Rifles that don’t throw their brass a million miles

Single shots, bolt guns and revolvers tend to keep them pretty near by in my experience.

Lever actions can get a little persnickity when working them slowly.

Anything can be ....well almost anything.....can be tuned to be pretty considerate of where it puts brass. The easiest are single shots without an ejector.
Otherwise it's up to the operator, or operating system, to decide on speed and location of ejection.

My bar is actually one of my more sedate ejectors. It ejects brass about 3-5' away.

Worst I've seen was my SKS, even with 4 vent holes punched in the gas tube the damn thing still chucked brass as far as any of my other semis.
The unmodified mini-14 is also a nasty little beast. Got a chipped tooth from being on the wrong side of one in highschool.

Worst=Mini 14.
Best=Bolt guns. As far as semi's, an AR with a diaper is hard to beat. https://www.amazon.com/Caldwell-Resistant-Convenient-Picatinny-Collection/dp/B07FCRM3D9

My Mini-30 kicks the brass far and hard. The AR tends to pile them up pretty close together.
My lever action rifles are not too bad but, since one is a 45/70, that one's brass is easy to find anyway...

A brass catcher or a brass deflector can be used on most models if you’re properly motivated.

Mosin77 said:

What are the worst?

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I’d consider it a safe wager that my Seekins Havak throws brass as far or farther than any other bolt action on the market. At any given PRS match, my brass is typically 3x farther away from the shooting positions than any of the other shooters’ actions. Far enough that guys trying to police my brass for me won’t even start looking anywhere near the right places.

Glen Seekins is a gas gun builder - he only knows how to make a rifle eject one way... far and fast!

Varminterror said:

I’d consider it a safe wager that my Seekins Havak throws brass as far or farther than any other bolt action on the market.

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You may be right but my Mausingfield might give it a run for its money.

Worse, PCC Masterpiece Arms Defender.9MM Throw the cases a good 25 feet or better. Best Remington Revolving Carbine. No brass, a front stuffer.

Go get yourself a 12x15 drop cloth or tarp and rig it up so the brass all hits it and falls to the ground.

BigBlue 94 said:

Go get yourself a 12x15 drop cloth or tarp and rig it up so the brass all hits it and falls to the ground.

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That works but use a canvas one. A cheap plastic tarp melts from the hot brass...

I think the worst, without question, is the G3 family. Pretty sure the right flank is safe from attack if you're firing a G3 or CETME downrange. I got done with a 20 shot mag when I still owned one of the beasts, and a 7.62 case was embedded neck first into a 4x4 timber that held up the roof. It also drew blood a few times when some fool got to the right of me despite specific instruction to avoid that sector. I saw a Ljungman in action, and it was impressive, but didn't quite match the G3. My Romanian PSL kicks commie steel case out the side pretty violently also, but not quite G3 violent.

A rifle thread, but I'll give an honorable mention to 2 handguns, the Romanian TT33 and Czech model of 52.

I think for semi rifles, my favorite to pick up after is my M1 Garand, but only with my handloads. Puts the big shiney cases in a very predictable pile of 7 at 2 O'clock, with the 8th at 4.

For bolt guns, my M1917 sporter neatly drops them just to my right. No flip and toss as in my Mauser rifles.

Ak 47 and SKS seems to launch brass into orbit,helping as buddy sight in his mini 30 got hit in the head with brass good solid whack left a mark on the top of my head.

Mosin77 said:

What are your best rifles for making brass policing easy?

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The one with a $15 tarp from Hazard Fraught.

I remember when I still had several SKS carbines in the safe that they would consistently pop ejected cases off the range's sheet metal awning with enough force to dent it. The all-time worst was probably the 30-06 Colt-Thompson autorifle, a barely-delayed blowback action that reportedly hurled cases with enough force to embed them in hardwood.

The best is easily my Wehrmannsgewher Mauser 98 single shot. The bolt face is oversized for the rim on the 8.15x46R, and the extractor doesn't grip tight enough for the spent case to make it to the ejector. Opening the bolt just leaves a fired case on the follower within the action, ready to either pluck out with my fingers or turn the rifle to the right and dump it out and load the next. Very polite!

HK91/G3/CETME ETC. these are as dangerous to the right and front of them as they are in front of the muzzle. Those things basically UPS brass to another time zone.

Another +1 to avoid the CETMEs. Me and a buddy decided to see who kicked it further, my PSL or his CETME. His CETME won pretty handily.

I've seen it stick brass into a tree before as well.

You asked...

Nature Boy said:

You may be right but my Mausingfield might give it a run for its money.

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We should arrange a postal match just for range of brass flight - level rifle at 3ft height.

I like revolvers for shooting in the woods where I don't want to leave a mess, and levers are cooperative if you run them slowly and tilt the gun a little bit to point more directly at the ground. 45-70s are really good for that - they're not a high-volume proposition anyway and the cases are huge so you can't miss them.

The worst one - my SKS launches its brass on a lunar mission with every trigger pull. Watching other people shoot it. I can see the cases go up, but I rarely see where they come back down.

I agree with the Mini 14 as one of the worst culprits of brass launching. Funny my G3 clone does not throw them as far, but it might be due to the adjustable gas block setting. I shoot outdoors and put down a 20x20 paint tarp. It catches most things. My AR's are very well behaved and seem to throw their brass in a nice 2 to 3 foot circle about 4 feet away. The Mini 14 is launching them 30 feet. No kidding.

Shanghai McCoy said:

That works but use a canvas one. A cheap plastic tarp melts from the hot brass...

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x2. Heavy canvas also holds up well to wind.

My .351 throws them pretty far too. Never measured it though.

Of course we all do understand keeping the brass nearby is not one of the key design aspects of a firearm. From the perspective of operation, getting the brass out consistently and reliably to enable continued firing is the goal. In theory the casing is simply to be discarded after one-time use. Sadly I and my fellow reloaders are literally junkers with a personal penchant for scrounging and making useful stuff out of garbage.

Depending on how you view it, my either best brass ejector or worst brass loser, is a Chinese SKS. Literally throws brass 30+ feet high going up and to right at 2 o'clock. Depending on wind dispersion most land between 10 to 15 yards away. It's shooting steel so losing them is fine. I do agree we need to get a postal match going for brass!