Brand new shiney brass shell casings look real pretty in an open AFV model. But in reality just how pretty and shiney were they? Did they tend to tarnish to what color? Were they usually smeared with grease or something to prevent the tarnish or to facilitate loading?

What are we talking here, machine gun and small arms ammo or larger caliber shells? I can post some pictures of fired .50 caliber and 40mm and 5.56. Small arms ammo is pretty shiny, usually with discoloration around the neck due to the annealing process in manufacturing. It stays that way unless it's been on the ground a long time and it starts to corrode but you'd be hard pressed to find that on a vehicle. I can't speak for large caliber gun ammo, but for small arms you should not add oil to the brass. The way small arms ammo works is when it's fired, the brass shell casing expands slightly sealing the chamber. When you add oil it can increase the chamber pressure so it's not a good practice to oil your rounds, besides it's very unnecessary. Linked machine gun ammunition however, I always cleaned and sometimes added a light coat of lube to the links if they needed it as they are just parkerized steel and rust quickly.

Sorry. I meant larger calibers such as 50mm and up. Specifically 88 mm or 17lb as seen in open top AFV's such as Nashhorns, Archers, etc. Even when just removed from their boxes or tubes for reloading AFV's, were they still factory fresh and shiney or should that shine be dulled with a wash?

For Tank rounds i can only imagine they went through them very quickly during WWII so its easy to assume they would appear shiny, brass does not tarnish very quickly. i know Germans also used steel due to the shortage of brass and they were coated them with a varnish to prevent rust and allow easier loading and extracting (rear obturation and blow back into the turret was the draw back). American rounds i believe for the most part were shipped in airtight tar coated containers in boxes, Germans did not do this but they didn't spend weeks at sea either, i guess. so for the most part i would say yes to shiny brass

I have several 60+ year old 25 pdr & 105mm casings that are still basically brass coloured. They have dulled a bit and discoloured, but there are no "green" corrosion spots except inside on the primer cage where the oxide products & heat of firing have accellerated the corrosion.

These would tart up nicely with 5 minutes work & a dab of Brasso, so I'd say anything inside of 5 years old would be pretty shiny and even after than only be a bit dull.

I can imagine that right out of the ammo box they wouldn't be quite as shiny as a Brassoed buckle, but just a slight tad duller. Imagine the difference between a piece of copper pipe at Home Depot and the end of that pipe after you've abraded it prior to soldering. Most of the brass paints may be a tad too bright, but a thin light wash of a smoke or dark brown would probably take it down to where it needs to be.

HTH

Paul

I think the previous have hit almost everything - keep them pretty clean and shiny while unfired. I would be pretty sure that crew were actually instructed to wipe down casings in racks whenever they appeared to get dirty - and never into the gun muddy. You could get an aweful jam and some other drama were that to happen!

When these big guns are fired, they, just like the smaller rifle and MG, heat and expand the case, as noted prior. This heating anneals and often darkens the mouth end of the casing.

As all of these big guns used "smokeless" propellents and not black powder, there would be very little smoke sooting on a casing.

Brass casings would not ever be actually corroded or "oxidized" (blue-green verdigris on brass) in use - this happens only with exposure to corrosive agents and / or a long time (air contains sulfuric compounds and water...).

You can create the proper heat-burnished and annealed look around the mouth of a real brass casing by sticking the mouth end into a stove flame or other clean flame (butane lighter, etc.) and heating the end a little. IF you use a candle, you'll want to clean the soot off. This heating will create that varied discoloration seen on real brassies. A little thin brown wash would do this on a painted styrene "brassie" (or maybe stick THAT into the flame "until it gently incandesces" ).

Cheers!

Bob

Brass wouldn't tarnish that quickly, but it wouldn't be shiny either. Keep in mind that shiny/glossy brass isn't going to look right in 1/35 scale. A brass color that is flat should work fine for what you want to do.

Thanks for all your great replies.

Have a look at this great review/build up of brass AFV Club shells

http://www.amps-armor.org/ampssite/reviews/showReview.aspx?ID=2035&Type=FB

Look the video 1:56-2:10 (57mm ammo, brass):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Dj2noEkec

The cartridges come in a wooden box, no surface treatment, coated (burning it), the sleeves are black sooty after shot after re-used, in front of a hot paraffin oil bathed him and cleaned off the soot.

40mm ammo rounds color :



(USMC Gunnery Sgt. (retired) R. Lee Ermey loading a 40mm Bofors with Air Force Master Sgt. Randy Scanian, 16th Special Operations Squadron, on-board an AC-130H. 12/17/2008. Photograph taken by Greg Mitchell)

HTH

Frenchy

Here's some more visual food for thought on the fired-brassies question!

Please see the following pics of spent big-gun brass casings scrounged from various web-sites - note the heat annealing and the little soot left by typical modern propellents (same propellents as used in WWII big guns / tank and AT guns).

Looking at these modern pics will at least reduce the long-term exposure impact on the casing appearance!

1) From a modern 105mm howitzer:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/spent-105mm-artillery-shell-casings-lay-used-on-the-ground-news-photo/90334137

These casings had the modern thin greenish-tinted lacquer sealant applied - much of which is burnt off during firing.

2) From a modern ex-Sov 130mm GP gun in Pakistan: Note this type is the slightly-necked form more like a high-velocity (and higher chamber-pressure) tank gun than like the howitzer casings above. There is more blow-back and some sooting on these, along with the heat annealing. Note that you can still see the lacquer info stencils!

http://newshopper.sulekha.com/pakistan_photo_538819.htm

3) Here are some Sov 152 howitzer casings being man-handled during training. Note the small amount of sooting and annealing associated with these lower-pressure howitzer rounds. These rounds actually started into the gun as bright brass - apparently (from other pics on the site) not coated with a lower-reflection tinted lacquer!

http://i41.tinypic.com/dzfgit.jpg

Cheers!

Bob

If you buy the brass rounds, give them a wash with terpentine + matt black, and the brightness of the brass color will fade a bit. You can try out the darkness of the wash, and if you get it too dark, just wash them in clean terpetine, and they'll be as good as new.
Best regards
Jacob