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Dirty shotgun shell hulls


Too Tall Bob

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So, you end up with a bucketful of dirty , dusty shotgun shell hulls. How do you clean them?  I’m just curious as to folks methods.

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I wet tumble without media about 100 hulls

once with cascade dishwasher detergent & lemishine 60 minutes

then with auto wash-wax 30-45 minutes

Rinse 5-6 times in tumbler

Shake them empty of water 

arrange in towel to dry in sun when available, else  on dining room floor

 

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I de-prime them and wet tumble for an hour or so with dish washing detergent (I like the yellow kind but the blue kind also works.) and a little Strat-O-Sheen.

They are dumped on a towel to dry.  

 

This works well for both black powder and smokeless.

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I just fill the bucket with warm water, agitate a little then dump water.  Repeat the second time with a few drop of dish soap (I prefer Dawn liquid), agitate and dump soapy water then rinse a few times then I dump the whole bucket of hulls in a case/media separator to drain most of the water out and lay them out in the sun till dry.  All is clean.   Easy peezy!  This is how I do mine.

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32 minutes ago, Vail Vigilante said:

No matter what other cleaning method you use hit them first with a blast from the air compressor. This gets off the loose crud and makes the next step take less time.

^^^This then reload and keep reloading them until they split - don't care how black they are (practice rounds). For a match I use once fired and clean with compressed air only.

 

 

 

Of course I shoot a 97 lol

   

Hells Comin 

 

 

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Long ago I had a bunch of very dirty STS hulls.  I put them in a laundry mesh bag and ran them through the washing machine.  The hulls ended up pretty scratched up.  Don't do that.

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A few years ago, Harbor Freight had a 1 1/4 cu ft cement mixer on sale and I had some coupons. I think it was like $130, on sale for $79.99 or somesuch, plus some more off with the coupon. I just checked online, and they're $199.99 now. :blink: They're JUNK, no way they'd ever work for concrete, or worth two hundred bucks, but it works fine for washing shotgun hulls.

CementMixer.jpg

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Interesting responses. What prompted this was a friend told me he was given 800 plus sts hulls. They were covered in dirt inside and out. He couldn’t make up his mind on how to clean them up so, he waited till his wife was gone for the day and tossed them all in their washing machine. He said the hulls came out nice and clean. The knot his wife put on the back of his head took awhile to disappear. 

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 Looks like some have WAY to much time on their hands .I pickup my shells only wipe them with a paper towel load them and shoot them. 

 

This game is not Rocket Science;)

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1 minute ago, Texas Jack Black said:

 Looks like some have WAY to much time on their hands .I pickup my shells only wipe them with a paper towel load them and shoot them. 

 

This game is not Rocket Science;)

I don't even go that far. I sort at the unloading table. Damaged and obviously severely split hulls are discarded right there. The good (quick viewed ones) are put into my hull bag at the table to later get dumped into the fired hull box. Then when I'm out of loaded shells I go back and reload from the box checking the hulls as I go. Bad ones-trash, good ones-reloaded. Once I've reloaded 600-700 hulls I then go to loading each box using my Slix Shotshell Sizer/Check. The ones that need no attention go into monthly match boxes the ones that don't go to a practice bucket. I only load once fired (by me) STS hulls for big matches. I've done this process for 15+ years, nothing but a few quick visual checks, and I have never had any issues with my shotgun shells. I do envy those who have all of this time to spend on all of this labor on their reloading.

 

JEL 

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1 hour ago, Too Tall Bob said:

Interesting responses. What prompted this was a friend told me he was given 800 plus sts hulls. They were covered in dirt inside and out. He couldn’t make up his mind on how to clean them up so, he waited till his wife was gone for the day and tossed them all in their washing machine. He said the hulls came out nice and clean. The knot his wife put on the back of his head took awhile to disappear. 

 

 

Oddly enough, that's the exact advice I was going to give.  Get a mesh laundry bag, dump all the shells in the bad, toss into washing machine.  Hulls come out perfectly clean.

 

Mesh laundry bag

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2 hours ago, Too Tall Bob said:

Interesting responses. What prompted this was a friend told me he was given 800 plus sts hulls. They were covered in dirt inside and out. He couldn’t make up his mind on how to clean them up so, he waited till his wife was gone for the day and tossed them all in their washing machine. He said the hulls came out nice and clean. The knot his wife put on the back of his head took awhile to disappear. 

I am wondering why he told her. He should have known the knot was coming. LOL

 

TM

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2 minutes ago, Texas Maverick said:

I am wondering why he told her. He should have known the knot was coming. LOL

 

TM

He didn’t - he got side tracked and forgot to take them out. 

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1 minute ago, Too Tall Bob said:

He didn’t - he got side tracked and forgot to take them out. 

He is lucky that a knot was all he got then. LOL 

 

TM

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11 hours ago, Abilene, SASS # 27489 said:

Twist them in a damp towel.

Same here.  The level of dirt and dust at the ranges we shoot around these parts doesn't warrant much more, after a twist in a damp towel they are ready to reload.

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Big shells with big primers seem like they can carry a good amount of lead-based primer particles from being fired. A quick bath might not be a bad idea. As someone who battles blood lead levels, I see no reason not to try it.

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33 minutes ago, Lawdog Dago Dom said:

Big shells with big primers seem like they can carry a good amount of lead-based primer particles from being fired. A quick bath might not be a bad idea. As someone who battles blood lead levels, I see no reason not to try it.

How are you cleaning your brass?  My BL peaked at 36.  Switching from dry media tumbling got me down to 14 last year.  Probably lower now.

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4 hours ago, Captain Bill Burt said:

Wipe them down. If the insides are dirty I throw them away.

 

BTW, no offense intended, but I really dislike picking up hulls that have been sprayed or wiped with a lubricant. Now I have that slick crap on my hands.

 

I'm not a fan of picking up greasy hulls, either.  And, as far as shooting a stage, it's always seemed a step in the wrong direction to make sure you get something slippery all over your hand before you load your shotgun or draw handguns, etc.  Does it not make more sense to lubricate your shotgun chamber(s) instead of your fingers?

 

Sorry, didn't intend to hijack...

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6 hours ago, Johnny Meadows,SASS#28485L said:

After loading I wipe them with Armorall as they go from the cart to the shotgun belt.

Pretty much the same, but I wipe them with a cloth sprayed with ArmorAll before I load them.

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5 hours ago, Captain Bill Burt said:

Wipe them down. If the insides are dirty I throw them away.

 

BTW, no offense intended, but I really dislike picking up hulls that have been sprayed or wiped with a lubricant. Now I have that slick crap on my hands.

Can't say mine wiped with AmorAll ever feel like they have anything on them. They shuck flawlessly however and don't scratch my sizing die.,

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7 hours ago, Too Tall Bob said:

Interesting responses. What prompted this was a friend told me he was given 800 plus sts hulls. They were covered in dirt inside and out. He couldn’t make up his mind on how to clean them up so, he waited till his wife was gone for the day and tossed them all in their washing machine. He said the hulls came out nice and clean. The knot his wife put on the back of his head took awhile to disappear. 

THIS is why I kept our old washing machine. I hooked it up to the hose and than ran a drain out of the garage to the ditch. I wash my shop rags, dog blankets, and other dirty stuff that I would get "knotted" if I tried to use the one in the house. I also kept the oven for the same reasons. I Cerakote and powdercoat a lot of stuff. Sometimes, if I am doing something small, an oven may be a perfect size. NOT mama's oven though.

 

JEL  

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1 hour ago, Eyesa Horg said:

Can't say mine wiped with AmorAll ever feel like they have anything on them. They shuck flawlessly however and don't scratch my sizing die.,

I've never had my hulls feel sticky and they sure come out of the chambers fast.

 

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5 minutes ago, Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L said:

What, you are supposed to clean shotgun hulls before reloading them?  Guess I've been doing it all wrong for 25+ years.  :P

Longer'n that for me!

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I use once fired hulls one time and throw them away. Some of them might get loaded twice if they look to be in good shape. I do nothing to them before loading, other than inspect.

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