O.K. to reload "black" cases?

[Furncliff]

I pick up trash on the BLM land where I shoot. One old beer can led to the next and then to a pile of 30.06 cases (~20). Someone was shooting a Garand looks like. I tumbled them in a corn media but they have remained black. I don't shoot this caliber so I'll give them away IF they're O.K. to reload.

 

[Hogpauls]

Throw them into a container with Lemishine, Dawn, OMS and hot water for a half hour agitating a few times. Rinse well and set them out to dry and tumble after that. Black should be gone, have fun.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Try a magnet. They're probably steel. I don't know about reloading bottleneck steel for rifle but many reload steel pistol cases.

 

[Cosmoline]

I've got some BPCR brass that stays dusky and shoots fine. But it shouldn't be actually dark black. That sounds like corrosion or some kind of inferior case metal.

 

[Furncliff]

It never occurred to me that they might be steel. I'll check that out, but there's some shinny brass coloring in places. Easy enough to check.

Thanks for the recipe Hogpauls, I'll try that.

 

[rfwobbly]

Hornady has some brass cases purposely colored black. They're OK.

Once brass lays on the ground for about 7 days it takes on a dark, chocolate brown. Those are OK.

 

[Hacker15E]

Steel can be reloaded if they turn out to be that.

Note that the Wolf steel case .30-06 has an additional indentation around the case forward of the rim. Easy to identify.

 

[zxcvbob]

I've reloaded a few steel .223's just to see if I could do it. (it works just fine *except* it gouged the bullets a little because I didn't chamfer the case mouths. I thought they were OK since I hadn't trimmed them) But those Wolf cases in the above pic have berdan primers. Not worth the effort, nor the hassle of finding new berdan primers to use.

 

[homatok]

Cartridge brass is a combination of copper and zinc. Clean the black cases using hot water, a few drops of Dawn dish soap and a spoonfull of Lemi-shine. If the cleaned cases show small copper colored spots, it is an indication the zinc has been leached from that spot and the integrity of the case has been compromised---throw those out! If there are no tell tale spots, the case can probably be safely reloaded.