As it turns out my lovely wife, who thinks Im hard to buy for
, ordered me the small size Brass Juice cleaner and also the case lube for a Christmas present. Just tried some this past weekend to see if its all its cracked up to be. Honestly, it probably isn't. It didn't do a bad job, but it didn't really do anything better than what Im already using. I don't decap before I wet tumble but to test their claims of cleaning the primer pockets without pins I did decap a few hundred cases just to see how it would do.
I mixed the Juice as per directions with hot water and let it go for an hour. Brass did come out very shiny and the primer pockets were probably cleaner than when I started but they certainly were not totally clean. To test their claims of getting multiple cleanings from the same solution I poured the dirty water into a container, rinsed the brass in the tumbler, and tumbled another batch of brass for an hour. It came out shiny too, but a shade less shiny than the first batch. Did a third batch and it came out clean but several shades less shiny than the first two batches.
To compare, I did a 4th batch with my usual method using car wash N wax with straight citric acid added, after an hour in the tumbler it came out just slightly less shiny than the first batch of Brass Juice brass, but more shiny than the second batch. Inside cases and primer pockets were about the same level of clean as well. If I would of left the brass in the tumbler longer maybe the primer pockets and insides of the cases would have gotten cleaner, but they were more than clean enough for me, and who has time for all that anyway?
I usually only wet tumble for about 30 mins max. Im sure the cleaners do some work but I think the abrasion of the pins is what really cleans the case insides and primer pockets. Side note, the pins that came with my FART tumbler are still in their factory wrapping, Ive never used them nor do I intend to.
Bottom line, Brass Juice is fine stuff but I don't see where its going to do anything magical that other cleaning stuff wont do. Its not exactly cheap so I probably wont buy anymore but Im glad I got the chance to try it. The case lube they sell has a nice minty smell, reminds me of chewing a stick of spearmint gum, but again its not magical potion that is doing any better than my Hornady one shot. It does smell better so if that's a concern they have the upper hand there.