Review of Hornady Sonic Cleaner

[jwrowland77]

Well, I got a new toy today and I just had to try it out. I searched and searched for some just nasty dirty brass. I decided to go ahead and decap my father-in-laws .45ACP brass since I hadn't don't anything with it, and yes I know that there's small and large primers in the pictures I'm about to post.

Here are some before pictures of the brass.


I didn't really know how much lemon shine to add to the water, so I did measure how much I added to the 2L And I was pretty happy with the results. They're nice and clean for sure.

I didn't use any pre-soak or anything like that.

I added 2 teaspoons of lemon shine and a couple drops of Dawn liquid soap. I didn't turn on the heat since I ran it the first time for 30 minutes. I decided to run it for another 10 minutes and it didn't really change anything. I'm sure I could have run it another 30 minutes and there may not have been any trace of anything on the brass.

The brass doesn't look brand new like straight out of a bag or anything, but they are pretty dang clean and I'm happy with the results.

Here are some after pictures of the results after cases got done.





The only other thing I did after I took the basket out of the sonic cleaner was dip them into some water.

I had a bin next to the cleaner with some water in it. I dipped the basket with the brass into the water and dipped it in and out to wash them off a bit. I swished them back and forth. After I was satisfied that the brass had been rinsed off a bit, I laid them out to dry. I don't know if I needed to rinse them off or not, but I decided to not take the chance and not do it.

All in all, two thumbs up. I'm extremely happy with it, and didn't have any dust fly around from the tumbler. The main reason I got it was because my daughter started reloading with me now, and I didn't really want to take the chance of her being around the dust particles when dumping the tumbler out to get the brass.

Looking forward to seeing how many .308 cases I can get in there. It states 150, but we shall see.

Hope y'all enjoy this little write up.

 

[Boho]

Its really nice using a US cleaner. Mine is one for washing surgical instruments etc, not a ammo name brand. I use a little dawn and powder citric acid. Then tumble in natural corn cob a little. The tumbling usually gets that last little bit out of the primer pocket. It also shines them up a little. When they are that clean it makes the inspection of unfamiliar range brass so much easier. Congrats on the new toy/tool!

 

[119er]

They do pretty well. I bet I haven't had brass in mine in a year or so. I will throw crusty milsurp parts or AR bolt parts in it though.

 

[jwrowland77]

Yeah, I'm thinking about trying out cleaning a few pistol parts just to see how it does.

 

[blarby]

They are handy if ya like the surgical clean !

Not that you need a heads up, but on your bottlenecks that you will inevitably try, a condensing jar works really good.

Oh, and all of that polish buildup on your cases is gone now, don't be surprised if you hear some new noises coming from your carbide dies when you size 'em.

Whenever I NEED to ultrasonic clean brass now, I size it first- then clean it.

 

[jwrowland77]

Hmmm, good to know.

I was wondering about that and them being clean. Had thought about running them trough the tumbler for 5 minutes to help put a little dust on them. So far, the only bottleneck I've done is the ones I plan on neck sizing only.

Most the time when I FL resize, I put a little lube on a q-tip and swab the inside on the neck a little. Hopefully that'll help a little on the FL resizing.

 

[Nordeste]

The whole point of buying an ultrasonic cleaner, for me, was that thing you mention about the dust containing primer and powder residue flying around the house. With the ultrasonic, all that is going down the toilet and when your brass hits the tumbler for polishing, it's just for that, to get it shiny (which your ultrasonic won't) and your media will last virtually for ever.

 

[119er]

Yeah, I'm thinking about trying out cleaning a few pistol parts just to see how it does.

I put my pistol slide, barrel, and spring/rod in the basket and stand the frame in it magazine well up. All the dirt will wipe away. I usually hose it with brake clean or just blow it dry depending on the gun. When the cylinders on my revolvers get real dirty it helps too. Those are a little more stubborn.

Oh, and all of that polish buildup on your cases is gone now, don't be surprised if you hear some new noises coming from your carbide dies when you size 'em.

I never made that connection. After load 7 on some 9mm brass I ultra sonic cleaned them. They were so difficult to resize that I had to lube them using Lee carbide dies. I scrapped them thinking that they had finally been work hardened to the point that they were difficult to resize! Seems kinda silly to think of it now! I have so much 9mm brass I didn't really care.