Anyone ever try to polish brass using cornmeal instead of corncob? I was separating media and .223 brass earlier today, and that thought just hit me. If I am nuts, don't hold back, but to me it should work just fine, and be a lot cheaper than commercial media.

Let me know...

give it a shot probably work fine i have heard of sand,rice and other things but corn meal may work just fine.

No technical reason it won't work. The cob I use and love is only a little coarser than corn meal, I get clean brass and no clogged flash holes.

Being made from ground kernals of corn instead of the cob,it may be a bit dusty but that really won't matter much. And, if you have any mice in your loading room, they will LOVE it! And my wife tells me that weavils will eventally hatch from the eggs it usually includes. But, heck, vibrated weavils may clean brass too!

Do NOT use sand, it's far to abrasive and the potantial for firing small bits of it down a bore is more of a hazard than we want.

Will likely leave more dust on and in the cases that you want.

Crushed walnut shells work way better than corn cobb ... is available as "Lizard Litter" at Pet Smart.

I use crushed walnut as a coarse cleaner, then the corn cob to get the polish I want. And I found out years ago that a shot of mineral spirits in the tumbler takes care of the dust problem.

I will try it and let you guys know...

Add just a little moisture and you will have corn meal mush. Let that dry and see how easily it will come out of your cases.

Key word here is "can't." You can. You can use sand. If you use coarse sand, you might find grooves in the brass. If you use the super fine sand... Point is wear for polish. The standards, walnut hulls for rough clean, and corn cob for polish are fairly cheap and work. You can throw in rouge to speed things up. Mild abrasive. Now if you choose corn meal, I suspect you will find the cost for effect does not compare since it has another use, food. Hit the pet stores and you won't like the price of the corn meal anymore, I suspect. My guesses. luck.

If you are trying to save money by not buying commercial media, you could always use the leftover cereal in your kitchen cupboard. I found that equal parts Cheerios, Special-K, and Lucky Charms works best.

I recently received a bulk package of brass components (not firearm related) from one of my suppliers & amongst them were several pumpkin seed husks.
I asked them if these were used for polishing & they said that they're used for the final clean/polish.

Best results for me are tumbling in hot water and dish washer detergent.

quote:

equal parts Cheerios, Special-K, and Lucky Charms works best.

When I was a young lad working for Westinghouse, they used cherrystones.

NO, don't do it. Corn meal is not at all like corn cob. The meal is largely carbohydrate (sugars) and protein and will leave a thick residue of "food" on your brass. The cob is simply cellulose and doesn't contain any of the gummy components of corn meal. That's why you EAT the corn and not the cob.

Same thing with walnuts and walnut shells. You wouldn't think of trying to use the meat of a walnut, would you?

That said, the UNPROCESSED small grains like wheat or sorghum make pretty passable polishing material, but not as good as the cellulostic varieties.

The best deal I've found on tumbling media is at Harbor Freight and Tool where they sometimes have walnut shell in 25 lb boxes for super low prices. Keep the friggin rouge out! It leaves a nasty residue inside the cases.

I tried a cracked corn mix.....

It broke down, and became quite dusty. It did do a nice job polishing cases, and you could easily wipe the dust of the cases.....but only from the outside!

The cases collected a thick layer of very fine dust on the inside that I couldn't remove, and I was concerned about it reducing case capacity and introducing inconsistency in my loads, so I ended up giving up on that experiment and rerunning the effected brass thru the usual corncob media to clean out the insides.

I guess what I'm saying is it didn't work for me and I won't do it again.

Cheers,

Dan

Hornady ONE SHOT.Costs peanuts and lasts forever.Hornady is a great company.In the future we will see what a great company it was.Thank you Hornady!

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
Hornady ONE SHOT.Costs peanuts and lasts forever.Hornady is a great company.In the future we will see what a great company it was.Thank you Hornady!

Please eloborate "was" I'm interested