Range USA has one of these and charges $100 for 1 handgun. I'm not sure about rifles.I did a quick search on them to see how much one might go for...no dice, they are send a quote only for pricing. I bet its more than $1500. Hornady has a rifle length one they sell, the process can't be all that harmful. I could see a manufacturer having one to clean up before assembly or before various steps to assure precise measurements after certain steps.
The cavitation does blow holes in foil, but it's harmless to solid parts. Ultrasonic cleaners are often used on circuit boards that have foil thin traces, but since they are bonded to a board it doesn't harm them.Fine for steel parts, but would hesitate to try one on anything made of aluminum.
A friend of mine used to build custom ultrasonic cleaners, and when tuning the signal generators, he used aluminum foil to test the strength of the signal going out to the pizzo drivers.
He knew they were right when the aluminum foil dissolved...
Ultrasonic cleaners cause cavitation? Interesting...Cavitation blows holes in pretty much everything independent of material hardness...The cavitation does blow holes in foil, but it's harmless to solid parts. Ultrasonic cleaners are often used on circuit boards that have foil thin traces, but since they are bonded to a board it doesn't harm them.
The problem with aluminum is many detergents are caustic. You have to use an aluminum safe cleaner (or just plain water) when you put aluminum in.
A gun would have to be pretty dirty for me to run it through an ultrasonic. Doesn't really seem worth the effort.
Yes, the primary cleaning action in an ultrasonic is from the shockwaves of all the tiny implosions.Ultrasonic cleaners cause cavitation?
Would probably work great, and I'm guessing it's aluminum safe. Just water works fine, but adding some sort of surfactant increases the efficiency by wetting out the part better.Thinking something like baby shampoo would work well
I cleaned my M14 many times during BCT at Polk in 69, but never in the shower.When I was in the Army basic training at Fort Polk during the 60's, we cleaned our M14 in the shower then dried and oiled it.