder is changed from stalks or prills to dusty stalks or dusty prills.
Burn rate is controlled by chemistry, coating, and surface texture. Tumbling breaks down the coatings and alters the surface texture.

I did not receive the debunking memo.

I have an older friend who pokes fun at me because I weight-sort bullets and use ladders incremented in 2 tenths of a grain.

His lifelong loading methods involve 1 grain increments and rely on published "good" loads: like 50gr of Powder A under a Sierra 130gr bullet seated to book OAL is is optimal for any 270.

I suspect that the debunking memo was written by folks like my friend.

I know a lot of guys who can hit a 6" target at 300 yards easy, but they never win rifle comps because they can't hold a 3" group at 300 yards. They love to load and shoot, and many of them have very shiny ammo.

 

[Dr Prepper]

You know.. Your timing is impeccable! And scary! I was just wondering about this after after cavemans last post.
And I am trying to make the best loads possible. Even if it is out of an AR.
For anything but cheap crappy plinking rounds ill take my time and do the works. Primer pocket work. Flash hole uniform. And since i recently scored a nice Sartorious 310 s (i think it is the .001 gram one) i was thinking about weight sorting seeds as well.. But heard Erik Cortana mention he only sorts by length. Of course thats for f class. But
Also after i pick my rough load ill fine tune it down more with smaller increments like you said. And then start playing with bullet jump every .003"
As you can see im not off to a bad start for a complete newb. I must be doing something right. These are all "cheap" rifles rainier arms CHF barrel. And Primary Arms HUD DMR optic. certianly not the highest grade parts. The trigger is a Geiselle HSNM though. (Quality where it counts! )

 

[Dr Prepper]

Edit.. Those were all with no rear bag. Just a fwd bipod. I need to make a decent rear bag. To dial in further..

 

[baker3gun]

Hello Dr. Pepper, nice shooting!

my 2 cents:

A very good load will perform well from a good barrel, usually better than a good load from a very good barrel.

Use the best bullets you can find for your purpose. For very good ammo, I often use weight-sorted V-max or Custom Competition bullets. But for super-duper best-I-can-make ammo, I use Berger.

In the .223/5.56, case fill is meaningful. After you process your brass and sort by headstamp, weight-sort them. I usually end up with 2 large weight groups, plus a small group on either end. All else the same, heavier is thicker web or thicker case-wall; either way that's higher percentage case-fill.

Berger has a white paper on COAL. You can find it on their website. It discusses evaluating OAL in .025" increments, and then working from there in .005" increments. I have done it several times. It really works. It helped me discover that one of my AR's shoots extremely well with a .220" distance to lands using the same bullet that another AR bolt rifle prefers a .040 jump. I had to edit this after thinking about it. Actual records in garage. Too cold to go out there now.

I have never length-sorted bullets, therefore cannot speak to that. It seems that weight-sorting them would be faster than length sorting.

To see what is really happening, I shoot at 200 yds and I stagger the rounds in the ladder. If I am testing 5 diff loads, I shoot one each of each load, at 5 diff targets, in order, then repeat that cycle until i have shot all 6 rounds of each load. This ensures that each load experiences the same barrel heat profile.

I have come to think that I can get consistent 0.7 moa from just about any decent barrel.
Consistently tighter than 0.7 moa requires a true match rifle, IMO.
Putting 10 shots into less than 1.5" at 200 yards is a respectable accomplishment. IMO.
Putting 10 shots into less than 10" at 1000 is harder. Requires good bullet, good load, good barrel, and good shooting.

There are many accomplished loaders on NFW. I'm sure others will chime in.

For the OP - I remove case lube from finished loads by folding a towel in half long ways, laying it on a table, laying 20 or 40 rounds in a tidy column on the towel, then spraying a few shots of windex on the rounds, then folding the long end of the towel up over the rounds and just roll them back a forth a few times. It wipes them clean in a jiffy. Only takes a few minutes to clean several hundred rounds.
Switch the towel around every 100 rounds or so, to find a clean spot.
My case lube is the RCBS water-based stuff.

 

[gmerkt]

Why not just load and shoot them as they are? Why are you worried about a film of dried lube, it shouldn't affect anything.

I'm not sure he knows it's really dried case lube. Whatever it is, heat may alter its consistency. It may or may not melt when heated by propellant combustion at the moment of firing. Russian, German, others have made steel cased military ammo with a lacquer (or similar) coating. Which usually is impervious to heat. But those compounds are made specifically to be able to stand it. If he's adventuresome, he might try loading several of these cases so coated, fire them and see what happens. But then again, he might get a case fused into his chamber with dried Karo syrup.

 

[HighlandLofts]

I's spray them with brale cleaner and wipe them down with the blue shop towels you find at the auto parts stores.

It might take a few trys to get the most of it off, then load it up for plinking ammo, shoot it and then wet tumble it with the pins.

I have knocked live primers out and reused them on a few cases.

 

[gmerkt]

Tumbling loaded ammo affects the burn rate of the powder.

I've read this more than once over the years. And I don't do it. But it makes me wonder about a couple of things.

(1) When Hodgdon buys bulk drums of powder shipped from Australia, those sit in a shipping container, jiggling and joggling all the way across the wide Pacific Ocean. Not to mention on rail or truck transportation from Calif. to Kansas. Doesn't this have the same effect as tumbling?

(2) I'm pretty sure that Olin tumbles at least some of their Winchester centerfire ammunition finished product. I've observed media dust in the little margin where the edge of the primer meets the case on some of it over the years.

 

[gmerkt]

I remove case lube from finished loads

Just wondering, how is it you have case lube on finished loads?

 

[DLS]

I'm not sure he knows it's really dried case lube. ...

Good point!

 

[Dr Prepper]

Why not just load and shoot them as they are? Why are you worried about a film of dried lube, it shouldn't affect anything

I must have missed this message earlier.. The reason is bolt thrust.. You want a dry chamber. And one that ISNT polished for tapered rifle cases. The steeper the taper the more the thrust. You want a dry chamber so the brass swells and is elasticity"sticks" to the chamber walls and seals the gas. This is also why i dont typically shoot steel cases. It technically wears the bolt out faster. And doesnt seal as well as brass, not sure if thats true of lacquered cases as well though. On a straight walled case like most pistol cases its not really an issue. You only have the natural effect of the gas pushing the case rearward and not the geometry induced added pressure.

I's spray them with brale cleaner and wipe them down with the blue shop towels you find at the auto parts stores.

Yeah I have serious doubts about brake cleaner. I think thats WAY more aggressive than whats needed. And would be more concerned about chemicals cantaminating the primer compound.
Probably the same deal with Windex. That has ammonia in it. Which I know dissolves brass, or rather the copper in the alloy.
Rice sounds fairly safe. Still might dust slightly but its certianly not as combustable as the powder.

(1) When Hodgdon buys bulk drums of powder shipped from Australia, those sit in a shipping container, jiggling and joggling all the way across the wide Pacific Ocean. Not to mention on rail or truck transportation from Calif. to Kansas. Doesn't this have the same effect as tumbling?

Yeah. I dont know about that? I think your comparing apples to oranges as in settling versus tumbling. Such as a mobile home "settles" during shipping on a flatbed truck. It doesnt do so well in a hurricane or tornado!

Ive already been bit once pretty bad playing with fire. I dont care to repeat it. I've learned my lesson(s) the hard way unfortunately. I dont reccomend that method. Ill be playing it safe even if i do havento put out twice the effort.

 

[Dr Prepper]

And lube can exponentially increase pressure. Like lube on threaded bolts can REALLY throw off a torque value.

Or like moly coated bullets actually LOWER velocity because the decrease friction so much.

Lube can be dangerous stuff in the wrong place.
Although I'm not saying it would blow anything up in one shot. Not by itself.

 

[baker3gun]

I've read this more than once over the years. And I don't do it. But it makes me wonder about a couple of things.

(1) When Hodgdon buys bulk drums of powder shipped from Australia, those sit in a shipping container, jiggling and joggling all the way across the wide Pacific Ocean. Not to mention on rail or truck transportation from Calif. to Kansas. Doesn't this have the same effect as tumbling?

IMO, no.

Experiment.

Get in a drum and get on a freighter and then grin really hard and press your teeth on the side of the drum while the freighter is under way.

Do it again while the drum is in the truck or on the train.

Then, go home, go to garage, fill tumbler with medium and brass, turn tumbler on, grin and press teeth against the tub, or the stem bolt that holds the lid on, or perhaps the vibrator mechanism housing.

Post your findings. We all love science.

(2) I'm pretty sure that Olin tumbles at least some of their Winchester centerfire ammunition finished product. I've observed media dust in the little margin where the edge of the primer meets the case on some of it over the years.

Send them email. Ask the question. Receive the answer. Post the answer.

 

[DLS]

Actually the bolt thrust issue is a myth. Brass begins to flow at 15,000 PSI, it has nowhere near the tensile strength to resist to any meaningful amount the rearward pressure resulting from the burning propellant.

It stems from an old proof testing method the Brits used, where they lubed the cases thinking that would create higher levels of thrust on the bolt face resulting in a better proofing of the action. They didn't have access to equipment that could actually measure this. This was repeated in the Hatcher's Notebook but the higher pressure on the bolt face they noted was actually due to the cupro-nickel jacketed bullets they were using in the test. Later tests using different bullets showed a different result.

 

[baker3gun]

Just wondering, how is it you have case lube on finished loads?

Progressive.

Size, prime, charge, seat, LFCD = finished round with lube on it.