Awhile back I did a comparison of the contents of several gun degreasers, like Gun Scrub, to brake cleaners. I don't remember which brand it was, but there was one brand of gun degreaser on the shelf at the local Scheels that had the identical ingredients as a couple brands of brake cleaner. Big difference in price, 16 oz of gun degreaser for $6-8, and 20 oz of brake cleaner for less than $2 on sale. Just like the gun degreaser, per listed on their warning label, you have to be careful with the brake cleaner on certain finishes. I haven't found a problem,,,,YET, but I try to be careful.

The other penny saver is media for cleaning brass. I go to a local pet store and buy the ground up walnut shells that is used lizard and snake bedding, a lot cheaper than the stuff that you buy that is labeled as brass cleaning media. Some like corn cob media which you can also buy bulk of, I believe in 50 pound bags from local feed mills or farm stores. I don't care if my brass is all purdy and shiny, I want the burnt residue removed and I think walnut shells do that best. I treat it with media polish stuff that I have bought from either Midway or Dillon. I know people that use liquid car wax, which is again cheaper than the stuff that is specifically for treating media and which I plan to use when my current polish supply is gone. The only thing to watch for is to make sure that the car polish doesn't have any ammonia in it, ammonia is supposedly bad for brass, I guess it makes it brittle, which is not a good thing, especially rifle type brass which has shoulders.

Any other ideas?

If you use brake cleaner, buy the non-chlorinated stuff. Costs the same.

Carb Cleaner can be safer than brake cleaner. Many carbs have plastic parts and the carb cleaner should be safer.

Using brake cleaner I once cleaned my white dots off my sights.

I was under the belief that carb cleaner leaves some type of oily film behind. Don't know if it is really an issue since you apply oil again anyway. It would be a problem if you where trying to degrease because you where going to do some touch up bluing.

Just got done cleaning up 3000+ piece of .45 acp brass that I just aquired and my walnut shell media was starting to look pretty ratty. I have read about using plain white rice as cleaning media, it is cheap and would seem to do a good job of polishing.
So I filled up the vibrator with the rice, added a little Midway brass polish and will give it a try.

Any other ideas out there?????

So how did the rice work?

If the rice works... Costco has big (probably 50lb.) bags of rice. Since I don't like rice *that* much, I didn't bother to look at the price, but I'll bet it was cheap. And would probably last you quite a while.

I bet the polishing compound gave it a bitter aftertaste. Am I right?

I had thrown in a mixure of brass, 10mm, 45-70, 35 Whelen, and 475 Linebaugh, which none of it was that dirty. Seemed to work OK, but I don't see any advantage over the 1/8" corn cob media or walnut that can be both bought a local pet supply store for less than the labeled brass cleaner media. It did maybe seem to have less dust, but that will be hard to tell until I can run a bunch of brass through it. I now a started a load of 9mm which is dirty, so I will run it for awhile and see how it works.

I would think that could be fixed with a good Spanish rice recipe.

Is that the same way you clean your salmon?

I've been tempted to use brake cleaner to clean shotgun chokes; the buildup on them after a summer of skeet shooting is petty awful. Does it come in pressurized spray cans and dry clean? I've been pretty partial lately to Hoppe's spray cans -- dries clean with no residue and the spraying is good for blasting crud out of places hard to get brushes or rags squeezed into.

I think if you read any half-dozen gun forums you'll hear all kinds of stuff being used to clean brass. I replaced my media after about a year and 5-6k rounds and just bought more from John @ Gunstop. It's treated with some kind of solution and the brass comes out clean. I could save money and use other stuff, but I guess I think "Why?" I figure anything that lasts for a year and works well ought to be worth the trivial amount of money spent on it.

Same reasoning that people use for not reloading 9mm, it is too cheap to make it worth while to reload.

Yep, I still reload 9mm.

So, I broke my mower and my buddy the mechanic was helping me fix the engine. We had the non chlorinated brake cleaner (~$1.75 a big aerosol can at Wal Mart IIRC) and Carb cleaner. The carb cleaner definitely leaves a film. It was interesting the process we went through though. Take part off engine, spray liberally with Brake cleaner, Place in baggie. Buddy says it's the same process in reverse as we reassemble the engine. HAVE to keep the dirt out.

Anyway, in short. Spray brake cleaner is cheap and leaves no film. Carb cleaner can leave a film.

Reloaded 9mm is still much cheaper than even cheap factory ammo. As always, the "worth while" aspect might hinge on a source of brass, but I'd have to assume that once-fired 9mm brass should be available quite inexpensively.

Even if it was a pure break-even situation, once you get used to reloading you don't want to shoot factory ammo.

I make my own cleaning solution. Ed's Red is the famous homebrew, but you don't specifically have to go there.

Ed's Red is Auto Transmission fluid, acetone, paint thinner/coleman fuel, and kerosene.

I tweak this around, you can just use regular gasoline for paint thinner, and diesel for kero. I usually leave out the acetone, it can be harmful to plastics. I throw in things like Kroil, Hoppe's #9 (cheap by the quart), and 3-in-1 oil. Other things could be Marvel Mystery oil, and Rizlone.

I get a Mason jar with a tight fitting lid, and soak my barrels in there, prior to cleaning. Put some on a mop to clean the bore. Some on a patch, for slide parts, and rails. Q-tip and a tooth brush for hard to reach spots. Anything that's doesn't come, I scrape with a dental pick.

I have very clean guns.