Sonic Case Cleaning

[wtfooptimax200]

Tumbling seems to be the most common approach to case cleaning, but it seems that sonic case cleaners have there place on the bench as well. Do you use them more for low volume, higher precision ammo? It seems as though they are not capable of handling super high volume production.

[marlin39a]

I've always used treated corncob over the last 35 years to get my cases clean. I recently bought the Hornady LnL 2L Sonic Cleaner. I don't use it for everything. Mainly for use on rifle cases as it cleans the inside as good as new allowing detailed inspection. After sonic cleaning I do polish in treated corncob for new looking brass.

[myg30]

I did the same as marlin39a, The sonic cleaning process is very time consuming and demands your presents. The unit runs for up to 8 mins at a time max I think.[ im old and forget]. The cleaning process I found on the web had several steps, so many cycles per step and if you forget to take out your brass after, you can wind up with PINK brass. The small amount of brass you can clean at one time made me use it for only rifle brass.
If you deprime first, your pockets will come out as clean as the rest of the case but the trade off of time is not really worth it to me.
Longer tumbling in fine corn cob will do about 99% of the same job and you can walk away, forget its running, use a timer if nessary.
A co worker of mine spent lots of $$ on the large sonic cleaner for his pistols,purchased as a kit from one of the ads in a gun magazine. He figured he would save time in break down, detail cleaning each part. He found out that after all the expense, a hopps nitro patch still came out dirty with a wipe down. He also tried other cleaning solutions other than what came with the kit. No luck there either.

If there is another solution, process that some one has found to be more useful, less time consuming, I'll take down my USC and try it again. Just FYI, I used the process I found on the 6mmBr forum I think.
Good luck, keep us posted if you find a good,less time consuming process.

Mike

[Doc Highwall]

Take a look at one of our sponsors above STI about case cleaning. I think you will be impressed.

[Stampede]

Okay there are a lot of unknows about sonic cleaners within the reloading community. To start with: I do work with sonic cleaners, tumblers (rotating and vibrating) and chemical cleaners on a daily and professional basis since 1990's. The regular sonic cleaners you can buy from reloading equipment manufactures is indeed limited to the amount of brass you can put in to it. Plus there are lot's of limitations of the cleaning additives that they sel with it. Is it bad stuff ==> absolutely not !!! Plus all the homemade cleaners (additives) are also not always up to the job as well.

For instance I use an industrial 8 gallon sonic cleaner with industrial cleaning solvents (the same combo's used by ammo manufactures like Lapua, Norma and Hornady). This cleans the most dirtiest brass within 10 minutes without any damage. The reason why: 1=> the industrial sonic cleaners are fully adjustable, like temperature, timer, sonic vibration. 2=> The addatives are high end and specifically formulated for the job at hand. Do you have this at home, no. Do you want to spend a couple of thousand bucks on equipment, no. See here the downside (or better: the limitations) of the sonic cleaners that you can buy form the well known reloading companies.

At this time I have seen only one sonic cleaner that comes close to a professional sonic cleaner: the Hornady Hot-Tub. In most cases you need a longer time to clean than advertised, you need to change the cleaning solution more often than advertised and the addatives are less powerfull than advertised. Just take this in consideration when you want to buy a sonic cleaner.

But when used correctly and when you have gained experiance you can clean your brass in short order and pretty darn clean (shiny like gold) with a regular sonic cleaner. I can recommend it.

Due to my extended professional experiance I only use a rotating tumbler with steel shot and a proper industial cleaner. This system defeat any other cleaning method hands down. Recently I did see a you-tube movie about a German guy who build his own system. Using an industial addative! For those do-it-your-self guys, this is great!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUihC...uOrvA&index=18

Just food for thought

Stampede

[farmallcrew]

My dad used sonic cleaner on pistol brass, makes it alot shinnier than a few hours in vibe tumbler. I was shocked. But when he bought it, he got a little one. So maybe ill have to get a bigger one so i can do alot of cases rather than waiting.