Preventing Tarnishing after wet tumbling in SS media?

I use the Armor All Wash and Wax instead of dawn. The polymer wax help to reduce the tarnishing. There was something posted last week that was better but I did not right it down, since I still had a lot of A-W&W.

I use armor all if there is better I would like to know as well

Another thumbs up for Armor All W&W. Also a final rinse with filtered water helps alot.
My Home Depot carries AA W&W and Lemishine for under 4 bucks each. Target also carries it but is quite a bit more unless on sale.

the Wash N Wax works pretty well, but if you rinse the cruddy water/suds off you end up removing some of the wax.

my solution is to dry tumble for about 15 minutes in some cheap walnut media with nufinish car polish. this not only dries the brass but also gets a better coat of polish on the brass so it is slicker and does not tarnish for longer.

@longdayjake posted Turtle Wax Color Back polish is what he's been using with better results than NuFinish. I intend to try it when I use up my current bottle of NuFinish.

To your question, I have some 380acp brass treated with NuFinish that's still tumbler bright after more than a year.

I use the Nu Finish and if you tumble the brass for 15-20 minutes with corncob it is like a mirror and have some rounds that are 10 years old that are still as bright as the day I put them in the packages. Do note that if you handle the brass with bare hands there will be tarnish marks where you touch it after a while though. My answer is to tumble in the corn cob/Nu Finish AFTER loading to prevent tarnish and use plastic glove to handle rounds after. Do not tumble hollow points as the point will fill or lead bullets as they will be covered in dust from the tumbler.

After tumbling with the Nu-finish, put the brass in an air-tite container to really keep a long time. Mine will stay bright for a year just sitting on the shelf. Your enviro conditions may vary.

Well I got my 5 year old grandson here with me, and I read him your problem, and asked him how to fix it. I was hopping that he would say what I have taught him, but he had his own idea. Now this is his solution to you problem.
"HE SHOULD SHOOT THEM UP FASTER"
Now for me, I am a prepper and have buried a few rounds.
The last one I dug up to check had been buried for 3 years and they were perfect.
This is how I did it. I cut a two foot section of 4" PVC pipe and capped off one section, and put a clean out cap on the other end. I then put in about two cups of rice into a nylon knee high from my wife, and dropped it into the tube.
Next after making 100 rounds I put them into a plastic bag and gave it a good shoot of Hornady One Shot. I the kneed the bag to get every thing a good covering.
Then dumped them into the tube. I then put in one more thing of rice, and capped it off. Now I did this on a day that was about 90° and very low humidity.

If you are resizing after tumbling the brass, keep in mind that most resizing lubricants offer a fair degree of corrosion protection.

The cartridge case in the photograph, below, is of a 5.7 mm Johnson round loaded in 1992. The case was dry tumbled in untreated walnut media, resized using Lee resizing lubricant which was then manually wiped off and then loaded. It was then kept in an unsealed cartridge box in a garage in Texas for the next quarter century. As you can see, while it doesn't have (never did have) a mirror finish, it was shiny and still is.

I do the same as the others. I use Walmart brand car wash with wax.

Ive used a combination of dawn + lemishine with SS pins to clean and run for 35-40 min. Drain, rinse, and wash again for 20-30 min with the Armor All W&W. If i do rifle i take the time to deprime them before wash.

The AA W&W doesnt have the cleaning power of the Dish liquid and Lemi-shine. But it has the polishing capability and stays on the case for a long time.

If cases are not too dirty i go straight to the AA W&W for 40-50 min with ss pins and im good.

OP, first i wash like you do,.........."I recently started wet tumbling my cases in SS media. I have a Franklin Arsenal wet tumbler and have been using 1/4 teaspoon of Dawn and 1/4 teaspoon of Lemishine. The results are amazing with brass looking like "factory new".

After the brass dries from a good rinse, I tumble them with polish and they seem to stay shiny in my plastic bins forever. All you need to do is get some sort of polish on them, remember when you washed with SS you basically take the brass down to bare metal, you need to coat it with something.

LeftyTSGC.

Ruger 15151 said:

How long does the Nu-Finish last before the brass starts to darken?

Click to expand...

I keep my cleaned/polished brass in plastic tubs and brass polished with NuFinish will stay tarnish free for years. I vacuum pack loaded ammunition for long-term storage and they will stay shiny indefinitely inside ammo cans/5 gallon buckets.

FROGO207 said:

My answer is to tumble in the corn cob/Nu Finish AFTER loading to prevent tarnish and use plastic glove to handle rounds after.

Click to expand...

Can you tumble live rounds?

Ghost In The Fog said:

Can you tumble live rounds?

Click to expand...

Ab-so-lute-ly.

Personally, I would never tumble live rounds, but there are lots of folks who seem to do so without issue. That always bothered me so I have never even attempted it.

For me to help prevent tarnish, I am another of those that are using the Armor All W&W along with Lemi-Shine. Be sure to rinse well, and as others have said, I do my last rinse with purified RO water.

I tried the Armorall Wash and Wax one time. More is not better. Left my brass black and sticky; had to run again with Dawn and Lemishine to get it off. I don't know how much I used, maybe a capful, but it was too much.

I'm going to be a little snarky here I suppose but I have to ask a question. Why do reloads have to look like brand new factory ammo and stay that way? I've been reloading a long time and never noticed any difference between reloads that had no tarnish and those that did. As far as I'm concerned if the cases are clean that's all that is necessary.

I tumble my brass with ss pins, a tiny squirt of Dawn, and pinch of Lemishine. The brass comes out looking like new. I store it in sealed five gallon buckets. I'm still finding that some of my older cleaned brass is beginning to tarnish a bit.

Dawn and Lemishine are cleaners. When they are rinsed off, they leave nothing but bare metal behind. The only way to prevent bare metal from tarnishing is to prevent it from coming into contact with oxygen or other corrosives. (Dawn and Lemishine are corrosives, BTW)

There are two primary step you can take to minimize contact between brass and oxygen, and therefore, tarnish.
Rinse the brass thoroughly and dry it quickly.
Store the brass in a sealed container with minimal moisture/humidity.

Armor All Wash & Wax is supposed to leave a thin film of polymer and or wax behind when it is rinsed off. That would also minimize contact between brass and oxygen.

There is one other thing that minimizes contact between brass and oxygen. Tarnish. From Wikipedia: "Tarnish is a surface phenomenon that is self-limiting, unlike rust. Only the top few layers of the metal react, and the layer of tarnish seals and protects the underlying layers from reacting."

Yeah, the brass won't look so pretty, but it really won't hurt anything.

BTW, I like pretty brass too, so I'm going to try some Armor All Wash & Wax.

doubleh said:

Why do reloads have to look like brand new factory ammo and stay that way?

Click to expand...

Because some of us wish it so.

judgedelta said:

I tried the Armorall Wash and Wax one time. More is not better. Left my brass black and sticky;

Click to expand...

Odd. Obviously, there was something else at work there to cause that issue since many of us here have used AAW&W and experienced no such problem.

I also use a small amount of lemishine ( which can and will discolor brass) and AA wash and wax, not measured, just a blob. Tablespoon or so in the FA steel pin tumbler.

Once done, (3hrs):

Rinse well! I unscrew one end and fill it and dump it into a 5 gallon bucket, using the slotted caps, occasionally dumping off the top of the water, as pins collect there.


Once rinse water is clean, the shell must be dried, or will water spot. First into a case/media separater. This removes the pins and water in the cases. Then I dump them in layers between paper towels, in a wire trash basket. Once all brass is in, press down, pull all the paper and cases out, put cases on cookie sheets that have a raised edges and lined with paper towels. I let the other towels to dry in the wire basket for reuse. Then they are baked at 225 for 45 mins or so.
I then use Imperial sizing wax to size and reprime, manually wiping them off.

Maybe it's the WAndW, maybe it's the Imperial, but they stay shiney!

If you are using WAndW and have gooy reside, you are not rinseing enough, otherwise that wouldn't happen.

Russellc

I've heard that nickle brass mixed in has caused some issues. This is just hear say for I have not run any ni mixed in with my brass. I do know if you do not use enough soap the SS pins become black/dirty. I use 1 T of the AWW but I also add just a 1/2-1 tsp of simple green which is an excellent carbon cutter.