Ultrasonic Cleaners

[skeeter355]

I have seen a few guys mentioning ultrasonic cleaners for cleaning their brass. I am looking for a larger one so I might be able to use it for gun parts also. Has anyone had experience with either the Hornaday line or Lyman?

Thanks, Skeeter

 

[Gene Poole]

Re: Ultrasonic Cleaners

The Hornady is just a rebadged version of the same one many companies are selling as jewelry cleaners etc. I suspect that lyman is too, but I've not seen one up close. The Hornady I used had no heater and was very small. A cheap Chinese unit from Harbor Freight is bigger and has a heater (and mine came with the option for a 2 year unconditional replacement warranty which because of some fuzzy math at HF, by accepting knocked more off the price than the warranty cost).

I have a thin glass tray that I use in mine to clean gun parts. I use straight mineral spirits in the tray and a tap water bath around it. It'll hold a disassembled 1911 or so but not much more. I haven't tried it with mineral spirits in the main chamber as I don't really know how that will affect the rest of the system, but it works well with the tray of mineral spirits.

http://www.harborfreight.com/25-liter-ultrasonic-cleaner-95563.html

 

[gunsnjeeps]

Re: Ultrasonic Cleaners

The Lyman is the Harbor Freight cleaner for more money. In Lyman's defense they do have a stainless basket with the cleaner that they also sell seperately for $15.

The harbor freight cleaner works well with a couple of drops of Dawn and a shake of Lemishine.

 

[RingingSteel]

Re: Ultrasonic Cleaners

1+ on the Harbor Freight machine.

 

[adam3999]

Re: Ultrasonic Cleaners

Maybe mine was a dud, but this Harbor Freight unit was just about worthless for me and I ended up returning it. After numerous 8-minute cycles, my brass was clean but primer pockets were still filthy. Cleaning these pockets was the main reason for the purchase so I was disappointed. A standard tumbler with walnut media gave my brass much more of a shine, but alas, I'm still back to manually cleaning primer pockets.

 

[ToKeepAndBear]

Re: Ultrasonic Cleaners

I have the Hornady Magnum US cleaner. It does an excellent job of cleaning the inside and the primer pockets. Will hold almost a hundred rounds of 308. It has 2 US units + a heater. It is also all stainless steel, no plastic. I feel that it is a very high quality unit. You can program it for up to 99 minutes I believe.

Hornady also sells a gun parts cleaner that I have not used yet. I plan on trying it on filthy AR bolts.

 

[Griffin4590]

Re: Ultrasonic Cleaners

Speed aside, do you guys feel like you get better results from ultrasonic of SS media?

 

[Leaddog]

Re: Ultrasonic Cleaners

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Griffin4590</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Speed aside, do you guys feel like you get better results from ultrasonic of SS media? </div></div>

I've run both. Stainless steel wins every time.