Im new to ultrasonic case cleaning

Likely the solution you used . I have never used a ultra sonic cleaner but some use lemi shine in pin tumbler.

First off, Jewelry grade ultra sonics are the weakest units out there. They are designed that way on purpose so they won't vibrate the set loose on precious gems in rings and necklaces. I wouldn't dare clean my wifes jewelry in my 6 liter unit. I have a little one for her stuff.
Second, the only solution you should be using for cleaning ammo cases is Citric acid and some dish soap like Dawn. Some people use car detergent like Armor All wash & wax.
Just a wisp of a squirt of the soap.
The Citric Acid should be no more than 1 teaspoon per two liters of water. Any more than that and you will discolor the brass from what ever is touching it unless it's stainless steel. Then it won't stain.
Don't use anything with ammonia in it. It will ruin the brass.

What solution did you use?

I use Lemi Shine booster (one teaspoon/2liters of water) and some dish soap to see if your cases will come clean. You can buy it at Wally World, just make sure it's the booster.

Most jewelry cleaners only hold about a quart of water at the most so figure a 1/2 teaspoon of Lemi-Shine per quart and you should be good for brass cases in your ultrasonic cleaner.
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At least that will tell you if your ultra sonic has enough wattage to clean brass cases.

Most of the sounders that are used in ultrasonic cleaners are 60 watts/sounder. More powerful units just have more sounders.
My 6L has 3 so it's a 180 watt/ with 200 watt heater. It does a good job and I paid $109.00 for it from Amazon. They have a good variety of them.
The baskets that come with them suck though. You need to put a finer mesh Stainless Steel screen in them so cases don't fall through the squares.
I use a deep fryer basket I took the handle off of. It works pretty good.

Dump your cases in and shake the basket up and down and 9mm, 40s, 45s will stand right up in the basket, that put the hardest part to clean (primer pockets) on the bottom and lets them draft up through.

One thing you will find out with an ultrasonic cleaning of brass, if you clean them ever time you shoot them, they will come clean every time.
if you skip cleaning them a few times, they can be hard to clean up.
My brass comes out of mine very clean.
Ultra sonic cleaners work good enough if you take the time to learn how to use them.
I only put enough cases in mine that they will fill the bottom of the basket when shook up and down to make them stand vertically. That's when they clean the best. About 200 cases in mine.
those are right out of the cleaner.
Not all the primer pockets will come clean, like I said if I clean them every time I shoot them they come clean, primer pockets and all.
If I pick up someone that doesn't clean their brass when they reload it, they won't come clean, they will be stained.

You need a stainless steel pin wet tumbler for cleaning the worst of the worst.

Doesn't happen often that I can't get them clean, but I throw out the ones that won't come clean because they have been shot the most.
Once fired brass comes squeaky clean, inside and out. They come out looking like factory new brass.
The more they have been shot the darker they get inside. But they are clean.
These took 7 minutes to clean in my ultrasonic cleaner, then rinse them in the sink and set them out to dry.

I was at the local Bass Pro Shop a couple years ago and wanted to improve my case cleaning. I purchased a Hornady ultrasonic case cleaner and a Lyman vibratory case cleaner. I bought the Hornady ultrasonic solution and followed the directions. I was replacing a no name vibratory cleaner I bought at a gun show 20 plus years ago. It died.

Bottom line the Lyman vibratory case cleaner does a better job by far, the Hornady unit seems to do nearly nothing.

https://www.harborfreight.com/25-liter-ultrasonic-cleaner-63256.html

That's a 60 watt, single transducer ultrasonic cleaner plus 100watt heater. That makes the 160 watts. That costs $90.00.
I don't know what's in a jewelry cleaner but my Lyman is the same as the Harbor Freight unit and I used it for 10 years before buying a higher powered model. It was undersized and underpowered though.
I would suggest starting out with the higher powered model but like I said, the baskets will need a little finer screen put in them because the squares in the basket are big enough to let a 9mm fall through them.
The bigger the holes in the basket the better it will clean though.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089YRHR3...aWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&th=1

Here is a 3 tranducer machine that costs $120.00 plus shipping unless you know someone that has prime. This is what I use now.
180 watts 3 transducer, and 300 watt heater. Big difference in performance.

Solution is just as important than the wattage of the unit though.

I'm not going to try to sell you on an ultrasonic cleaner.
You have to make that decision, I will try to explain the best I can.
If you want an all around cleaner that will clean anything you put in it and make it look new again, you need to look at the wet tumblers that use stainless steel pins. They take a lot longer to clean but it's not like we're standing there watching them the whole time. They are a pita to clean up after but they get the results.

My ultrasonic took 7 minutes to clean the brass in the pictures in my last post. I dump them in an old collander in my sink and rinse them.
Lay them out to dry and I done. The strong solution of Citric Acid will chelate the molecular lead in the priming compound and what ever residual lead is in the case and render it mostly harmless to human's. According to my research, we can't absorb it after it's been chelated.

Don't do that with a wet tumbler, you won't be using enough citric acid to chelate anything. Your solution must be a pH of around 3 for that to work.

What an ultrasonic won't clean up is some old brown case that has laid outside for months. They turn bright pink and get thrown away when I see them.
It is thought that the minerals in the ground water attacked the brass, I consider those pieces of brass as being compromised and won't use them.

I use a strong solution of Citric acid that runs about 2.8-3 ph on my Litmus paper and it doesn't change the color of healthy brass at all. Just makes them bright and clean.
You can't use a strong solution of Citric acid in a wet tumbler and SS pins because some strange chemical reaction takes place due the pins taking off the passive layer of the brass and leaving activated brass exposed and it's subject to some plating effect that changes the color of the cases.
But the pins do the cleaning with them so you don't need a strong solution.
Ultrasonics rely on chemical cleaning mostly and the cavitation effect to knock the dirt loose and the soap to suspend it.
I'll find one or two per thousand of pink cases in my strong solutions, and they are someone else's brass that got mixed in with mine, or someone gave them to me.

I went with the Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler and never looked back.
100% clean cases a inside & out.
I have a new in the box ultra sonic cleaner in the box on a shelf under my bench. With the reviews I have read ultra sonic isn't for me.

Tall said:

I was at the local Bass Pro Shop a couple years ago and wanted to improve my case cleaning. I purchased a Hornady ultrasonic case cleaner and a Lyman vibratory case cleaner. I bought the Hornady ultrasonic solution and followed the directions. I was replacing a no name vibratory cleaner I bought at a gun show 20 plus years ago. It died.

Bottom line the Lyman vibratory case cleaner does a better job by far, the Hornady unit seems to do nearly nothing.

Click to expand...

I bought these two. The Lyman machine does a much better job at less than half the price.

I am new to reloading but use the Harbor Freight ultrasonic....I use a little bit of Dawn dishwashing soap and about 1/4 tsp of LemiShine, The harbor freight unit has one limitation...you can only set it for a max of 480 sec (8 min). I am very pleased with it.

I normally run each load twice....... I like to get the primer pockets clean so fired brass with primers, I run it through one 8 minute cycle, to clean it enough that it does not foul up my resizing die. I let it dry and then deprime and resize. Back in the ultrasonic for another 8 minute cycle and it comes out great. You want to follow the instructions and de-gas the water....basically run it for 5 minutes with just the cleaning solution. Then put in the brass. It is quick, does not take up much room and it is quiet.

Vibratory tumblers really do next to nothing inside the case, whereas ultrasonics can and do.

If someone is getting poor results with ultrasonic cleaning, you can guarantee they have the wrong chemistry (or they dumped the brass haphazardly and it was full of air, or both).

I use an adaptation of the “Clean and Shiny” recipe from accurateshooter.com when I ultrasonic clean brass. I run 50/50 vinegar & hot water + a few drops of dish soap for 25-30min, then run Hornady One Shot Ultrasonic Solution for 15-20min, then run distilled water for 5 min, and rinse thoroughly. Brass is clean, inside and out. So clean, that case necks need to be lubed for seating and bullet release (vibratory tumbling doesn’t clean the necks, and leaves carbon and media residue which inadvertently acts as neck lube).

https://www.accurateshooter.com/featured/ultrasonic-case-cleaning/

Varminterror said:

Vibratory tumblers really do next to nothing inside the case, whereas ultrasonics can and do.

If someone is getting poor results with ultrasonic cleaning, you can guarantee they have the wrong chemistry (or they dumped the brass haphazardly and it was full of air, or both).

I use an adaptation of the “Clean and Shiny” recipe from accurateshooter.com when I ultrasonic clean brass. I run 50/50 vinegar & hot water + a few drops of dish soap for 25-30min, then run Hornady One Shot Ultrasonic Solution for 15-20min, then run distilled water for 5 min, and rinse thoroughly. Brass is clean, inside and out. So clean, that case necks need to be lubed for seating and bullet release (vibratory tumbling doesn’t clean the necks, and leaves carbon and media residue which inadvertently acts as neck lube).

https://www.accurateshooter.com/featured/ultrasonic-case-cleaning/

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I am following the Hornady instructions to the letter. Normally I use the vibratory cleaner first, then the ultrasonic. I've done it for 30 minutes, 60 minutes etc. Tried using heat and no heat. The only result I can detect is the brass will turn pink if you leave it in there long enough.

Tall said:

I am following the Hornady instructions to the letter. Normally I use the vibratory cleaner first, then the ultrasonic. I've done it for 30 minutes, 60 minutes etc. Tried using heat and no heat. The only result I can detect is the brass will turn pink if you leave it in there long enough.

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If your brass is turning pink, you’re pickling it with too strong of solution, leaching nickel from the surface of the brass.

Again, as I said above - if it’s not cleaning, you have bad chemistry. Run the recipe I provided, sourced from the link I provided, and you’ll have clean, shiny brass.

tightgroup tiger said:

First off, Jewelry grade ultra sonics are the weakest units out there. They are designed that way on purpose so they won't vibrate the set loose on precious gems in rings and necklaces. I wouldn't dare clean my wifes jewelry in my 6 liter unit. I have a little one for her stuff.
Second, the only solution you should be using for cleaning ammo cases is Citric acid and some dish soap like Dawn.

Click to expand...

Informative, thanks. I used to work as a jeweler and our ultrasonic was decently powerful - though maybe not for reloading requirements. We used a top secret formula of Mop & Glow (or an off brand version) and water. That wouldn't react with the metals, and helped the oils and stuff break up. Of course, jewelry cleaning has very different types of "dirty" than used brass.

We couldn't let two pieces touch because they would etch each other. Does brass not have that problem? Everyone seems to have their ultrasonic full of cases all touching, and it seems like there would be some etching as they bump into each other.

I find ultrasonic cleaners are acceptable on mildly dirty, still shinny brass.
They are kind of a one trick pony and definitely better than nothing.
Wet pin tumbling is where it's at.

I dump mine in and shake the basket up and to stand the cases up, doesn't matter if they touch or not.

Varminterror said:

If your brass is turning pink, you’re pickling it with too strong of solution, leaching nickel from the surface of the brass.

Again, as I said above - if it’s not cleaning, you have bad chemistry. Run the recipe I provided, sourced from the link I provided, and you’ll have clean, shiny brass.

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I agree.

Varminterror said:

If your brass is turning pink, you’re pickling it with too strong of solution, leaching nickel from the surface of the brass.

Again, as I said above - if it’s not cleaning, you have bad chemistry. Run the recipe I provided, sourced from the link I provided, and you’ll have clean, shiny brass.

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They turn pink if I ignore the instructions and clean them for an hour. So you are saying instead of following the instructions I should use a home brew solution from your link?

Tall said:

So you are saying instead of following the instructions I should use a home brew solution from your link?

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Said it twice, in fact.

Highland Lofts said:

I went with the Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler and never looked back.
100% clean cases a inside & out.
I have a new in the box ultra sonic cleaner in the box on a shelf under my bench. With the reviews I have read ultra sonic isn't for me.

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The FART does indeed work well.

I've never had issues with my Hornady sonic cleaner, I bought many many moons ago. I use the Hornady sonic cleaner solutions. This is the one I have. You must remember that this is a sonic cleaner, key word being cleaner, not a polisher. If I want shiny brass I'll drop the brass after drying it up into my Lymans vibratory using nu-finish car wax and walnut for about 15 to 20 minutes and the brass comes out shiny enough for me, otherwise I just use it as is.