How do you do it? I've been getting brass from the range, pulling out 1-5 at a time and tossing the good ones into the appropriate boxes. I've also considered laying them out and picking out one caliber at a time. Are there any other methods? Which is best? Are there any devices which help?
Techniques for Separating Brass
- Thread starter branrot
- Start date
I have been getting some nice 9mm, 40sw ,and 45acp brass at my local range. I lump them all together in a plastic grocery bag when I pick them up.At home the bag is emptied into a plastic tray on my workbench. Other trays are placed in front of this one and the cases are sorted out going from the largest to smallest caliber.
Depends on what you got. .30-06 is pretty easy to separate from 9mm.
Coin sorters have used a downward inclined ramp to peel off denominations by mass/weight = heavier stuff rolls further & gets dumped into segregated "buckets" depending on "denomination." Doubtful this'd work very well for brass due to the variances in rolling atttributes.
May be able to contrive a centrifugal apparatii - a semi-inclined planed, internally cone-shaped based sorter re cartridge weight. Varying rotational speed rates for different calibers. Oops! don't forget the niches/holes for segregation .... & attitudes ....
Sorry & I know, I'm bad today. My Mom has been told ....
"Easiest" way I know how to sort is to pitch 9mm/.38/.357 & 40 S&W/45 ACP into the same tumbler. The 9s/.38 always gets stuck into the 40/45 & is a cast-iron bitc# to separate. But, you always know which is which.
branrot, really. Best I've ever done is to lay 'em all out on a flat surface so you can see'em all.
Have enough containers ready to accomodate whatever it is you think you'll get out of the mix.
Using MOE (Mark One Eyeball), grab out those that are most obvious to you & stuff 'em into their category container for caliber segregation.
You'll make mistakes. .380 looks alot like 9mm, .38 specials will confuse you enough w/.357 mag that you'll do another quick sort, 40 S&W look alot like 10mm - not a lot, but enough. After it's all segregated, do a search over each pile & remove/resort all those you've missed. A final sort will be when you run 'em through the initial resizer.
Far as I'm aware, you now have the secret of perfect range brass sorting.
It's a real pain. But, the big plus = it's "free" brass.
TANSTAAFL
PS - essentially the exact same thing capbuster said in 100X the words ....
Coin sorters have used a downward inclined ramp to peel off denominations by mass/weight = heavier stuff rolls further & gets dumped into segregated "buckets" depending on "denomination." Doubtful this'd work very well for brass due to the variances in rolling atttributes.
May be able to contrive a centrifugal apparatii - a semi-inclined planed, internally cone-shaped based sorter re cartridge weight. Varying rotational speed rates for different calibers. Oops! don't forget the niches/holes for segregation .... & attitudes ....
Sorry & I know, I'm bad today. My Mom has been told ....
"Easiest" way I know how to sort is to pitch 9mm/.38/.357 & 40 S&W/45 ACP into the same tumbler. The 9s/.38 always gets stuck into the 40/45 & is a cast-iron bitc# to separate. But, you always know which is which.
branrot, really. Best I've ever done is to lay 'em all out on a flat surface so you can see'em all.
Have enough containers ready to accomodate whatever it is you think you'll get out of the mix.
Using MOE (Mark One Eyeball), grab out those that are most obvious to you & stuff 'em into their category container for caliber segregation.
You'll make mistakes. .380 looks alot like 9mm, .38 specials will confuse you enough w/.357 mag that you'll do another quick sort, 40 S&W look alot like 10mm - not a lot, but enough. After it's all segregated, do a search over each pile & remove/resort all those you've missed. A final sort will be when you run 'em through the initial resizer.
Far as I'm aware, you now have the secret of perfect range brass sorting.
It's a real pain. But, the big plus = it's "free" brass.
TANSTAAFL
PS - essentially the exact same thing capbuster said in 100X the words ....
Rottweiler
New member
Spread out an OLD bed sheet in front of the TV dump 'em on the bedsheet and start making piles of matching cases during commercials.
I like the "use the kids" idea... good family time activity and teaches the little ones to spot differences kinda like Where's Waldo?. Make a game out of it.
WESHOOT2, You can NEVER have too many cases... About a month ago little brother was browsing in my basement for stuff to mooch. He picked up a 5 gallon bucket of 45 acp brass for weight reference and did some mental calculations that brought him to the conclusion that I have about 3.5 TONS of brass in my basement. I gave him 6 coffee cans of assorted brass for doing all the math.
I like the "use the kids" idea... good family time activity and teaches the little ones to spot differences kinda like Where's Waldo?. Make a game out of it.
WESHOOT2, You can NEVER have too many cases... About a month ago little brother was browsing in my basement for stuff to mooch. He picked up a 5 gallon bucket of 45 acp brass for weight reference and did some mental calculations that brought him to the conclusion that I have about 3.5 TONS of brass in my basement. I gave him 6 coffee cans of assorted brass for doing all the math.
Master Blaster
New member
Caution If you use the kiddies please make sure you mention thet they must wash their hands before they touch anything,
Especially their nose mouth eyes or before they go to the bathroom.
We dont want the younguns to get lead poisoning.
If they are younger than 8 years I would forget it and not allow them to help you sort.
Especially their nose mouth eyes or before they go to the bathroom.
We dont want the younguns to get lead poisoning.
If they are younger than 8 years I would forget it and not allow them to help you sort.
My old shooting partner and I devised a ramp with cut out for height sortation and tubes for width.......Just an L shaped ramp that was angled slightly back and on an incline...........at the bottom of the tubes we used a circular device of fishmans creation that could seperate the hard to do ones...41, 44, mags and 45 colt.......we also came up with a way to seperate out bottlenecks...---the problem we had was devising a way to load the ramp....we tried using my dillon case feeder and it was iffy but possible......we never took it to completion because of my move...but we had the designs, its just weird looking.....I thought at first that we could devise something like a pachinko (sp), machine. Another problem was brass that would fit inside of the others....there is a few more details...but we had to work for em.....and I dont want to spoil the fun.....I no longer have the situation were Im picking up bags of range brass at a time so its not that big of a deal anymore.....we started with a V shape and cut out the point of the v to sort the width and it works.........if you dont need every caliber and the ability to adjust the drops to suit anything its a lot simpler.....have fun...fubsy....oh yeah you still have to pull out the blazer and non reloadable crap.......Back when we started this I thought that in this day and age that some skilled computer type could utilize an optical scanner to read the head stamps....I dont know what if any problems that would create.....fubsy.
OKAY, I'LL BE SERIOUS (ANALLY YOURS)
My kids (even the little one) know EXACTLY what precautions are required, since it's been hammered into them since they could hear. Both guns and ammo; safety first.
Cases; I still pick up cases after a match....'cause you can NEVER have too many cases (or bullets, or primers, or - you get the idea).
My kids (even the little one) know EXACTLY what precautions are required, since it's been hammered into them since they could hear. Both guns and ammo; safety first.
Cases; I still pick up cases after a match....'cause you can NEVER have too many cases (or bullets, or primers, or - you get the idea).
This may be stating the obvious but for containers to use when sorting I like those dishes that microwave dinners come in. They are tough enough to last a little while, they have rounded sides to make it easy to get the brass out, and some have separate compartments for different headstamps. What can I say, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.