Corrosion on old bullets

[geezerbiker]

I have a couple boxes of bullets that came my way that have a little green corrosion around the base.  They're labeled 5.56mm and look to be standard 55g boat tail FMJ bullets...

Any suggestions on how to clean them?  I doubt running them though my tumbler will do any good.

I'm thinking they would make some good blasting ammo for my AR...

Tony

[Graybeard]

Is the corrosion on the bullet or brass case? Fine steel wool is one way to safely take it off. Brasso will also. I'm sure there are other things that will.

[Ranger99]

One more ^  ^  ^  ^ for the steel wool
You can just clean the base, then seat
and crimp (if you crimp) and it's easier
to clean the rest with it easier to hold
on to the case

[Lloyd Smale]

Just a couple boxes? If your talking loaded ammo and not bullets id just shoot them and tumble the crap out of the brass.

[geezerbiker]

Sorry, it's a box of bullets.  You know, projectiles. 

Anyway I'm not sure how many are in the box but I'm thinking around 250 and they all have a little ring of corrosion right around the boat tail.  If I had a wet tumbler that used stainless pins, I would have just run them though but the only tumbler I have is a very old Midway vibratory model.  If times were better, I'd use this as an accuse to buy a wet tumbler...

I also found a lot of somewhat corroded .30-30 ammo.  I plan to use a Lee case trimmer spinner and some steel wool on the better ones and pull down the worse ones for the bullets.

This is all from a stash of ammo that came from a friend's estate.  His old lady passed it on to me since he wanted my grandsons to have his stuff.  Most of his guns were taken by family members that he couldn't stand but he never made out a will and he wasn't married to his old lady.  She did her best to abide by his wishes and I'm doing my best to make sure that everything he left that the kids (really young men) can use, is available to them.

In a while after I'm sure there are no more guns coming, I will be trading off or selling the rest of the ammo that we have no guns for...

Tony

[Lloyd Smale]

im sure a dry vibrating tumbler would clean them if you left them in there long enough. I cleaned a bunch of pulled 308 bullets a guy found in the dump in mine years ago.

[geezerbiker]

I'll likely try running them though my tumbler in the next week or so.  Maybe longer if I have other things on my mind.  I looked at it again and it's only a 200 count box of bullets and the corrosion is mostly at the base around were the lead is exposed.  I suppose I could just load and shoot them but I don't want to risk that might do to a gun barrel.

Tony