What to use to remove sealant from .mil brass?

[TheGerman]

I have a ton of the M118 brass that was pulled down and has the sealant in the neck. The cases are primed so I don't want to use anything that would screw with the primer.

What takes this stuff off?

 

[TheGerman]

I remember reading some kind of chemical/solvent and a q tip but can’t seem to find what it was.

 

[GONE BAD]

I remember reading some kind of chemical/solvent and a q tip but can’t seem to find what it was.

I made this mistake last year with LC pull-down brass. Never again! Thought I was cutting a fat hog. I end up using just a drill bit that fit inside the neck and GRINDING the crap out ! Dumped the primers, resized the brass.
Once fired LC is your friend.
I started a thread about it but it went no where. I tried to warn everyone then.

Plus, what the hell does this crap do to a presion rifle barrel?!
IT ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!

Sorry about the rant.?

 

[GONE BAD]

This:
https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/threads/lc-lr-pull-down-brass.6881553/

 

[MK20]

A scotch brite green scrubber on a rod will do it.

 

[GONE BAD]

A scotch brite green scrubber on a rod will do it.

Have you done this, or gust a guess?
I tried everything, even a brass brush on a rod, just made a mess and moved the crap deeper into the case.

I thought I could anneal the brass and burn it out but saving the primer ??!

By the time I weighed all the options saving the 3.5 cents for the primer was hopeless. For me anyway.

Plus: haveing to fire-form new brass sucks.
Buy once fired, anneal, resize, tumble, reload and shoot nice groups from the get-go. I'm talking LC brass. It will last a long time.

 

[MK20]

I have but it tends to gum up the scrubbie. If you read the thread that someone else linked above they had good results using q tips and acetone I believe. Double check the thread. I would not give up on that brass. If you decide to give up on it I will absolutely buy it from you for any reasonable price as I have a load for my RPR that LOVES that brass. (2.5" @ 700m)

 

[GONE BAD]

I have but it tends to gum up the scrubbie. If you read the thread that someone else linked above they had good results using q tips and acetone I believe. Double check the thread. I would not give up on that brass. If you decide to give up on it I will absolutely buy it from you for any reasonable price as I have a load for my RPR that LOVES that brass. (2.5" @ 700m)

The sealant is thick and if you look close you'll see that it's pushed below the neck shoulder junction, sometimes in a glob.
I tried the acetone and had to use a LOT.
Then I worried I would be contaminating the primers.
Talk about carbon ring? Just think what this sealent does?

 

[918v]

Carb cleaner on a qtip

 

[Tchitcherine]

I have used q-tips dipped in MBK solvent. MBK is derived from acetone, readily available, and is effective at dissolving that nasty tar-like sealant in the LC pull-down brass. The process is a bit time consuming and tedious, but it’s cheap. If you take care not to drip solvent into the primer, you can shoot those, though that might be heresy to some here. I had great results with the pull-down brass I got, YMMV.

 

[918v]

Where u buy this mbk solvent?

 

[GONE BAD]

OK. Here's the gospel!
Just tried this!

Actone dries way to fast.
Lacquer Thinner WORKS!
But I would keep the shell case pointed down to save the primers.

 

[GONE BAD]

One Qtip per case. Use one end for neck. Then use other end to clean up just below the neck?

 

[GONE BAD]

Sorry about the pics but the best I can do.
One case clean. One case with sealent.

 

[MK20]

If you see a thin line or score that kinda looks like a crack at first on the case neck of some of these cartridges it means that they have been fired out of a SCAR. I HIGHLY recommend annealing these cases as FL sizing them does not fully reshape the neck where that ding is. When I started annealing my groups tightened by over an inch with this brass.

 

[GONE BAD]

If you see a thin line or score that kinda looks like a crack at first on the case neck of some of these cartridges it means that they have been fired out of a SCAR. I HIGHLY recommend annealing these cases as FL sizing them does not fully reshape the neck where that ding is. When I started annealing my groups tightened by over an inch with this brass.

These are 'new' LC/LR brass'. Never fired
But necks still need to be resized, trimmed and chamfered.

 

[MK20]

Woops. Forgot they were pulldowns. Good info anyway.

 

[GONE BAD]

I think you all are overplaying the potential effects of this sealant in a barrel. I have borescope and cleaned many an m24 and this is all they shot

Maybe so. But proper neck tension for perssion rifles surely comes into play?

Blasting man-sized targets is a total different deal. Which we all know is the military's goal. They want all FTF/FTF completely out of the question.

Everyone's mileage may very.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

I would throw the whole lot of them in solvent and let them soak. Let them dry, and tumble them in dry media. Then resize them reload same as as a fired case. You are going to have to resize the necks anyway you go about it the $0.035 primer isn;t worth the effort to save it.

 

[Tchitcherine]

Where u buy this mbk solvent?

Ace HW.

 

[TheGerman]

So what the consensus on, 'fuck it, shoot the sealant out'?

My only concern is that wouldn't it fuck with neck tension?

 

[MK20]

M118lr has sealant and it is a sub 1 moa load that has never fucked with any of my rifles. Shoot em as is. Just clean it with some good solvent afterwards and rock on.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

So what the consensus on, 'fuck it, shoot the sealant out'?

My only concern is that wouldn't it fuck with neck tension?

How are you resizing the necks without punching the primer? Are you using bushing dies, or sizing die sans primer stem and expanding mandrel? If you are just going to powder them up and load them as is, then neck tension isn't going to be the largest factor you have to worry about. Your cartridge concentricity is gonna suck.

 

[918v]

I use carb cleaner on a qtip. It dissolves the sealant real quick. You don’t have to get every trace of it out, just whatever’s he qtip grabs is good enough. The rest will shoot out.

 

[MarinePMI]

Personally, I'd just shoot them. The sealant is also an adhesive to uniform neck pull; this is widely/commonly done with military precision .308 as well as belted machine gun ammo for that reason.

 

[GONE BAD]

Personally, I'd just shoot them. The sealant is also an adhesive to uniform neck pull; this is widely/commonly done with military precision .308 as well as belted machine gun ammo for that reason.

There is NO way to resize the neck with that sealent in the case without gumming up your dies.
It not only gets all over the mandrel or expander ball, it migrates to the dies neck and shoulder. It a mess!

I guess you could just use a bushing die though? Which I don't have.