Ultrasonic cleaners

The one I have is from Harbor Freight. It is not huge, but large enough for most pistols. The angles are wrong to clean just an action, unless the barrel is removed. Can't put in 'just one end'.
Still working out the 'best' cleaning solution. It uses plain tap water (distilled might work better but I haven't tried that yet) and 'sonic cleaner powder' also from Harbor Freight. I have a partial bottle of 'Lemon shine' dish washing soap, but haven't experimented yet.
I disassemble - as far as I feel competent - the pistol and then put all the parts that I am sure will not fall through the gridded tray. Small springs and such go into an old prescription bottle and soaked in WD40 or other penetrating oil and them brushed with a nylon brush and wipe the excess fluid off.
In my experience, the sonic cleaned parts are not all shiny and bright, but need to be wiped and all the fluid removed. Then lubed to prevent rust. All the nasty, caked on crud is loosened greatly, not removed entirely.
I haven't tried it on rusted parts to see if rust is removed or softened, but I use the penetrating oil and fine steel wool for that.

Not 'miraculous' but an aide in my book. Cheaper than hiring a dedicated guy to do it for me.

I have the Hornady model & it works great for cleaning cases & parts. I would buy it again.

I use my HF cleaner to clean my BP handguns. Does a good job of removing the fouling. What doesn't come off is easily wiped off with a cloth. Far better than the old tooth brush method of cleaning those guns and less labor intensive.

The Lyman one is clearly a rebrand of this where they doubled the price for your troubles:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NCJ0N6O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(And the hornady seems to be a smaller version yet. I wouldn't suggest one that small as you need the length for slides, barrels, gas pistons, springs etc)

It is my second ultrasonic. Got a REALLY cheap one to try it for a welded stack suppressor, fell in love so upgraded. This unit works great to me. NOT as good as the real industrial ones, but good enough. You really need to give 20-90 minutes for many cleanings, and the small ones have short duty cycles so plan to stick the thing in for a day or two, push the button to restart whenever you remember. If you don't work from home... it'll take longer.

Heat is good. Smaller units like this may need interim cleaning; brush the big chunks off, and of course rotate so things fall out.

Like all cleaning, you are only going to get so far without stripping. Moving dirt around isn't cleaning, so strip down as much as possible.

Even at this level, ultrasonics remove everything. You may loose finishes if they are painted on. Cerakote is paint.

Depending on the cleaning solution they will VERY degrease. My Sig 55x had a bolt carrier in the white. No problem, as it's typical euro white metal, a /tiny/ bit of incidental oil and you can stand in a rainstorm for a week. Pulled it out of the ultrasonic, blew it off, walked to the other side of the room and back: flash rust. It pulls the oil out of the metal itself! I now hose everything down with Ballistol immediately on removing from the bath, and check periodically as they dry off (again, rotating regularly to make sure) and re-oiling as needed.

Timely thread ..... I'm looking to invest in one before the end of this month arrives.

I have an RCBS Ultrasonic that I bought 6 months ago with my Gu'Mint money. Only used it a dozen times and really do not care for it. The results seem to be erratic and the spot just above the center where the "sizzle" comes in seems to work fine....the rest not so much. I love RCBS products. It might be me but I would not buy it again.

gifbohane said:

I have an RCBS Ultrasonic that I bought 6 months ago with my Gu'Mint money. Only used it a dozen times and really do not care for it. The results seem to be erratic and the spot just above the center where the "sizzle" comes in seems to work fine....the rest not so much. I love RCBS products. It might be me but I would not buy it again.

Click to expand...

Thanks ... that's the one I was looking-at so that helps. My reloading room is just about all RCBS and Redding (green). But for this investment I was thinking about breaking away (as I did with my wet and dry tumblers) .... and going-for the best I can buy because I'll likely do coins and jewelry in it as well as the gun parts.

I was reading this article just the other day and it made a lot of sense to me ....

https://ultrasonic-cleaners.org/how-ultrasonic-handgun-cleaners-are-useful-for-shooters.html

Falcon-- Just to be clear it was not the brand (RCBS) that bought that I do not care for. I am sure that the other colors are more or less the same.

Maybe if I were a millionaire politician, spending other peoples money, I would buy one of those Ultrasonics used in a lab.

Lastly and maybe most importantly I have a hard time dropping my firearm into water, distilled or not. Also while I use distilled water in the cleaner, I have to rinse it under the faucet. Bad.

Or maybe I need to read more on doing the process correctly.

Yes, I have the white one I posted on Amazon.

I'd get proper ultrasonic cleaner fluid to add to the water. Not sure if any difference between them. Pick one that looks good.

I am utterly unconcerned about water. Aside from rain, humidity, etc a typical machine shop thing is to clean parts in soap and water. One reason is to remove the oil from machining itself. The soluble oil, which is 90% water. As long as dry and oiled when done, water is not a problem but the universal solvent.