Ultrasonic case cleaning without the vinegar?

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Just wondering if anyone is using their ultrasonic cleaners with just some water and a bit of soap and if its working ok at getting the powder residue off of the casings or if that vinegar and discoloration really is a must.

Place I worked at a few years ago had a fairly large ultrasonic and we used it to clean lots of stainless parts, water and soap always worked fine for our needs. So I'm wondering if its just that the little units sold for case cleaning are just a lot weaker or if the vinegar is really what's doing most of the cleaning action to get the power off of brass?


thanks
 
Industrial units are much stronger then made for the gun market units.

soap and water will do okay, I use it from time to time (use distiller water). However in my opinion it is not effective as the solutions available
 
I hadn't even thought of the solutions sold for it, only saw a few videos/reviews of guys using vinegar and soap but the brass had some discoloration. I take it the sonic solution like One shot doesn't give any issues with that or slight brass corrosion ?

I'm considering it vs stainless pin tumbling. I likely won't do high quantity, maybe 50-100 cases at a time.
 
Any tips on who's got the best deals on little ultrasonics in Canada? checked a bit the board sponsors but didn't notice any listed on their sites. Local place only had 1 crappy little unit I'm not interested in.

thanks again
 
I've found that after running a few 8-minute cycles with vinegar/water/dish soap, that one cycle with baking soda neutralizes the acid from the vinegar and doesn't discolor my brass.
 
Ended up ordering a Branson 2510 with heater and all that, much smaller than the one from where I worked but in the end figured I might as well get a more industrial grade unit, it goes on the business anyhow as I'll use it to clean a bunch of small parts I make and should do good with the brass as well. They got some cleaning solution that's gonna come with it so I might check how it does with cleaning brass.
 
Citric acid works well in a SC as well.

If you are looking for a more powerful industrial style US cleaner have a look at this site.

ht tp://www.coleparmer.ca/Category/Ultrasonic_Cleaners/24445/SortBy=3_RecordsPerPage=50_Page=1
 
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Oh another little tip for the ultrasonic.
Mine has a wire basket with holes a little too big for the brass.
So I put the brass in a mesh bag of the type that oranges come in.
 
I've tried a bunch of homemade recipes I found on the net with mine and honestly nothing has worked as well for mine as the hornady one shot solution. I use a few cap fulls and fill to the line on the ultrasonic with water. I have only changed the solution twice so far and have cleaned about 300 .338 Lapua brass cases in it. All the junk settles to the bottom of the tank and I find it dosent hurt the cleaning at all just leaving the dirt in there and the brass comes out all shiny. I have a Lyman ultrasonic machine.
 
Anyone test if there's much difference in performance between the Lyman turbo sonic solution vs the Hornady One Shot? didn't find Oneshot local yet but one place has the lyman stuff, just not sure if its different or if its the same stuff in a different bottle.

thanks
 
the hornady model is a cheap ultrasonic unit that you can buy on ebay, with a hornady sticker on it for 3x the price... do yourself a favor and don't buy a hornady US cleaner, they dont make those cleaners, they just buy from china and put a sticker on it.
 
I think if you have only small batches of brass to do it might be OK, but definitely not if you have to do a lot of brass.
 
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