Can brass be damaged from over cleaning with stainless pins?

[Cookie114]

So I bought 100 pieces of once fired 300 wsm brass from a guy on another forum. When it arrived I noticed about half of the brass looked almost nickel plated (but it isn't). They guy I got it from said he tumbled them in stainless pins and he didn't realize that would happen. My question is has this hardened or changed the integrity of the brass in any way or is it purely cosmetic?

 

[Jerry M]

Yes it can. Peening the mouth of the case is one problem. I witnessed hard chambering on a shooters match rifle.

 

[The Oregonian]

Yes it can. Peening the mouth of the case is one problem. I witnessed hard chambering on a shooters match rifle.

Agree...it happened to me. I tumbled for several hours and had to trim the brass so it would chamber when a bullet was seated. Case mouth had been flared by like 3 thou or more. I now use ultrasonic.

 

[marchboom]

Besides just being a hassle to do I would never clean brass with SS pins. I have heard of, and seen peening damage to brass, especially in the neck area. This can't be good for the metallurgy of the brass. Plus there is always the chance that a pin will get stuck in the case and if undetected can be shot thru the barrel.

IMO there are just too many negatives to SS pin cleaning. Sure it looks nice & pretty but it's not worth the trade off.

 

[Cookie114]

Besides just being a hassle to do I would never clean brass with SS pins. I have heard of, and seen peening damage to brass, especially in the neck area. This can't be good for the metallurgy of the brass. Plus there is always the chance that a pin will get stuck in the case and if undetected can be shot thru the barrel.

IMO there are just too many negatives to SS pin cleaning. Sure it looks nice & pretty but it's not worth the trade off.

Agreed, I use good ole cobb media for mine.

 

[Olevern]

I limit my wet tumbling to between one hour and an hour and a half (for more stained brass)
If you're using Lemishine with the stainless steel pins you need to be careful how much; too much for too long can leach the copper from your cartridge cases. Limit time in solution and rinse thoroughly to prevent problems.

 

[Cookie114]

I limit my wet tumbling to between one hour and an hour and a half (for more stained brass)
If you're using Lemishine with the stainless steel pins you need to be careful how much; too much for too long can leach the copper from your cartridge cases. Limit time in solution and rinse thoroughly to prevent problems.

As in leach the copper from the brass, what's that? And what is the negative of that? It seemed that the case necks were really hard when I trimmed them.

 

[MOOSE39465]

Been using SS pins wet tumbling for a while now. Never had an issue at all.

 

[Dosh]

Wet SS tumbling could possibly harm brass if done too often or too long. Overuse or chemicals in the tumbling water could also cause discoloration. If too hard, anneal.

 

[kiwikid]

AMP tested the hardness of some brass before and after SS tumbling and they found that there was no difference. There is an article on their website with the results.

 

[manitou]

Never had the need to tumble for more than 45 minutes to an hour. Never had a problem.

 

[jrock]

I put some Norma brass in a SS tumbler for 1.5 hours and it pitted the entire outside surface. So much so that the case lube squeezed into the depressions and I stuck several cases. I even ran the SS media for 4 hours prior to brake them in. I had to polish the outside surfaces smooth to fix it. That wasn't hard with some chrome polish. Changed the time to 30 to 45 min and get better results.

 

[parshal]

Any more than an hour and the necks are all peened.

 

[SteelBanger]

I've always cranked my frankford wet dumbler dial to the 3 hour max and have never had a problem. Maybe I'll dial that back to 1 hour considering what you all are seeing, plus they'll probably come out just as clean at 1 hour.