Brasso on cases?

I'll check for that in the ingredients list. That is as soon as I am done cracking up over your avatar for the 400th time...
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If is is safe or not, I have used it on thousands of rounds of brass over the years with no ill effects. I have been known to put a tablespoon or so of it in my brass tumbler every now and then as well.

Might be a different story if the brass soaked in it, but just for wiping it down, it has never been a problem for me. I will keep doing it on occasion I reckon.
 
Originally Posted By: sweatybettyfrom what i have read, anything with ammonnia (sp?) should be avoided


I've read the same thing, and don't know why it's bad to use amonia based brass cleaners of brass cases??
Anybody out there know why Brasso is not recommended for use cleaning cases?
I'm retired Army, and do I have brasso...
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LOTS of it...
 
I don't know about the ammonia, but my guess is that a chemical reaction may occur between ONE of the chemicals in Brasso and powders.
 
I have a feeling it's a myth, but I an't prove it. If you're worried about Brasso, Midway makes something similar you add to your media. It works very well.

I asked the same thing on here a few months back and got told not to use Brasso, so I never tried it. Maybe it's not ammonia, but oils, and it might kill primers.

If it had ammonia in it, you would think it would turn brass green instead of polishing it. Ever seen that happen?

I'm just sayin.
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I wasn't going to pour it in my tumbler. I have other stuff for that. I was wondering about hand polishing badly tarnished cases before they go in the tumbler.

I still haven't got around to reading the ingredients list on the can yet.

Anyways, I was just curious.
 
Supposedly ammonia (which Brasso has in it by the way) can make brass brittle. I'm not a chemist and I've used Brasso many times to clean up brass with no ill effects.

The effect would be something like using a very harsh bore cleaning solvent (CR10 is pretty much straight ammonia) on a brass bristle brush. If you leave it on the brush it will dissolve the bristles.
 
Seems like if it was full of ammonia, (like Sweets or CR-10), if you cleaned some brass with it, the next day it would be bright green. I've never seen that, but it's an easy test to do. I'm betting Brasso is nothing like CR-10 or Sweets, and if you rub it out, I know for a fact it's not. Using it in media and having no way of wiping out the case interior, I'm not so sure about.

From what I found, Brasso contains 2-3 wt. % Ammonium Hydroxide, 9-12% silica crystilline is the abrasive, and the petroleum distillate is the solvent for all of the above.

The petroleum distillate inside the case and in the primer pocket is actually what I'd be most worried about if using it in a tumbler.


I found some Russian paper on soaking brass in ammonia and they said before the brass got brittle, it had turned black (sounds like the ammonia leached all the copper out and left pure tin).
That I would believe.

Wiping the outside with Brasso for a few seconds and suddenly having brittle cases?
Not so much.
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Quote:1 part vinergar and 3 parts warm water will clean the brass in about 15 minutes.

However, vinegar actually leeches the zinc out of brass, so we're right back where we started.
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Not that I think 15 minutes in a dilute vinegar solution is going to destroy your brass, but I'm just sayin.
 
Lurker,

That Silica Crystaline may be the culprit.
I'm thinking it may embed in the brass, and actually score the dies and the chamber of the rifle???
Your thoughts?
 
Not being a chemist either, I do know from experience polishing brass, it is prone to leaving a residue on the base metal...

This comes from my experience when we used unprotected brass on our uniforms that had to be polished regularly to keep it looking 'up to standards' and failure to do so would turn it a much darker color.... '

Part of the problem, even when first starting, was failure of most guys to totally remove the Brasso from the item and it always seemed to have 'just a little more' that needed to be polished to get it removed..

I still have my old 'collar brass' and whistle from my rookie days on the KCMOPD and they have been rubbed a lot, but the years of not being touched have left a patina on the brass that I'm not sure will come off without an acid bath..
 
Quote:Your thoughts?

Well, it's a very fine abrasive. So fine, I don't think it would leave any scratches you could see without a microscope. I've added that Frankford Arsenal liquid polish to my corncob media before, and it looks amazingly like Brasso, but without ammonia.

This stuff: Frankford Arsenal Brass Case Polish
It cuts the time needed to polish cases by a LOT, so it must be fairly aggressive. Whether it embeds in the case surface or not, I have no idea. Seems to me though, if it did, the sizing lube film would protect the die anyway.
Let's just say I've never heard of that problem happening.
In the rifle chamber it would most likely drive those microscopic crystals into the brass instead of into the steel of the chamber. All that carbon and powder residue is a bigger concern I'd say. I doubt your rifle chamber is very well polished to begin with, if you look at it real close. It's cut with a reamer and isn't very well finished. Doesn't really need to be, either.
 
Quote: it is prone to leaving a residue on the base metal...


That's probably why they add the petroleum distillate. If you take brass right to bare, unprotected metal, it turns color pretty much overnight if there's any humidity. Coat it with a little oil and it takes a while.

Quote:...but the years of not being touched have left a patina on the brass that I'm not sure will come off without an acid bath..

Yeah, the oil eventually evaporated and the oxygen attacked the surface. I've machined copper and you could see it turning dark within 24 hours just from sitting in the air. Our ammo probably doesn't corrode fast because there's still a film of sizing lube left on it. I wipe mine with a dry towel, but you know that doesn't get it all off.
 
Mix ammonia and water and you end up with ammonium hydroxide, a fairly strong caustic solution that eats brass and copper.
Anhydrous ammonia (dry, all moisture removed) has no effect.

But of course, ammonia attracts water out of the air like flypaper so you've got an instant problem.

Your link does make it sound like having ammonia present during the drawing process (like sizing) is a very bad thing. Personally, that's enough to convince me to avoid it.

Thanks.

Quote:Even in very low concentrations of ammonia, brass that is stressed by either residual or applied tension will spontaneously crack by 'stress corrosion', a phenomenon first observed many years ago and at that time called 'season cracking'... For failure to occur in this way, two conditions must apply: that the brass is under stress, and that ammonia is present Internal tensile stresses caused by cold working, as in the cold drawing of tubes or cold bending of pipework, are sufficient to make brass susceptible to stress-corrosion cracking.
 
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