Thread: Ultra sonic cleaners

What do ppl think on ultra sonic cleaners? I want to do about 100 .308 brass as a batch. Wifey has a lot of arty type jewelry (copper etc) so I have a "go" on that,



If they work.......

Anyone got one of these?

ULTRASONIC CLEANER 2.5 Lt HEATED | Trade Me

or these,

Extreme Sonic Cleaner

I love them.
I didn't bother with a heated one, as it only takes 15 min (2 cycles) for me to be satisfied.

Best results come from depriming first, which gets rid of air bubbles inside the cases.
I add hot water and teaspoon of citric acid (from the baking section at the supermarket).
Cycle and rinse after.
I then anneal the cases after being cleaned, as it dries the cases out at the same time.

@dogmatrix, Cool, yeah I decap and visually check first anyway, in which case if no heater the $99 one looks good enough.

EZ Sonic Cleaner

Might ponder a bit, I usually find we end up loading as 2 or 3 ppl each doing a stage then swapping about, but $100 saved is a $100 on some other goodie...like a second press.

Originally Posted by steven

@dogmatrix, Cool, yeah I decap and visually check first anyway, in which case if no heater the $99 one looks good enough.

EZ Sonic Cleaner

Might ponder a bit, I usually find we end up loading as 2 or 3 ppl each doing a stage then swapping about, but $100 saved is a $100 on some other goodie...like a second press.

I use one of those, does 25-30 243 cases in a batch. There is a thread on it in the reloading section. Picked it up for $50. I find the liquid heats up anyway during use so doesn't need a heater. I can do 3-4 batches on a fill of the liquid.

@gagetman, ok thanks for the quantity info, 25 is a bit light 20~24 is the min 308 I'd expect to use in a week (thank god it only costs me 64cents a reload), to do 100 would mean an hour wait if its 15min a load....mind you the next size up is double the price so I could get a second later.....what liquid are you using?

Originally Posted by dogmatix

Deprime first with depriming die.
Sonic cleaner with hot water and half teaspoon of citric acid.
Rinse and dry, all done.
Spotless inside cases and in the primer pockets.

Trick to to make sure there is no air trapped in the cases.

Got this from another thread. I remember reading it a while ago and when you ask it came straight to me if only I worked like this at school eh

Originally Posted by steven

Wifey has a lot of arty type jewelry (copper etc) so I have a "go" on that,

That is a ticket to the biggest best cleaner money can buy

mines heated, a lyman. i can do about 36 7mm magnum cases in a one litre glass beaker. standing up, primer pocket down. the trick that seems to help is run the solution by itself for a few cycles. i use a lactic acid, it works well.

@sako75, LOL sure is....now how do I do that with a sako...."oow isnt it shiney" wont cut it....

:?

I've gone through all kinds of different methods to clean brass. After years of old fashioned vibratory cleaning, I thought I'd give ultrasonic cleaning a try back in 2007. At the time there weren't any ultrasonic cleaners available from the big reloading supply stores that I was aware of, so I approached it from a jewelry/mechanic angle. Initially I got a jewelry cleaner, which is pretty much an OEM version of what Hornady and RCBS now sell. It was easy to clean .223 and .308, but my .338 and .408 brass was in seriously small batches.

The process can be slow as you don't run them for hours like you do vibratory cleaners. I had to run mine about 20 minutes at a time, then give them a short break, wherein I'd often change the water. They can be really picky about the water to brass ratio and don't even think of using tap water. The results I got were pretty amazing, compared to what I was used to with vibratory cleaning, especially since the inside and primer pocket were spotless. Drying out the brass wasn't a big deal in the dry California air, but if I was doing it here I'd use an HVAC with some compressed air to flash the water off. Some guys clean them in the oven on low heat.

One of the downsides of this was that, as much as I liked the results, it was just too damned slow. Also, ultrasonic cleaners are annoyingly noisy. Unless you've heard one, I can't really describe it. Either way, I decided to invest in a larger, even more industrial cleaner with the intent of using it to clean AR parts and whatnot. But after 2 years of this I was still a bit frustrated. So when Stainless Steel Media first hit the streets, I thought I'd give it a try. All I can say is that it's got all the benefits of ultrasonics without most of the hassles. Think of it as vibratory cleaning but it gets clean inside the case and primer pockets. You still have to deal with drying them off, but it's easy to dump all of my range brass in the tumbler, let it go for a few hours without the nails on chalkboard sound of the ultrasonic, then sort and dry the brass.