How I Collect, Sort and Clean Range Brass - improved method
Welcome back to Jim's Armory. This time Jim steps away from the workbench and into the world of brass recycling, walking through his updated process for collecting, sorting, and cleaning range brass. After a range trip that netted nearly a full five-gallon bucket of mixed brass, steel, and straight-up trash, Jim breaks down exactly how he turns that pile into clean, sorted components ready for the reloading press—incorporating several tips viewers sent in after his last video, with a particular focus on getting stubborn bottleneck cartridges like 5.56 truly dry.
Picking It Up: Rake and Scoop The range Jim shoots at uses crushed aggregate on the ground, and he's found that most commercial brass-pickup tools scoop up as many rocks as they do cases. His solution is a dethatching rake with thin, flexible tines, followed by a kitty litter scoop to gather everything into a bucket. Pro-Tip: light, quick rake strokes tend to send brass flying toward you while heavier rocks hit the ground sooner, naturally separating the two. The whole collection process took about 20 minutes for this haul.
Sorting by Caliber Back home, Jim uses a three-tray graduated sizing system from Shellsorter.com. The largest (yellow) tray catches .45 and .308/7.62 brass, the medium (blue) tray stops .40 S&W, and the smallest (black) tray catches 9mm, 5.56/.223, and .380, letting rocks and .22 debris fall through into a trash bucket. Pro-Tip: don't overload the trays—leave enough space between cases so everything has room to fall through properly.
Pulling Steel, Aluminum, and Trash Once sorted by size, Jim runs a magnet (originally intended for pulling stainless tumbling pins) through the pile to fish out steel cases, which can't be reloaded. From there it's a visual and weight check—aluminum cases feel off and get tossed, nickel cases are fine to keep. He also separates .380 from 9mm at this stage since the two can look similar mixed together, though he admits some .380 inevitably slips through and gets picked out later. After sorting, Jim ended up with more than half a bucket of 9mm, about a quarter bucket of 5.56, and roughly a sixth of a bucket of garbage.
The First Tumble: Just Soap For the first cycle, Jim fills each tumbler with stainless steel media, water, and only a small amount of dish soap—no citric acid yet, since it would just get wasted on the initial grime. Pro-Tip: add the water before the soap; a viewer correction from his last video pointed out that adding soap first causes suds to overflow out the top. This first wash runs about 30 minutes and is aimed purely at knocking loose dead spiders, cricket legs, dirt, and gravel.
Repeat Washes, Soap, and Citric Acid Jim's method is to change the water frequently rather than run one long tumble. After the initial rinse, he refills and runs several more 30-minute-to-one-hour cycles, adding soap plus a small amount of citric acid (Lemi Shine) in the later washes to help polish the brass. In Jim's experience, long marathon tumbles just leave the brass looking dull, so shorter cycles with fresh water work better for him. He also addresses the common worry about citric acid eating away the zinc in the brass alloy and causing brittleness—based on his own test pieces, he didn't see cracking, though he still recommends using only a small amount as a precaution.
Responsible Disposal After a viewer pointed out that dumping the dirty tumbling water in the driveway can leave lead deposits harmful to children and pets, Jim now pours the spent water directly down a drain that leads out to the woods rather than letting it run across the driveway. He's upfront that this isn't a perfect solution, just the safest option he currently has available.
Sifting Media and Spotting Bad Cases Once the water runs reasonably clear, Jim uses a media separator to pull the stainless steel pins out of the clean brass. While sorting, he keeps an eye out for cases that are visibly copper- or rose-colored from long exposure to the elements—signs of zinc erosion from acidity in the soil or rain. He tosses these for high-pressure cartridges like 5.56, though he's less concerned about the same coloring on 9mm brass.
The Towel Trick and Drying The biggest improvement in this round comes from another viewer tip: bottleneck cases like 5.56 hold moisture stubbornly, while straight-walled 9mm dries easily. Pro-Tip: lay the wet brass in a towel, gather the corners into a hammock shape, and roll the cases back and forth—this agitates them and helps the towel wick the moisture out through surface tension. From there, Jim spreads the brass in a single layer in his brass dryer (plugged into a countdown timer for peace of mind) and runs it at 180 degrees for six hours. Pro-Tip: keep the layer flat and give the cases room for airflow rather than piling them in.
Final Thoughts The next morning, the brass came out shiny and bone dry inside and out—a clear improvement over Jim's earlier attempts where 5.56 cases stayed damp for hours. Between the rake-and-scoop collection method, the Shellsorter trays, the magnet pass, and the towel-drying trick, Jim walked away with a solid haul of clean 9mm and 5.56 ready for the press, once his reloading equipment arrives. He credits several of these improvements directly to viewer feedback and encourages more of it going forward. Thanks for reading along—like and subscribe, and stay tuned for the next one.
