Sonic Brass/Parts Cleaner Set-Ups...any good?

[REDLINE]

I used to use the little gemstone tumbler like yours years ago, but it wasn't big enough to suite my needs and as it got older it started jumping off the rubber or belt would come off. 

The RCBS Sonic cleaner at the bottom of the cleaners above is what I use and it has heater for 4 temp ranges, the largest transducer of all of them, time and etc. It cleans the barrels of my 1911 like they were never fired. Not sure why the lead seems to longer, and brass looks like new afterward will all carbon gone inside and out. Most brass I have had in it at one time was 300+ outdoor range brass that was in bad shape. With this set up you can drain the fluid like I do thru a coffee strainer and reuse it and get a lot more use out of the cleaning solution.

Thanks!  That's enough said that I'm going to get one as my very first brass cleaning setup.  Not sure which one yet, but I like what you said about the RCBS unit and will compare all others just by their specs and general advertising and make a choice at some point.

Thanks again!

Any further comments are certainly still welcome.

[gandog56]

I'm currently in a brass swap with a guy who offered to run them through his sonic cleaner first. We'll see how it compares against the brass cleaning of my rotary.

[REDLINE]

I'm interested in hearing about it.  But I would also like to know the specific sonic cleaner he's going to use.

[Retired Squid]

Depending on cleaner used, if any, you might want to run them in tumbler for a few minutes to polish them up. The cleaning solution I use really leaves nickel looking bad, but a few minutes in tumbler and they look new. Scared the crap out of me first time, thought it ruined them, but few minutes in tumbler and they looked like new. One reason I was never keen about using a sonic cleaner and waited so long to get one was what if effect, if any, the residue would have on the powder. That worry went away with a couple of semi-pro shooters I know using the sonic tanks w/o any problems, one rinses his finished cases in tap water and other guy using same cleaner I use just air dry's the cases on big towel on work bench. So being old and looking for less work it is what I doing and so far no problems of any kind.

The only thing I didn't like about the gem tumbler you have is when I was using it I was not reloading handgun brass, only rifle brass and that meant IIRC only about 10 or 15 being cleaned at a time. The cleaning ability was not any better then my big tumbler I use now, but the ability of doing couple hundred 38 Supers or 10mm at a time is very nice. I also use the Flitz case polish that really slicks them up, without the ammonia like in car polish that causes them to tarnish bad.   

One must remember that this cleaning of cases is pretty much an individual taste as to how you clean them and how much cleaning is done to the cases. Over the last 50 years of reloading I gone from only removing excess carbon from primer hole with hand tool and no internal cleaning of cases to where I am now and only thing it seems to have effected is I no longer have to use a ton of case lube on pad for the cases and the crap getting on everything and requiring me to wipe all the finished cases off with towel. Also back no nitrile gloves to keep all the lead, powder and grease off my hands until recent years. And none of this extra cleaning seems to have improved accuracy to any measurable degree for general hunting or target shooting shooters, maybe to competition shooters where they shoot 600 to 1000 yards or measuring bullet groups to a hundredth of an inch.

Sometimes I think it's just about having a lot of nice toys to play with.   

I forgot to say that the most important thing in any sonic cleaner is the transducer or sonic generator as some call it. At time I bought mine it had most power of any of the small units sold, but 6 months later someone may make one with more power.

[gandog56]

I'm interested in hearing about it.  But I would also like to know the specific sonic cleaner he's going to use.

Well, I'll ask him when I get them. If they are nowhere near cleaned like the rotary I do have, I'm not going to bother.

[REDLINE]

I'm interested in hearing about it.  But I would also like to know the specific sonic cleaner he's going to use.

Well, I'll ask him when I get them. If they are nowhere near cleaned like the rotary I do have, I'm not going to bother.

Sounds good.

Though it would still be nice to know which one to stay away from if the cases didn't come out looking as good, in case I still decided to go forward with a different brand/model.

[gandog56]

These are from batch #2 of my wet rotary. As you can see, the brass was in pretty bad shape before cleaning.
Before:


After:


Better view of the primer pocket on one: