TruthTellers - I have used the Harbor Freight dual-drum wet tumbler for a couple of years. Ran 200 rounds (100 each drum) of 45ACP for about an hour this morning. They look new.
I highly recommend the HF tumbler for the price. I can load the drums and tumble while I'm working on something else. An hour is plenty of time.
Yeah, this is another problem with the ultrasonic: when I use it to clean brass, I find the best results are if I stand the cases upright. That's easy to do with .45 brass, but not .327 because they're so skinny, they fall over. Happens to the .45's too with all the vibrations, but not as frequent, however, I have to take time to stand the cases up and after 20 minutes, check the brass to see if it's clean. Some cases don't get fully clean and in the ultrasonic they go for another 10 minutes.
Ultrasonic is not a set and forget solution for optimum brass cleanliness. I'm sure the cases will work fine, but they're not spotless and shiny and I have to believe the shinier the case, the easier they'll be to extract and eject in the gun.
The thing with the Harbor Freight is I'm not sure about the longevity of it like I would be with a Frankford Arsenal or Thumler's, but I bought the Harbor Freight for the lower capacity. Would FA or Thumler's make a smaller rotary tumbler, I'd have bought it.
AND it looks like FA is reading my mind, but this doesn't come out until January:
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/238852/frankford-arsenal-rotary-case-tumbler-lite
Still, the Harbor Freight dual drum gives me the option of using one drum for a very small cleaning batch, but giving me the option of doing more with the second drum and it also allows me to separate different size cases so smaller cases don't get stuck in larger ones, something that easily happens with .45 Colt.