Hornady Lock-N-Load Sonic Cleaner Review

Cleaning brass is no fun, but it's got to be done. We gave the Hornady Lock-N-Load Sonic Cleaner a test run to see if it would shorten the distance between dirty brass and reloading time. Our results were mixed. If you're thinking about using a sonic cleaner for your brass work, you need to watch this...

[@andrecoop3970]

Great video, thanks for posting. Some things I've learned along the way. 1. Use distilled water. 2. If you have grunge brass, you have two options. A. Let it sit overnight, then run it on 3 cycles. B. Warm your solution in the nuker to ~140* F, re-warm if necessary before third cycle. 3. Let air dry on a towel for a couple hours prior to tossing in tumbler to completely dry, and add they "bling" to your brass. (I like clean, don't need bling, so use a $25 dehydrator for drying. 4. Might be important to understand, the more brass, the less action. Brass absorbs the sonic waves and the less brass you cycle, the better the result! I batch load, so I'm only processing 48 .357 cases at any one time, that is a perfect match for this small sonic cleaner!

[@darith27]

Link to the dehydrator that you use? Thank you for your tips!

[@austindavis9846]

Looks to me like you were using gun parts cleaner instead of the brass formula.

[@DLN-ix6vf]

I have 2 - 2L sonic cleaners and what I do is not only put in the Shot-One Solution but also a teaspoon of LemiShine run the cleaners for about 1.5hrs. (mine have 30 min. intervals) then take the cases out one handful at a time and wipe with an old t-shirt. My cases come out spotless and almost look new even the insides especially the necks are clean but not like shiny new. I just did two loads of 250 - 223s each cleaner and am very happy with the results. If you live in a condo like me you can't have noisy tumblers spreading dust all over the place.

[@348loadedlever3]

I got one of these last Christmas. Used it one time. I used the homemade solution (vinegar, soap, water, and salt) actually worked ok. And I left it on the bench top till I wanted to use it again (6 months later). The solution completely rusted right through the stainless tray and soaked the sonic mechanism it wouldn’t work even if the hole was patched. So what do I do, I went today and bought another Hornady 2L sonic cleaner, no mention of any warranty on the product. But if this one fails Hornady is gonna hear about it. Didn’t know stainless rusted.

[@GenericShirtNinja]

Acid and salt will still eat steel... Stainless or not.

[@icduboisxdm]

It does say in the manual to not leave the solution in the cleaner for long periods of time.

[@zachthompson5113]

If you cross contaminate. Meaning a carbon steal gets with stainless, (dust) you can have carbon steel transfer. I will indeed rust. I’ve been in a welding profession and carbon steel transfer on high pressure boiler tubes that are stainless or any carbon to stainless transfer can have “rust” and fail.

[@charlesvalenzuela34]

TIP: If the brass is shiny, then it is definitely clean. If it isn't shiny, then it may or may not be clean.

[@hazcat640]

Don't buy the 'brand' name sonic cleaners. Under powered and over priced. You need 180 watts of sonic (240 is better). Hornady doesn't even list the watts so I'm betting 120.

[@DLN-ix6vf]

is there anything on Amazon with more power ?

[@polduseri909]

Hope that the video will give you back the $70 spent. I can buy at least 400 rounds of new 9mm ammo with that money.

[@andrecoop3970]

$70 / .09 = 777 rounds I can load for the same amount you spent on 400 new.

[@davidlong6796]

@@andrecoop3970 what about now? I really dont think this is for guys reloading plinking ammo. Im looking into it for precision stuff because the soot left over after firing slowly decreases case capacity.