I usually use some dish soap in the wet tumbler but remebered that I have some dry sodium hydroxide for making soap. Would lye work better or just corrode the brass?
Pretty sure sodium hydroxide will preferentially attack the zinc and make the brass useless in the long run. I use citric acid when I want something stronger than plain detergent.
I know that sparkly, shiny brass looks nice in the loading tray but I want to point out that it doesn't make the ammo shoot any better than just clean and dry brass.
Bright & shiny is fine. But I like to put clean brass through my dies,, instead of dirty brass. LemiShine isn't necessary,, but it does give it a shine.
At least you are cleaning the brass, even if only using soap.
Well, soap and the steel pins. Just wondering if there was something that would clean faster. A friend just gave me about 2000 shells and the tumbler only holds about 200 at a time