Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading

Lead Contamination Concern: Drying brass in a clothes dryer

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OnTheFly:
I have been using my Hornady Sonic Cleaner with the Hornady brass cleaning solution.  After straining the brass in a colander, I put the clean brass in an old bath towel and agitated it by hand until I was confident the brass did not have any large drops of water in them.  Then I laid them out to dry overnight.  My basement is pretty dry, and when I cam back to them the next day they appeared to be dry.  However, I want to be sure. 

I had read that others used an oven at a low temperature to dry sonic cleaned cases thoroughly, but I would never put any potentially lead contaminated components into something we use for cooking.  So I bought a $40 convection oven from Wallyworld to bake them in.  Before I put the oven into action, it dawned on me that maybe I could use our clothes dryer.  Before you get a crazy image in your head of brass freely tumbling around in a dryer, I must tell you that I have a plastic rack for the dryer that is used to dry items you do not want to tumble.  I figured that I could put them on a dedicated baking sheet and place that on the dryer rack.

My concern is lead contamination.  Even though the air is vented outside, my initial thought is that this might be a bad idea due to lead contamination in the dryer that could/would transfer to clothing.

Any thoughts?

Fly 

SemperFiGuy:
Hair Blow Dryer Works Beautifully.

sfg

OnTheFly:

--- Quote from: SemperFiGuy on August 08, 2013, 01:42:45 PM ---Hair Blow Dryer Works Beautifully.

sfg
--- End quote ---

I thought about that too, but I'm looking for something that would allow me to start the drying process and walk away to do other things.  Doing it right is paramount, but time savings is a close second.

How long does it take with a hair dryer?

Fly

bkoenig:
I put them in a tin foil roasting pan in the oven, with the door cracked on the lowest setting, and with a baking sheet on the rack below to keep the cases from getting overheated.  Takes an hour or so.

Or, I just leave them out for a few days and nature takes care of it for me.

jonm:
A dedicated food dehydrator also works well from what I've read

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