If you hadn't been able to polish that bar, or if you ever find some that you can't, just hand it and a can of Brasso to a Marine. What you get back WILL be a MIRROR! Semper Fi! Keep up the great content!

I knew the answer b4 watching but you know me , anything to do with brass I’m all in 😁. Over 100 likes and not 1 thumbs down 👏🏻👏🏻. There’s always someone wanting to rain on someone’s parade . Keep it up my friend 😄👍🏻.

Great piece of brass. The lack of lead makes it harder to machine. It is actually called cartridge brass which can be purchased in rod form as well as plate.

Tool and Die Maker here, damn near everything is machine able if you have the correct tools. I don't know a single material which you cannot machine that is solid or conductive.

Add 3-4% lead and you now have c36000 freemaching brass. O tears with this

My father was a machinist in South America. After a shortage in Brass. The price shot through the roof. Needing it for couplings he got in contact with the military which then sold spent brass which he extruded into long tubes to manufacture the needed parts. I gotta ask him about that.

I thought about doing the same thing. There is always spent brass that can't be reloaded again, for various reasons, that can be melted down and use for other things. Thumbs Up!

You lost those 75g whilst the brass was molten and the zinc inside the brass was able to vaporize. That's what the fumes are. And yes it is very toxic, so don't stand close to your crucible while you're melting brass.

When they say you can't do it....prove them wrong. Great video.

You can do any dern thing you want with cartridge brass, but it's true value is to be resold as cartridge brass. Well... Unless it is .22 brass. Great video, craftsman pron for sure!

Any body who can make there own molds!! Melt there own brass and machine a great AR lower that works and looks great deserves a SUB!! I found you on your AR-10 cast and mach!!!! You are a very talented man!

You should make a brass trigger for your aluminum can ar15. Maybe some "iron" sights, or just something to accent it.

When I was a boy (1960s) we had three ashtrays which were made from old artillery shell casings, two 4 inch and one 6 inch diameter. From memory, they were cut off to be about 1½ to 2 inches tall, with a central post added on the inside to make it easier to carry them. So when I saw your title I just said yep, of course you can.

Great presentation. I've been put off of range brass by others as well, but your right, as a hobbyist it should serve my purposes just fine.

I weld and Monday morning fever sucks old timers told me a long time ago maybe 20 years ago or more drink a glass of milk before welding anything zinc and it will help to not get sick I was thinking they was crazy but I tried it and it works I have Learned so much from for old times

No time wasted yammering. Great video. I always enjoy it when someone gets right to the point. Two thumbs up.

Man this is a really resourceful idea and im glad you didn't listen to those dubious.. what a fine cast brass blank you made! looked very solid and i think it machined very nicely for being a home-cast metal!! cheers to you for another successful project! thanks

👍Nice! I’ve got a decent hoard of spent cartridge brass myself in big containers in the shop. Was going to start reloading but decided against it. Probably just take it to the recycler again. 5 or 6 yrs ago I took over 700#, that particular year we had a very good Christmas. Keep up the great work. Great channel! Glad I found it! 👍

I have been trying to cast and machine a small cannon barrel for a while. I'm just too lazy to make enough greensand to do it. This video has some good information in it.

Some guys have a lot more fun than I do.

I would suggest a non-flammable surface under your foundry and pour area. That tall dry grass that goes up to your bldg could be bad. Also, I keep a charged water hose & full bucket of water on hand.

How reloaders look while watching cases melt ➡😱😨😖😬😩 Lol

i had similar surface "issues" when i tried casting brass in clay bonded sand. probably because it is so liquid that it penetrates into the sand. you could probably mix in some lead to make it into a free machining brass too

I love seeing people do things that other's say can't be done. People tell me that crap all the time, and I tell them " yeah watch this, time to make it happen captain". LOL

I'm thinking brass AR receiver. The one you made from aluminium cans needs little brother.

I had bought a 6x6 sheet of brass on ebay a few months ago not realizing the difference in brass alloy 260, 360, etc. I bought it for a project my brother asked if I could make a wood medallion for his dulcimer in brass instead and a custom design using my cnc router(a stepcraft). Delayed by months but I finally got working on it. I was breaking bits no matter my trial n error with my feeds/speeds. I figured maybe the brass was a hard alloy or something. Well I had just backtracked to my purchase history and found out my plate was 260 brass. A bit much for my machine to pocket machine out. A few details left out here but I had learned quite a bit in the differences. A 360 alloy brass, I believe, would be better for my case. I enjoyed the video. We always collected the ejected shells at the gun range when I grew up. We would use them for reloading. Free. A real treat to find the "tin" shells. Real nice looking.

Very interesting video for me. I work at an Ammo Supply Point (ASP) at Camp Shelby, MS, and my job as a contractor is certifying, demiling, and selling brass casings. Every ammo shot in practice, from 22LR the ROTC use, to 155MM artillery rounds, grenades, AT4 launchers, 105MM tank rounds, 5.56, 7.62, 50., 9mm, it all comes back to me to weigh, count, sell or recycle. I demil the small arms brass by running it through an APE (Ammunition Peculiar Equipment), which consists of a 1,000F furnace that dumps into a deformer. I've processed over 1.4 million pounds of brass there in the last 7 years. Three minutes @ 1,000 degrees is just enough to pop off any live rounds that go through, barely scorching the brass. That's why I have a deformer that crushes it through cogs so it can't be reloaded. I often thought about melting some down into ingots then polishing them to look like gold bricks for my livingroom 😄

Looks pretty machinable to me. I don't understand why anyone would say otherwise until they tried it. Great job!

Next time just add a little lead just before pouring (assuming you've already cleaned it up, not dirty wheel weights or range lead), stir a little, and then learn the wonders of free machining brass.

Am I the ONLY one who was freaking out a bit when he started melting down that ultra precious 223 brass?!?!? Range brass or not, given our current component shortages, brass is kinda sacred ground, no?

C260/2600 "cartridge" brass is a great all around material: decently high strength, very formable. Going for properties either direction tends to drop off the others quickly. It's great for jewelry and projects. I buy (lead free) plates of it and machine in on my little hobby cnc router (yeah, it's gummy) but it's nice for the ability to form it after machining. (sign places etc will use a very brittle brass that machines well but breaks if you try to form it) Get some medium or hard silver solder and a propane torch and you can "weld" it nicely (welders call it brazing, but it's actually closer to welding than traditional brazing) Easy/extra low temp solder is very weak and turns powdery grey, so I don't use it.

Different ammo companies use different materials for the primers cups (brass, stainless, etc.), and I have no idea what the anvils are made of (I'd guess steel). Were the casings decapped before you melted them, or would different materials come off in the slag/dross? I wonder if they'd affect your results if they alloyed with the brass?

Now make an AR upper out of spent brass.

Now can you machine a case out of it like you did with the aluminum?

you need to flux the brass with borax to keep it from separating into its main components, zinc and copper.

I believe that the Navy guys at Brunswick in the early seventies used spent brass to make lighthouses, my dad had several Yes the Navy messing around with the equipment OMG

Just a word of advice but you should have deprimed the brass/get the primers out because they are toxic and I think you'd want to minimize your risk.

The one you buffed looks like gold. Very nice.

I agree that's awesome. Now you can make your own plumbing fittings

Higher zinc content makes it more machinable. Melting will burn out some of the zinc. Making 33% zinc brass is kind of hard to do but apparently Indian did it earlier than anyone thought, forget where I read that. Anyway the brass you produced would be fairly easy to smith, cold smithing. You need to anneal between rounds of smithing. Soldering/brazing brass is difficult you can actually use pure silver for solder because it makes a lower temp alloy as it melts.

When I cast brass I gathered I had to heat the mold, cool slowly. I was using coal though Coal was free on the railroad tracks back then I wish I could still do work with metal

Please make sure primers r spent. Could look like it is but cap may still have powder and explode when put in hot crucible. Thanks Bob

Had to click to find out what the hell you were talking about. I think you meant: Can you machine AMMO brass; or maybe CARTRIDGE brass.

On secon thought, now you need to turn a brass cartridge from one of these.... possibly load and shoot(?)... that would be a nice act of re-creation of your part... :)

This is proof that Therory and practice may not always match up. I am constantly told that a person can not drink distilled water. I have been drinking distilled water exclusively for over 40 years. With no problems. .. Thanks for sharing your videos.

For anyone wanting to get good results with pouring brass, you need inert gas to push oxygen away from melted brass.. Otherwise it will continue oxidizing and cause pores when you poure it into a tube what ever shape you have. It will not be solid.

An oldie but a goodie 👍🏻😁. And yes I did watch this wen it first came out 😉

That would make some beautiful handle scales

Very cool experiment! Really enjoyed watching! Peace from Welland Ontario Canada 🇨🇦

Did you knock the spent primers out of the casings before you melted everything

Nice work, from Australia, l love the machining bit too 😀

If you added a little bit of salt to the molten brass, it will separate more brass from the dross, which will get you more brass from the job. Less brass will be sticking to the dross.

It's the strangest thing......I absolutely loathe gold and see it as extremely pretentious but find brass to be a beautiful thing especially with a high polish

Just found this, man these are great videos! I noted someone asked about turning the brass into other cases and I have to say I am curious as to if you could as well. I looked up the process once and it does not seem like something one can replicate without a factory kind of space.

I miss the shooting lane. I live in Norway so it's strict here with weapons. I don't mind that, to many with weapons that shouldn't have. I never owned a gun but tried some. Well, its OK here, that most people don't have immediate access to deadly weapons tho. It's fun to shoot. I was better at '22s, and rifles same size, a magum threw me away lol. I glad today I know how to use some weapons. I even tried a shotgun once. That was awesome. I like this, it proves that shells are pretty much brass. Just subscribed a few days ago :)

I think if you do a better casting method like a bottom fill you will lose the voids... still cool how nice that metal flowed and worked.

There is something about machining brass. Just so nice.

Awesome experiment. Maybe soaking the brass in white vinegar overnight will minimize the impurities when smelting? Just a thought.

Only pour brass into brand new or old rusty muffin tins as the coating on the new, and the rust on the old will prevent the brass from brazing to the muffin tin. If it happens just hit up the local thrift store for another muffin tin.

Don't reloaders sometimes turn down, modify casings themselves in a lathe

Clearly the most appropriate use for this brass would be to make a miniature working brass cannon. Bonus points if you can make it be breach loaded to fire a real .22 short.

Add since brazing flux to your brass, when melting it keeps a lot of your brass from burning and cleans it to. Last gun brass poor I did I used borax flux and had 0 zink fuzzies

A suggestion, add a little ( < 1%) of 15% phosphorus copper shot and both pouring and later on machining will be easier. The shot is readily available cheaply onl;ine from (among others) BCA and Rotometals.

I hear dropping candle wax in as the flux smoths the surface immensely. I’ve not tried it my self but I will be this fall in winter casting in texas at 110 degrees sux

I wonder if this video will make and reloaders lose their minds?

Can you imagine what a mistake it would be if he tossed in a live round?

I think he 'over annealed his brass, lol. I really enjoyed this video. We are only limited by our imagination. Don't be afraid to try but be CAREFUL.

Would you think a thin wall steel pipe would make a good mold for casting rouns stock? Or even square. You'll just need to figure out a way to prevent sticking, or just machine the thin steel off

Definitely learned something important for when we cast brass and probably any other metals.... always account for the casting will shrink some during cooling and in some cases we should cast the piece longer than what we need because of shrinking and possibly in cases where we would need the extra length for holding it in the lathe's chuck and being able to machine the whole length of our work piece without having to flip it.

Did you de-prime the cases before melting?

The case brass is good for DIY, but be advised, it won't hold polishing for a long time, so over a short period of time it will become dully and thin oxidized will cover the surface.

You can add some power to the melting to make it more pure

Who says it's not machinable?

Without the proper amount of alloy it can get brittle. The gummy feeling is because it most likely has lithium in the bullet brass to help with work hardening.

You can def make a brass pistol grip for that AR

the finish on that was just "WOW"

I am just starting to get interested in smelting so that's why I came acrossed this video. I was wondering when milling what happens to all the shavings do people just melt it into an alloy or throw it away seems wasteful...

I like machining and I like brass and I definitely like shooting.

Gets told you can’t do it… Sets out to prove you can…

Very nice work! I definitely have to give this a try.

... cartridge brass is a very specific ratio of high purity copper and zinc that will expand rapidly enough to obturate the breach on firing and contract equally rapidly to allow easy extraction ... there should be no impurities ... the slag you produced is probably oxides of both metals caused by over heating ...

That buffed up quite nicely!

I’m really impressed that work that well

Use some flux, even broken glass, to shield that brass from oxygen, nicer casting, no oxides, no zinc fumes.....

Wow that turned out looking great.

Add borax and control your temp. If your mold is hot and cools slowly it won’t cave either.

God, this was so satisfying to watch.

Machinability for brass from cases that are provided in a form that are formed, drawn... and most often, machined*, was in question? *and often it's rapid production... so fast you can't see it happening. Also, suitable for finish work with hand tools (reamers and the like)...

When I clicked on this I thought you were going to MAKE bullet casings on the marching lathe.

"Cartridge brass", not "bullet brass".

The 75 could be and probably is the zinc that turned to vapors while you melted the casing.

You got a lot of talent, very entertaining video

I've often wondered when I go to the shooting range and see all those brass casings just laying on the ground or thrown away. Some get collected and reloaded, but the rest are just left. Seems like kind of a waste. Is it worth collecting the brass and selling it to a recycling company? I was stationed in Korea years ago, and there were a lot of stores downtown that sold items made from brass from all the shell casings from the war. Something to think sbout.

I want to do something like this in my own personal yard where did you get the foundry? I love how simple it all looks

It may have sensible to de-cap the cartridges beforehand to cut down on impurities ?

To my amateur eyes those chips look nice and this is good to know. I'll try to remember to comment my successes adding 10% nickle played casings.

I'd like to see a video of how you made that cool furnace

It's excellent metal. I once dull out a usa made end mill by just making chips out empty catrige case

Absolutely love your channel, your mind, your creativity, and the content you put out! Thank you! A couple thoughts that came to mind watching this one: 1. Do you have bulk LP to your house/homestead? I started making syrup last year, using a turkey fryer and 15# LP, and midway through the season, thought "what am I paying for the 500 gallon tank refills on the property???" LOL - about 5x less! So for about $80 in materials and and hour or so of labor, I ran a line off the house LP. Secondly, what type of alloy do you think you'd end up with if you smelted all the metal shavings you make off your lathe? To me, sounds like a interesting video, and at least good stock for one of your beautiful signs. God bless you and yours!

wouldn't leaving in the primers contaminate the liquid metal? and what about the left over powder inside the casings? i had thought about melting down casings to make simple things like a brass hammer, but i know nothing about heat treating them to harden it up to avoid it deforming on every strike.