Ultrasonic Cleaners

[Richard Flanders]

I do two things. For some things I just use warm water and Dawn dish soap. For gunked up shotgun parts and receivers I put a peanut butter jar of lacquer thinner in the cleaner. It doesn't leave much room around the jar but allows a much greater volume of cleaner. I pour water around the jar of thinner up to the top of the cleaner tank and leave the jar lid just barely cracked while running the sonic cleaner. This works great for cleaning entire receivers. You don't have to take the hammers or other major internal parts out; just leave them in to soak for a while and keep running/soaking until the receiver is squeaky clean. Once clean I hose the receiver internals with Ballistol and let it drip dry. Haven't found a better way yet. The Ballistol sets up enough to where it doesn't seem to ever run off, at least not up here. Maybe in a desert area it would get warm enough. I've never had it seep out of seams or around the wood junction.