The Gun Counter

Furthering my reloading habit, I've started saving all of my rifle brass and cleaning it. I just spent a good portion of time dumping cleaning media out of 81 .223 Remington cases. There was a significant amount left in each case, enough to cover the cake pan I use for final sifting with a thin layer of media. I figured there would be a little in each case but some of them were packed up to the shoulder.

I think it's time to invest in a small ultrasonic cleaner for rifle brass. My current cleaner is fine for pistol brass, though. Shakes like a champ.

I bought one of the Hornady units on sale earlier this year for cleaning small parts, and I was kind of disappointed in its performance. I have not really heard good things about them for cleaning brass, either. Wet tumbling with stainless pins seems to be the hot setup nowadays.

Nothing to add to the reloading conversation as I don't participate in rolling my own. But I have a simple Magnasonic (I think I bought it at Horror Freight) that does wonders on small pistol parts, BCGs, etc. IIRC, it was $30 or so. A little Simple Green purple and some distilled water does the trick.

Earlier Topic

I don't know anyone really happy with ultrasonic cleaners for brass. Some supplemental reading linked.

Assuming the use of corn cob or walnut media,

You need one of these, one of these and one of these.

A little vigorous shaking and your brass will be virtually media free. Put the lid on the bucket and your media is stored for the next time.

This isn't a quiet method (it makes my ears ring during the vigorous shaking part), but it is cost effective and efficient.

Eh, maybe it's too much effort to change up what I've got now. What I have works.

I too, want an ultrasonic cleaner but for entirely different reasons, namely cleaning tools like collets. I'd really like one big enough to do barreled actions, but the price on those new are astronomical, like 6 grand +, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen the big ones for sale used, with fingers left over.

Now, if all you want to do is clean brass, the current hot shit setup for doing that is a rotary tumbler, stainless pins, and lemishine. It does a better job, faster, than anything else. About the only people who use ultrasonic these days are the suckers falling prey to marketing, and some of the br crowd worrying about their very expensive brass, but then, theyre commonly using cheap small jewelry/industrial machines off ebay, because they're cleaning tiny lots of brass.

My technique which I assume is not uncommon.

dump brass in vibrating tumbler with walnut media
add 1 generous tablespoon of turtle wax buffing compound
spin lid tight, turn on and walk away for 2-4 hours (or overnight if I forget to set a timer)
turn off, remove lid check for shiny
insert earplugs, remove drain plug and place catch pan for media draining
turn tumbler back on
run fingers through brass to up end cases as it shakes
over about two minutes remove top most brass and up end on the way out.
Turn off tumbler, re-insert plug, pour media back in
I never have any significant amount of media in my brass.

Then lube and deprime / resize brass.
If you deprime it first, HOLY CRAP every other case has a plugged primer hole.
Did that ONCE thinking it would clean the primer pockets. WRONG

Not including the tumbling time, I would guess the hands on part of the cleaning process is 10 minutes or less

SS pins do a better job, including cleaning the primer pockets, and dont have a plugging issue PROVIDED you use the correct size pins. It also benefits from lower consumable costs (all you really need is lemishine, and thats sold in every walmart in the US). The downside is significantly higher up front costs, the pins cost between 50 and a 100 bucks above and beyond the cost of a rotary tumbler.

Now that friends and family are getting more into ARs I'm considering an ultrasonic cleaner as well; from all I've heard its the best (if not only) way to get the BCG really clean without tons of work. But I don't really have an issue with the old walnut media in the vibratory cleaner for brass. Even if its been deprimed, I've never had trouble with the media clogging inside the case (I don't reload the weenie stuff though) and a pass with a sizer die with depriming pin has always knocked any remaining media out of the pocket.