Who actually uses one to clean suppressor baffles? Which model do you have? Do you have a full cabinet set up? I have 2 cans with AL baffles. After a few thousand rounds each neither needs such severe cleaning yet, but someday I expect I'll want one.

Great question? I've been contemplating a soda blaster also.

Same here. How do you dispose of the lead/baking soda waste?

I bought the larger of the two harbor freight units and have used it exactly once to clean a sealed & "un-jail-breakable" integral 9MM LRM M16 upper with a decade of buildup.

https://www.harborfreight.com/40-lb-portable-soda-blaster-60801.html

I made a 90 degree nozzle out of an old M16 DI gas tube and used it to blast lead and carbon out of the interior of the can and then used a borescope to check progress.

I am on a couple acres and I set it up  in the woods behind my house  where the resulting mess was'nt as much of an issue to get tracked into my house, piss off my neighbors, etc.  I  also wore full PPE with a N95 respirator and goggles.  I wouldn't do this in the driveway of your 1/4 acre lot with neighbors next door as it loud, messy, and if the neighbors kids/pets are tracking lead residue around into their house its going to be pretty bad on you as a neighbor.

My impression is that the non-blast cabinet based soda blasters create a significant mess which results in a mix of soda, lead, copper, and carbon vaporized into the atmosphere and that will cover not only you but a significant area around you in this dust.  The other option is a dedicated blast cabinet to do this I don't see an way to reasonably contain the mess soda blasting creates.

I personally think the dip is a less dangerous method of cleaning if done carefully as at least its all contained and can be dropped off at a hazmat facility vs. the open air blasters most folks are using to clean baffles.

Granted in comparison to the dip's lead acetate this is just vaporized elemental lead/copper/whatever...but I would personally rather have lead acetate contained in a jar that all that other elemental heavy metal residue all over me, potentially my eyes and lungs, or in an area where it could get tracked into my house/car/workshop.

I also have a dual jar rotary tumbler, with one jar filled with stainless media and one with copper media (for aluminum) and much prefer that as a baffle cleaning method over open air soda blasting.

If you set up a dedicated blast cabinet and you could probably drop the media off at any hazmat facility or mix it into some sort of binder (like a bag of quikcrete) and dump it like normal waste.   The other challenge is that many blast cabinets "leak" a bit to varying degrees so you are still going to get residue in your workshop to some extent.

Hope this helps.

I'm out in the country. Not worried about the mess on the ground. The lead is elemental, not some reactive substance like the dip's lead acetate. But I guess you would have it on your clothes. A fully contained blast cabinet is kind of cost prohibitive. Sorry, I'm thinking out loud, hoping to get the experience of others.

You can tumble AL baffles with brass media? I've not heard that. Honestly I haven't found the baffles all that hard to clean anyway. But I am starting to get lead build up that petroleum solvents don't touch. .22LR by the way. 3000 rounds-ish. Maybe just scrape it off? Plastic isn't hard enough though, and a jeweler's screwdriver does leave scratches. What to do?

As long as its not going to get tracked into your daily life or waft over onto your neighbor, I think its fine on the ground as well.  Its going to eventually settle into the dirt/earth from where it originally came.

However, I can't imagine blasting anything outside of a blast cabinet without a respirator much less blasting something I know is creating microscopic lead dust.  I actually wear a respirator when using my blast cabinet as well with glass bead or aluminum oxide for any extended period of time as it does leak/waft out of the cabinet, especially when you open the door to take something in or out.

I use copper media on my aluminum baffles.  It takes longer and doesnt do as good a job as stainless media on stainless baffles but it does work slowly and will get them cleaner, and won't damage them.  Anodized baffles do come out copper colored but the copper wipes off with a copper solvent like hopes.  I have never tried brass media so am not sure but assume it would work similar.

I have used stainless steel pins on my aluminum baffles with no ill effects.

After I clean them I coat them with choke tube lube.  A good amount of junk just wipes off before I throw them in the tumbler the next time.

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