Do these .308 cases look OK?

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NoirFan

NoirFan

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Hi all. So let me start by saying I have never reloaded for rifle before, although I have done about 3000 rounds for revolver at this point. I recently saved some 308 brass from an outing with a Springfield M1A and cleaned them with my usual method: hot water / white vinegar soak, and a thorough rinse followed by 30 minutes in the toaster oven to dry. I was surprised to see some pretty heavy discoloration. Compared with a fresh round for reference:
25396222_10109409261356748_3805043642015381679_n.jpg

The case heads are all a pinkish coppery color too:
25395784_10109409261351758_2235358813515739719_n.jpg

This is how I always clean revolver cases and I never had a problem, but these 308s are making me nervous. Are they OK to reload for the M1A? The cases are from this stuff: (https://www.bulkammo.com/500-rounds-of-7-62x51mm-ammo-by-men-147gr-fmj) if it makes a difference.

Thanks
 
The purple color is from the citric acid leaching out the zinc in the brass. Need to cut down on the concentration or run a shorter time. As to where they are damaged it's hard to tell. I would keep the separate from the others to monitor. Did you rinse and nurtralize the acid afterwards.
 
Thanks for the quick replies everyone :( Luckily I only have about 30 ruined cases. Weird that this never happened with the pistol brass before.
 
"hot water / white vinegar soak"
I do the same and I forgot and left soaked overnight at one time but no discoloration. I guess I was lucky.
 
Find a good cloth bag that you can tie up (one of the booze maker's has a good 'crown' one ;) ). Put your brass inside the bag and tie it off. Toss it in the clothes washer and run the cycle. NOTE***unless you want a red or purple tint to all of the clothes in the washer do NOT put them in with any other clothing. Don't ask me how I know)
Once done, bake at 200 for about 10 minutes and let cool.
 
So, just out of curiosity I gave one of these cases a light pass with some steel wool and discovered the discoloration was barely surface level, it came right off:

25443295_10109411009179098_1682132676703976158_n.jpg
25398714_10109411009174108_3781229945585998805_n.jpg

Does this mean they're still ruined? I'd rather err on the side of caution but I'm also trying to understand what exactly is going on here.
 
Brass is too affordable to blow up a good gun and risk possible injury to the shooter or others...

Crush that brass ...

As Walk along said this brass is toast!
 
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You can dry in the toaster, just keep the heat lower than the boiling point. I use the oven when I solar isn't available. 200 for 30 minutes usually does it.

Oh and don't let the wife catch you using her pans. I use an old turkey pan.
 
If you over heated these enough to effect the base they are toast. Softening the base will cause you nothing but problem. When fired you will have a loose primer pockets ( primers fall out) and depending on gun may rip the rim off. With the zinc leached out the brass it has been weakened.

If your shooting them in a bolt gun. You can probably get 1 firing, then to the scrap bin. If in a simi-auto, straight to the scrap bin.
 
Like Saud, is your gun worth the price of 30 cases?

If you are going to load rifle ammo why not buy a good tumbler? Nice clean cases will feed smoothly into the action and not cause binding problems. You can get a Berry's 400 tumbler from one if the secondary vendors for just under $50 on sale. (Cabela's, Sinclair, Brownells, Kempf and a few others.)

I would not risk it even if the cases are OK one the chance they are not.
 
All 3 of these of this below are suspect...
Because, science and stuff.

IMtheNRA said:
That's not brass anymore. Zinc is gone, and only copper remains in those pink areas. Don't use vinegar, just soap and water. When I started reloading, I ruined some brass too by following the weird advice of adding vinegar to my cleaning solution.
Click to expand...

You cannot leach all the zinc from a piece of brass by dropping into a piece of vinegar. You might effect the surface slightly. You can pull the surface zinc out, but thats about it.

Scooter22 said:
That discoloration looks like they got too hot and softened the case. Why risk it? Toss them.
Click to expand...

A household oven cannot get hot enough to heat brass to the point where you change how durable it is.

JimKirk said:
The heat from the toaster would be reason enough to scrap this brass ...

Brass is too affordable to blow up a good gun and risk possible injury to the shooter or others...

Crush that brass ...

As Walk along said this brass is toast!
Click to expand...

A household oven cannot get hot enough to heat brass to the point where you change how durable it is.

OK, let me lay some science on you gents a sec.

First of all, vinegar can ruin brass, as it will leach the zinc out of it. However you would need to soak it for days for this to happen, not minutes. As the OP found, it was just a like surface coloring like rust or an oxide that can be polished off.

A household oven goes to what? 500 degrees? Brass will not start to anneal until it hits about 600, degrees. Common annealing temp is right around 750 degrees which is why we use 750 degree Tempilaq for setting up annealers. So please let me know how an oven can cook brass enough to cause a metallurgical change in it at less than 500 degrees. Depending on how big a hurry Im in, I dry brass in the oven all the time at 350. Put in pan, turn on oven, when it hits 350, I turn it off, give the pan a shake, let it sit for 15 minutes, and its done. No harm done.

@NoirFan
First thing, stop using vinegar. Its not hurting your brass really, but it doesnt do anything either other than leach out the surface zinc, and maybe make it a little shinier. If you want to wet clean it, go buy a ultrasonic from Harbor Freight, use a little dish soap, and it will be clean enough. If you want it really clean, switch to wet tumbling. The cheapy Harbor Freight tumbler is actually a great way to get in for very little money with great results. Even just an hour run with no pins will give you better results than an ultrasonic or vinegar. You shouldnt be seeing any real issues with oven drying as I doubt you are cooking it for an hour at high temps.
 
The M1a is exceptionally hard on brass already, I would take the hit and scrap that brass before I would risk my rifle or my face putting questionable brass back in it. I've had specific failures with LC brass in my M1a, and although it hurt... that $300 in brass is in the recycle bin.
 
Get a brass tumbler (dry media) and quit using vinegar!! The toaster oven is for hot sandwiches and other small eatables. NOT BRASS DRYING!
 
The cases are definitely getting thrown away - I'm not going to risk it. I just wanted to understand what exactly was happening to them.

A tumbler would be nice but I don't have the living space for it, plus it would be too loud for the neighbors. I'm reloading out of a corner of an urban condo.
 
NoirFan said:
A tumbler would be nice but I don't have the living space for it, plus it would be too loud for the neighbors. I'm reloading out of a corner of an urban condo.
Click to expand...
That's kind of a tough situation. But a good many of us "old" handloaders will tell you that we built ammunition for many years before we ever had a tumbler. And we didn't "wash" our brass in anything between reloadings. We simply wiped it off and cleaned any large chunks of charcoal out of the primer pockets with a little screwdriver or something similar.:)
 
Agreed on the annealing temperature. But to dry at 200 degrees means I can handle the brass that much sooner and it does the job.
 
NoirFan said:
The cases are definitely getting thrown away - I'm not going to risk it. I just wanted to understand what exactly was happening to them.

A tumbler would be nice but I don't have the living space for it, plus it would be too loud for the neighbors. I'm reloading out of a corner of an urban condo.
Click to expand...

Then just buy an ultrasonic for cleaning brass. It will get it done quietly. Dont worry about how shiney it is. I wet tumble, but I dont care about the shine, as I have brass I prepped 3 years ago that is slightly tarnished by the time I load it. You could even just use a bucket with a lid. Put the brass in, hot water, add soap and a little LemiShine, shake and rinse. Lots of options that will work fine.
 
If you were here I would gladly give you 50 .308 cases so you could toss those.

Plenty of folks here use solutions to clean brass without issues, maybe one of them can share their concoctions. I think it is just (Like Kaldor posted) Lemishine (Or equivalent) dishwashing soap, and water with some agitation.
 
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