I've been a big SS media guy for a while and today tried the ultrasonic route. while the SS does a great job this ultrasonic setup does 90% in 1/4th the time with very little cleanup afterwards. no pins to remove, just rinse your basket and lay them out to dry. wish I tried ultrasonic earlier than today. this is going to save me allot of time.

If this is about fish frying you might check out the TFF!

I read his post twice and don't have a clue what he is talking about. I got kind of uncomfortable reading the part about him rinsing his "basket" and letting them dry. Hmmmm...

He's referring to brass prep for reloading. May have missed a turn somewhere along the way and missed the Ammunition & Reloading Forum.

Yep, trying new things can be good.

I don't get it, Dave.

I had an untrasonic, then I borrow your stainless tumbler, and it did a better job than the untrasonic cleaner I had. It was a Hornady model that would only hold about 50 short action brass pieces.

i bought the magnum cleaner today; i am chruning thru brass in my office in 30 min batches and it's so damn easy. I'll save the SS for big batches or funky stuff but this magnum cleaner is to damn good to ignore.

Well that's all good then.

I went from walnut media, to sonic, to your stainless, and as you know have built the tumbler and ordered the stainless media yesterday. I have never seen anything else do such a good job as stainless. Maybe the sonic technology has improved in the last few years.

I tried the ultrasonic route, but the results were just OK. I tried various solutions as well thinking that was the ticket, but it didn't seem to make much difference and usually colored the brass suggesting it was weakened. I was about to purchase a medical grade ultrasonic cleaner that was bigger and more powerful than the one I was currently using but decided to buy a frankford arsenal stainless kit instead. The brass comes out NICE AND SHINNY and all I do is dump everything in, turn the timer on, and take out clean brass after 2-3hrs.

I'm not sure how the bigger ultrasonic would have done, but so far I'm glad I went the SS route!

I was never able to get much of any actual results from ultrasonic, and i probably tried a dozen different solutions and formulas at another dozen different temps and another dozen different time intervals.

SSTL is the way to go, without a doubt. Read this thread on TFL - the .40 brass you see pictures of is my brass that another poster used as guinea pigs. It was enough to convince me on the spot when I got the brass back to source up a Thumbler's tumbler and go stainless, and I will likely never go back.

I have two Lyman vibratory tumblers that have not been turned on in over a year now. I really ought to sell one of them now that I think of it.

The Firing Line Stainless Thread

One thing I do do that seems to make a bigger difference in the finished product is use the wash-n-was car wash solution you get at Autozone or Wal-Mart. It leaves a very thin wax film on the brass that does a couple of things - it protects it from tarnishing and it leaves the brass slightly lubricated (much like you would have with a walnut vibratory tumbler and the old standard cap full of NuFinish car polish).

Regular soap and citric acid does a great job, but it strips everything from the brass. Which isn't a bad thing, other than allowing the brass to tarnish faster and meaning you need to spray lube it even with carbide dies, simply to make the loading operation easier (hell, I still do this anwyay).

And buy citric acid in bulk off of Amazon. I paid $17 for 5 lbs of it delivered the other day. That will last probably a year, even with me using it in the dishwasher as a water softener and rinse aid.

Dave and JG...are y'all using a neck/bullet lube when you seat your bullets?

I have a SS tumbler that I only use after neck turning just to get the imperal sizing wax out of the necks. Any other time I want the carbon build up in the necks for lubrication. New brass blows

I do not lube the necks. The bullets go in dry.

Yes, new brass sucks!

But that is what y'all end up with by cleaning all the way to bare brass.

I know that isn't what you thought I was talking about and thought I was referring to the new brass prep but I really meant the necks being bare. A bare brassed neck on a case will not provide as consistent neck tension case to case as one that has carbon in it. My 2 cents, worth even less

Well you're the benchrester searching for the one hole group. Therefore there's details you tend to that I've never considered. And I believe you about carbon helping hold the bullet, makes sense.

I was referring to the fact that new brass is slower since it hasn't fit the chamber yet and the prep sucks!

I'm here to help you....like you help me....all about helping each other.

Yessir. That seems lost on some though...

It's not that the carbon provides better neck tension - it's that it acts as a dielectric barrier between the brass and the copper of your round, which prevents any galvanic corrosion from occurring. You can do the same with a thin wax film or a touch of lube - the idea is to minimize dissimilar metal contact.

Army match ammo used to have a bitumastic coating on their rounds for this very reason - but that's also because their rounds were apt to spend years in storage where you could actually develop the corrosion that would alter the force required to release the bullet from the brass.

If you are loading your rounds and shooting them within a few days, I would harbor serious doubts that it makes any difference that is not measured with several decimal places.

And new brass doesn't suck - unlubed brass does though!

^^Very informative^^

I'm not saying better neck tension but more consistent neck tension. Also, it won't dig into the bullets themselves. I didn't do a very good job explaining that.

Here is an article that talks about ultrasonic cleaning but the stainless gets it as clean if not cleaner than the ultra:

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2014...bullet-seating/

Thanks for the information schmellba.

Won't annealing and the bushing FL die settle all that?

It has something to do with the way the bullet seats. I guess you could back off your neck tension and make sure the bullet isn't getting scared up? If you read that article he didn't really get into whether looser neck tension would fix the issue or not. But I guess you could go that route, assuming your gun would shoot as well with the less tension.

Those guys, like myself, anneal every firing.

I can see that being an issue, but I lube my cases and haven't had any problems. Keep in mind that I'm not a bench rest guy though, so my off the shelf equipment isn't going to reflect as much error as a high end tuned bench rest rig will.

I will say that even with getting squeaky clean on the SSTL pins, the pins do something that the ultrasonic does not - and that is that the physical action of the pins against the brass while tumbling actually slightly smooths and burnishes the brass out, so it may not be nearly as big an issue with SSTL versus ultrasonic simply because there is not only a chemical process happening, but a physical one as well. Something to think about and maybe even test if you want.

Using the caranuba wax will help with this also - it leaves a thin wax layer that does act as a lube. Another thing to look into.

Of course, it all may not make a difference and you still need to do something different anyway. Would be fun to do some comparisons though.