ultrasonic cleaning medium

V

Visaman

New member
I am considering to get hold of a ultrasonic cleaner.
Has anyone tried water with 10% ballistol as a cleaning medium ?

Ballistol was supposedly developed in Germany in 1905 for maintenance of Mausers.
It's sort of the first CLP or wonder lube.

You can use it to lube razors, clean crud, or use it as a shave oil actually. It emulsifies with water (ie: forms a milky white solution good for cleaning razors or guns- especially after corrosive primers or BP, works as a cutting/cooling oil also), and is slightly alkaline. It's completely non-toxic. It's main ingredient is mineral oil.
It is biodegradable .
MSDS:
http://www.baileysonline.com/msds_sheets/PDFs/ballistol.PDF

I don't know if water with 10% ballistol leaves enough oil on the internal parts of a gun to prevent rust and supply enough lubrication.

A mix of water and ballistol is the only environmental friendly ultrasonic cleaning medium that i know about that leaves a thin layer of oil on gun parts. If anyone knows about something similar, please feel free to write about it.
 
I do a lot of antique clock repair and servicing on my pesonal collection. I use an L&R Ultrasonic unit, but I have never used it on my guns. The ultrasonic does a great job, but it is important to disassemble parts as much as practical. I use the L&R product line of cleaning solutions for clock work and also the L&R rinse solution in a second application. It is important to remove all the cleaning solution from the item you are cleaning. The rinse solution L&R sells for the second step is where you find the light lubricating feature. It is not sufficient for overall lubrication but it does help in the very tight spots and finish protection.

L&R does sell cleaning and rinse solutions for weapons. I have not tried this product, but I would recommend it based upon my experiece with clock solutions. The solutions may sound expensive, but they can be used over and over especially the rinse an lube solution. Therefore, you are looking at very little cost per item use either with a clock or gun (pennies per use).

The process is to run the parts throught the cleaning solution, blow dry (I use a hand held hair blow dryer), change your solution over to the rinse and lube, run the parts through this cycle and then blow dry again. It is not such a long ordeal since each ultrasonic step takes only a few minutes. It kind of depends on how dirty the item is, and the rinse cycle takes less than five minutes.

I would be very careful with the products you use since you do not want to risk removal of finishes or discolorations of valuable items.

I am not affilliated with L&R, but I am a long time user of their products.

In my shop, I keep an older cleaning solution on hand to tackle a pre-cleaning of really dirty or rusty parts prior to using a good batch. As a waring, anything sprayed with WD-40 will neutralize and ruin a lot of cleaning solutions; therefore you may want to pre-clean it with naptha or something similar prior to placing in your ultrasonic cleaning solution if you detect or smell the presence of WD-40.

Hope this helps.
 
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The guns i am planning to clean with it is :
Ruger MK2 target (stainless steel)
Ruger new vaquero bisley ( stainless steel )
So i am not worried about any surface finish peeling off.

I am in Norway, so getting chemicals from USA is not an option due to problematic shipping.
 
There are simply too many specialized solutions out there for it to be worth trying to find out which will do what other chores. I would follow the advice to purchase a known good gun cleaning ultrasonic solution that is specifically for ultrasonic cleaners. Often ultrasonic solutions have special requirements with regard to foaming and ease of outgassing to prevent ultrasonic energy from being wasted.

I would note also that the ultrasonic cleaners for guns, specifically, are industrial and several times more powerful (and expensive) than general ultrasonic cleaners used for jewelry, dentures, and whatnot. I saw one at a LE equipment show about ten years ago that would hold a complete AR upper and clean it in about five or ten minutes, IIRC. The transducers were so powerful that the solution immediately above them had a standing wave almost an inch proud of the liquid level in the rest of the tank that were spitting mist and droplets into the air. It wasn't just the usual little waves on the surface you see in common ultrasonics. This machine was way more aggressive. It was probably the Crest unit Brownells sells for over eight grand today.

My point in mentioning that is that gun cleaning takes some power because the metal masses are large and absorb a lot of the energy and because the fouling is often pretty well caked up. A more common, lower power unit like the 2.5 gallon Bransonic I have will do the job, but you can expect it to take 45 minutes to an hour, and that's with the heater cranked up to maximum and with pre-soaking the gun in the hot solution for another hour before cranking it up.
 
When I bought an ultra-sonic gadget several years ago, it came with a cleaner to be mixed with water. I tried it. The water left discolored areas on the finish.

I threw the stuff out and bought two quarts (slightly larger than French liters) of Hoppe's No. 9. I use the Hoppe's solution over and over until it's filthy, and wipe the gun down with clean, then oil. I'll never put another gun in a water-based solution. By the water, any liquid in an ultra-sonic bath will be heated, so if you use a flammable solution, make sure it doesn't get too warm.

The ultra-sonic gadget doesn't clean lead or heavy grit from the bore, nor does it remove lead deposits from the front of the cylinder; the rest of the gun, however, comes out clean, clean, clean. The time savings alone justifies the cost of the unit.
 
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