Cleaning .45-70 Brass

[bamboomaster]

There are lots of ways to clean .45-70 brass.

When shooting a black-powder load, I've found it best to take my "Ideal" depriming device, knock out the primer at the range, and drop the empty case through the neck of a 1 liter bottle mostly filled with water and a few drops of "Dawn". I've also used a heavily diluted solution of "Simple Green" which works fine too. But at least with that method, I get most of the corrosive effect of black powder residue out by the time I get home.

Although the container gets shaken on the drive back from the range, I give it a good rattle, pour the detritus down the slop sink (NO! NOT THE ONE IN THE KITCHEN!), add clean hot water shake it again, then lay them on a rag/junk-towel to dry overnight. Then they go in the tumbler the following day for around 2-3 hours.

While everyone here who reloads has that magic recipe for tumbling media, here's the one we use: 1/2 corncob media, 1/2 crushed walnut shells, and some "Iosso" case polish to boot. When I run out of Iosso case polish, I also use a car polish that comes in an orange squeeze bottle. I don't have that bottle lying around, but I think it's called "Nu-Finish".

I've read complaints by some folks that whatever polish you recommend "gums-up" the tumbling media and the primer pocket. I've never had that problem because when I add the case polish (even in new media), I let the tumbler run for an hour just to make sure whatever I added is widely distributed throughout the media way before I add any brass to the process.

Keep this a secret: You can renew your heavily used tumbling media by taking 4 drier sheets out of the box (my favorite brand is "Bounce", just because we have it here), cut each piece into 4 sections and lay them in the tumbler. Let it tumble for an hour or two and then pick those dirty sheets out of your media using a chopstick and put them in an immediately discardable plastic grocery bag that you put in the trash can outside - NOT in the one under the kitchen sink.

Any time I attend a PAFOA event, I usually come home with a large bucket of brass (which doesn't look like this because it was tumbled!). Here's what a 5 gallon bucket of .45-70 brass looks like:

Brass 1.jpg

Actually, I had to run the two tumblers 3X each, for around 2 hours at a time: the larger tumbler holds around 370 cases of .45-70 and the smaller one around 80. While opinions may differ on this, mine is to run them outside and empty them outside instead of in your garage or basement.

Here's what the tumblers look like:

Tumblers & Brass 2.jpg

Anybody use a Harbor Freight cement mixer for large quantities?

When you empty the tumbling media to segregate the brass from the media, wear disposable vinyl gloves and a mask that covers mouth and nose. You just want to keep the lead dust out of every orifice that could possibly inhale it.

So it took a day to tumble the fired cases, two days to reload, and two days to inspect, wipe-off, bag the rounds in quantities of 60 in pre-labeled zips, and drop in their respective ammo cans.

While inspecting the rounds (thanks to PAFOA forum member "Cephas", I found 4 cases with really minor evidence of a split (1/16") but it was there, for sure, about 3/4's of the way up the WIN cases that I reloaded 8X previously. Thanks to Cephas, I also learned too not to d!ck around with brass that is seriously downstream problematic:"When in doubt, throw it out!". There were also 7 cases that weighed under spec for the weight of the cartridge using a specific case (BHA, WIN, Starline), primer, powder, bullet), so I pulled the bullet and re-weighed every component. In one of those seven cases, it was due to a lighter piece of brass. Which I reloaded. In the other six cases, it was due to a bullet that weighed 293-296 grains instead of 298 - 300 grains. I discarded the old bullets (melt this one baby!) and reloaded the cartridges with new ones using the existing components.

I'm sure I could have shot the lighter weight bullets just fine, but it pissed me off that I had to pull them, so "Off to the melting pot you go"!

Here's what the loaded and inspected brass look like:

Ready for Canning.jpg

We've really enjoyed our time with .45-70's, but just like fishing, making your own rods or tying your favorite lures, it really can be a time-consuming avocation, depending on what you're sending down-range.

Especially if you're dumping 1500 rounds in a day!

Thankfully, whenever we do this, we share our version of fun with as many PAFOA members who make the drive during those 95 degree summer days (now I know why camels have that water-filled "hump"). And why there is an inordinate (but necessary!) amount of bacon and water at PAFOA events.

But just remember - the worst day at the range is better than the best day at work!

And kudos to all the reloaders here on PAFOA, for you have been great teachers in every caliber. Keep up the good work!

[Gunsnwater]

Nice post. I use the dillon 2000 I think it's called. Got back when they first came out. The pins they use today have me thinking of going that way. The liquid eliminates the dust. But I have nothing but praise for the Dillion.

[cephas]

Those are a work of art. If I'd look up doin it right that's the pic I'd see.
Nufinish is what I've been using without a hitch when I use corn cob.
Have you considered a dash of citric acid like lemushine to your cleaning mix?
Exhaustive thread about it: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-brass-cleaner
Not that they're not clean enough but citric will passivate the brass. For us simpletons means fights corrosion.

[Tmygun]

Wow, that is some shiny brass! Looks like new. Years ago my bro and I used to do the walnut media cleaning, then the corncob media with some citrus smelling stuff (the name of which I can't remember), and I still don't remember our brass coming out that bright and new looking. After a while we just went to cleaning with walnut media to get the brass clean enough to use. Slightly tarnished brass works just as well.

[bamboomaster]

I've seen folks whose brass looked as though it was pulled out of their boots from a shoot a few years ago.

And everything still goes "bang".

I don't know whether to credit it to the lifecycle of the 45-70's or the prudence of the reloaders.

Been to many shoots where the brass looks as though it was pulled out of a back-pocket three years ago - or the one where I tumbled?

After a few decades, I'm beginning to really like this caliber...