Tumble vs Ultra Sonic Cleaning

Basher81

Basher81

Member
EE Expired
Rating - 100%
2   0   0
Location
Calgary, Alberta
I am new to reloading and wondering what you guys think about tumblers vs ultrasonic cleaning. Is one better than the other. Does one produce a better looking case than the other. Which is easier to set up, run and maintain. Any other information that you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Basher
 
Save yourself some trouble and go directly to stainless steel media and a thumlers tumbler. Do a search and you can find some info on this product and yes it even brings old range brass back to new appearance.
 
SS media is more to start out with but well worth the expense.
I had a Lyman tumbler for year's but with the SS media the resulting cleaning is amazing!
Primer pocket's are scrubbed, internally also.With 4 hour's tumble you end up with brass that look's brand new.

DSCF1256.jpg


DSCF1257.jpg


DSCF1258.jpg


DSCF1259.jpg


DSCF1265.jpg
 
Everyone hates ultrasonic lol. I love mine. True my brass might not be shiny enough to shave in, but im putting it into a mag and making it dirty again not taking picks to show everyone how shiny it is lol. It takes me exactly 10min or less to clean 200 rounds in my ultrasonic. I asked my firearms if they mind brass that is not so shiny, and they said no lol.
 
I tried the ultrasonic method and it sucked IMO. But each time I post this, there's always someone raving about it, that's the best thing in town etc. They pretend to get excellent results but never post pictures to prove their succes,

So I went back with corncorb media until I went to the stainless steel media. It's simply the best. The only downside is you have to dry your cases after.
 
Antoine22 said:
I tried the ultrasonic method and it sucked IMO. But each time I post this, there's always someone raving about it, that's the best thing in town etc. They pretend to get excellent results but never post pictures to prove their succes,

So I went back with corncorb media until I went to the stainless steel media. It's simply the best. The only downside is you have to dry your cases after.
Click to expand...

Here is a pic of some 38 special after 10 min in the ultra sonic.

dcdab722.jpg


No doubt about it SS works and shines the brass like no other, however ultrasonic does the job and at an eighth of the price.

also does wonders on gun parts, try that in the thumlers (not knocking thumlers they are great). Ultrasonic works just fine if the shiniest brass on the block isnt your end goal.
 
I purchased the new Lyman sonic cleaner at WSS and the sonic cleaning solution. It works! I didn't expect it to be shiny but the solution really brightened things up and clean inside and out. The primer pockets are not 100% but 75% easily.
The greatest advantage is 3 cycles and it is done, about 20 minutes
 
Ok, SS Media does a great job! Ultrasonic looks good as well. No one has really said there was a difference in performance of either case cleaning method, so I guess it really comes down to ammo ####;) Price is really the deciding factor here. A full SS set up including tumbler, media and cleaning agent is $225 plus delivery. A decent sized Ultrasonic cleaner can be found on eBay for around $100 delivered.

762shooter said:
Where do you get SS media and what does it cost?
Click to expand...

www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com
 
Basher81 said:
Ok, SS Media does a great job! Ultrasonic looks good as well. No one has really said there was a difference in performance of either case cleaning method, so I guess it really comes down to ammo ####;) Price is really the deciding factor here. A full SS set up including tumbler, media and cleaning agent is $225 plus delivery. A decent sized Ultrasonic cleaner can be found on eBay for around $100 delivered.



www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com
Click to expand...

That and time it takes to clean. Add to that the fact you can use the ultrasonic to clean anything from the wife's jewelry to gun parts to an entire gun and you have what sold me on it. No fancy cleaning agents needed either I use dish soap and vinegar. Send the brass through my 14 dollar salad spinner and I'm reloading in the time it takes to use the SS method.
 
Reddogg,

What size is your Ultrasonic cleaner. I mean how big is the bowl and how many cases can you do at once.

I shoot in service rifle and pistol so I do go through a fair amount of ammo, not as much as other guys but probably would need around 2000 rounds of each 7.62x39 and 7.62x25 per year, about 300-400 .223 and then maybe 100 rounds each of .243, 30-30 and 30-06.

What about shotgun shells, I believe that the plastic hulls would be able to take a Ultrasonic bath?

Basher
 
i've been playing with using lemishine in my ultrasonic cleaner and it seems to work well with warm to hot water. 5mins, a quick shake and then another 5mins is all it takes. Haven't tried putting parts in there for cleaning just yet.
 
Antoine22 said:
I tried the ultrasonic method and it sucked IMO. But each time I post this, there's always someone raving about it, that's the best thing in town etc. They pretend to get excellent results but never post pictures to prove their succes,
Click to expand...

You obviously didn't have a clue about what you were doing :rolleyes:

Are these pics good enough for ya?

crazy_davey said:
Did a quick clean this morning on 70 cases. This is what they looked like before:

IMGP0376.jpg

IMGP0377.jpg

IMGP0378.jpg


After 20 minutes in the sonicator and here is how they looked:

Brass005.jpg

Brass006.jpg
Click to expand...
 
ya the ultrasonic cleaner may not make the brass as shiny as the tumbler, but we (well most people) that reload ammo try to bring down the cost so they can shoot more! with buying the tumbler, media, polish, electricity to run the tumbler for 4-8 hours (yes some people tumble for 8 hours or more), I would go for the ultrasonic cleaner.

5-10 minute cleaning in the ultrasonic is all it takes - less time, less money, more time to reloading, and more shooting! and that's what it's all about.
 
I also didn't like using the USonic. I got one of those $100 units on ebay, and found it to be underpowered. For brass cleaning, I had to go back to restart it every 480sec. Then, I had to switch from vinegar to water to rinse it. Any air exposure when going from vinegar to water caused purple-bluish marks. Most of all, I hated the amount of labour involved in cleaning a couple of hundred cases.

With stainless, I spent $35 for 5lb of SS shot used in sandblasting. I built my tumbler from spare parts, and the container is a $15 cooler from Walmart. That's all. When I come from work, I dump about 400 9mm cases into the cooler, add water, a squirt of dishwashing gel, and a pinch of Lemi-shine. I come back 3-4Hrs later, rinse, and set them in a wire basket to dry over an air vent. I always have at lest 2-3000 clean brass on hand, so how long it dries doesn't matter. This setup takes 15min of my time to have 400 cases cleaned.

I tried to use the USonic on gun parts, and saw almost no cleaning action. YMMV if you get a more powerful unit, or maybe mine is just a lemon, I can't really say.

The only use the US sees these days is for jewelery.
 
aridan said:
I also didn't like using the USonic. I got one of those $100 units on ebay, and found it to be underpowered. For brass cleaning, I had to go back to restart it every 480sec. Then, I had to switch from vinegar to water to rinse it. Any air exposure when going from vinegar to water caused purple-bluish marks. Most of all, I hated the amount of labour involved in cleaning a couple of hundred cases.

With stainless, I spent $35 for 5lb of SS shot used in sandblasting. I built my tumbler from spare parts, and the container is a $15 cooler from Walmart. That's all. When I come from work, I dump about 400 9mm cases into the cooler, add water, a squirt of dishwashing gel, and a pinch of Lemi-shine. I come back 3-4Hrs later, rinse, and set them in a wire basket to dry over an air vent. I always have at lest 2-3000 clean brass on hand, so how long it dries doesn't matter. This setup takes 15min of my time to have 400 cases cleaned.

I tried to use the USonic on gun parts, and saw almost no cleaning action. YMMV if you get a more powerful unit, or maybe mine is just a lemon, I can't really say.

The only use the US sees these days is for jewelery.
Click to expand...

Sounds like to me you had a POS sonicator. See my above post, those cases came that clean in 20 minutes and I generally don't even do them that long to get the same results.
 
crazy_davey said:
Sounds like to me you had a POS sonicator. See my above post, those cases came that clean in 20 minutes and I generally don't even do them that long to get the same results.
Click to expand...
I hear you. My son is considering getting a Hornady unit for himself - he doesn't want to be bothered cleaning guns by hand. :rolleyes:

As for my unit, I wish there was a way to get a replacement transducer to see if this cures the problem.

What do you use for gun parts? Same water+dishwashing liquid? I tried that, then tried ballistol+water, even Ed's Red (made a big mess) - nothing seemed to work...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom