Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading

RCBS Ultrasonic Case Cleaner ordered

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abbafandr:

--- Quote from: unfy on March 28, 2013, 03:25:23 AM ---so far, first experience leaves me happy with the unit.

--- End quote ---
Kinda thought of getting something like this, ultrasonic anyhoo.
About how many brass could be cleaned at a time, 9mm or 357?

unfy:
The Hornady Magnum is similar, orientated differently, two transducers, blah blah blah...

Tank Capacity: 3 liter (3.2 quart)

Tank Dimensions: 9.4" x 5.5" x 3.9" Bowl Capacity: Up to 400 - 223 Remington Cases or 200 - 308 Cases

So they're similarly sized.

I had 373 40s&w cases in the basket, comes out to either 1/4 or 1/3rd of a gallon of cases. It's possible that was a bit much, it's possible they were really caked... blah blah blah.  There was a great ratio of really clean cases to just-clean-but-a-bit-cakey to still-fairly-cakey for case webbing and primer pocket cake.

edit:

I dunno if I'm gonna keep tumble cleaning and sonic clean sporadically on plinky pistol cases or just switch to full ultrasonic.

The extra time spent depriming cases kinda defeats purpose of plinky quick and cheap stuff.

You can sonic with the spent primers still in the cases, but need to thoroughly rinse cases and ultrasonic device afterwards to get rid of corrosive stuff.  Haven't tried that yet to see how it does.

00BUCK:
What I have found with my Hornady Magnum is - less is more. I can fit ~400 9mm cases but I have found that about 200 is about right. If you have them packed tight they aren't going to get as clean - there needs to be some wiggle room.

In the Magnum it's not a big deal - mix the solution, set it to 135 degrees for 40 minutes and walk away. When they are done I rinse them well and dry them in the oven on a cookie sheet @ ~200 degrees.

After two batches are cleaned if I still have more to do I pour the used solution through a coffee filter (with a coffee filter basket from a dead Mr. Coffee) into an old pitcher I've marked for just this purpose. The solution doesn't weaken chemically but with a lot of crud in the bottom of the cleaner and crud suspended in the solution it loses some cleaning ability. After I wipe out the sonic cleaner I pour the filtered solution back into the cleaner with the next batch of brass and top off with water.

That said, I still start the process with tumbling the brass for a couple hours then deprime/resize. I like my brass really shiny  but that's more personal preference than anything else. The benefit to doing this first is the primer pockets get cleaned well during ultrasonic cleaning.

unfy:
Yeah, I'm aware 'less is more' for the ultrasonic stuff.  I just wanted to try a huge batch to see what it was like at first -- since I know smaller batches work great when I was fiddling with the little Lyman.

They came out clean, although not all were 'ultrasonic clean' hehehe.

I dunno if I'll be bothering with a coffee filter or not... since my 'solution' is just vinegar and distilled water :).  Dirt cheap.  I can prolly try it to see what I think....

I'll have to try primers-left-in as well.  This way it's just a quick clean for pistol brass.

Lastly, for the pistol brass, doing tumble clean for 5 reloads then a sonic clean for one to get crud out... then back to tumbles... don't seem like a bad idea.  This way ya don't blow the time depriming hundreds of pistol brass before each reload (more so of an annoyance when working with a full progressive press).

I'll re-load up some of my sonic-only brass and see what I think of it.  I know I like shiny purty cases too... so... the slightly foggy sonic only might just rub me the wrong way although it don't matter from a practicality stand point heh.

For rifle rounds, I'll be depriming & sonicing every time.  Just cause.

I'll continue to post opinions and 'success/fail' of the RCBS machine as I progress. 

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