Cleaning guns and brass with white vinegar?

[66PonyCar]

Here's a nice vinegar cleanser for your brass!

 

[v0lcom13sn0w]

a friend of mine uses citric acid and then tumbles in corn cob with nu finish wax. works great. i just do corn cob and nu finish. works great.

 

[TTSX]

a friend of mine uses citric acid and then tumbles in corn cob with nu finish wax. works great. i just do corn cob and nu finish. works great.

I hate corn cob so much. Gets everywhere. It's a very good thing I have a dedicated room for this stuff. Does a surprisingly good job on .50bmg brass, too, though I suppose that's more of a commentary on the tumbler.

 

[HaveGun]

When I tumble brass, I pour it into the tumbler, then do a few sprays of Windex w/ vinegar before I tumble. It works pretty well.

 

[RetiredLEO]

Vinager is highly acidic. It will dull a sharp knife and eat holes in most metals if left on too long. Be very careful if using on the bore of a rifle as it will eat the sharp edges of lands. Being acidic it will eat thru anything that reacts to acid including rust, etc. There are numerous fine products on the market that will do a much better and safer job.

 

[Dungannon]

For rust removal, Evapo-Rust is amazing.

Military uses it by the barrel. I've used restoring old tools.

 

[wise1]

I'm not putting my brass up on the wall in a shadow box so could care less about a blemish. Drop it in a jar of Citric Acid for a hour or so, tumble in walnut shells then to the "to be reloaded" can.

 

[TTSX]

Let me know how the experiment turns out. This is a jar of vinegar/steel wool and the end result on some pine.

Vinegar has many uses but I'd probably not use any on my own guns

View attachment 734882View attachment 734883

On the 4th day and as of so far the vinegar is sightly cloudy white but the brass and steel screw are very much intact. I'll give it a few more and if the brass is still there, I'll run it through a sizing die to see if it became brittle

 

[ilikegunspdx]

I was just reminded of this thread after soaking a hose end sprayer in vinegar for three days. It was a last ditch effort to revive it cuz I did two deep cleanings with no luck. It ate right through the bracket that holds the lever onto the sprayer.

 

[wise1]

Well, hose sprayers are usually made out of pot metal, high aluminum content castings.
So, there's that, and it looks like the only piece of steel on the nozzle is the pin holding the handle on the body... which appears to be undamaged.
What did it do when you painted the Naval Jelly on the rust? That's the only rust killer I ever use.. but I don't leave anything soaking for 3 days. That's overkill, like marinating a piece of meat for 3 or 4 days.

 

[HaveGun]

I just bought one of those hose sprayers for like $2 at Walmart. Did you use $2 worth of vinegar to soak it in?

 

[Boboclown]

Its i the back of my mind that vinegar can make brass brittle. If this is true, not good for explosive containers.

Yes because acids transport metal ions, but on the other hand people have used a vinegar mix for a long time so... Use that knowledge to make your own decision. I never use vinegar but I also have no reason to.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

I just bought one of those hose sprayers for like $2 at Walmart. Did you use $2 worth of vinegar to soak it in?

It's not the $2 kind.

 

[Stomper]

Here's a nice vinegar cleanser for your brass!

View attachment 734974

No, no, no.... you drop the B and R in brass when you're cleaning with that stuff.

 

[Stomper]

I was just reminded of this thread after soaking a hose end sprayer in vinegar for three days. It was a last ditch effort to revive it cuz I did two deep cleanings with no luck. It ate right through the bracket that holds the lever onto the sprayer. View attachment 740380

Thats a LOT of effort for a $2 spray-nozzle.... but I know it's not about the value of the item, it's the challenge of overcoming!

I commend you!

 

[bbbass]

Vinegar has many uses but I'd probably not use any on my own guns

Vinager is highly acidic.

White Distilled Vinegar has a PH of 2.5, where 7 is neutral on the scale. That's fairly acidic but hydrochloric and sufuric both come in forms where they are <1.



Acids - pH Values
pH of common acids like sulfuric, acetic and more
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Acidity or alkalinity - pH - is a measure of hydrogen ion (H+) activity in solutions.

Acidity of some common acids:

Acid	Normality	pH
Acetic	N	2.4
Acetic	0.1 N	2.9
Acetic	0.01 N	3.4
Alum	0.1 N	3.2
Arsenious	saturated	5.0
Benzoic	0.1 N	3.0
Boric	0.1 N	5.2
Carbonic	saturated	3.8
Citric	0.1 N	2.2
Formic	0.1 N	2.3
Hydrochloric	N	0.1
Hydrochloric	0.1 N	1.1
Hydrochloric	0.01 N	2.0
Hydrocyanic	0.1 N	5.1
Hydrogen sulfide	0.1 N	4.1
Lactic	0.1 N	2.4
Lemon Juice		2
Malic	0.1 N	2.2
Nitric	0.1N	1.0
Orthophosphoric	0.1 N	1.5
Oxalic	0.1 N	1.3
Salicylic	saturated	2.4
Succinic	0.1N	2.7
Sulfuric	N	0.3
Sulfuric	0.1 N	1.2
Sulfuric	0.01 N	2.1
Sulfurous	0.1 N	1.5
Stomach Acid		1

FWIW, I had a real problem after years of shooting Lasercast Silver Alloy bullets in my wife's SS .357... the bore just wouldn't be relieved of "lead" no matter how hard I brushed with various metal brushes and Hoppe's. I looked it up, and somebody had a formulation for diluting white vinegar and using it as a metal removing bore cleaner. So I plugged the barrel and filled it with the formula, and let it set for one night, inspected, and then did it again.... the metal fouling was GONE!!

Curious before putting the solution in the barrel, I filled a small glass cup with the diluted white vinegar and placed some shavings of Lasercast bullets into it. They started fizzing right away, and within an hour were gone. Wow.

Worked great for me! I guess just don't use it on blued guns.