Sorting mixed-caliber brass

[patentnonsense]

I'm still shooting a mix of calibers, and as I pick up a lot of indoor-range sweepings I get other cartridges mixed in too -

is there any machine for sorting quantities of brass?

It should at least be simple to sort them by base width - and with a little more effort I think I could design a simple machine to sort them by both width and length.

I've also noticed that .44 Special cases tend to be much lighter than .44 Mag, so some sort of air floatation might be useful too.

Is this out there somewhere? (Apologies if this is in a FAQ somewhere.)

 

[griz]

Don't know of any such machine. I believe it would be hard to make one. Coins can be sorted easily, but brass is much less predictable in shape and size. Just as an example, the fact that the rim diameter of some calibers are larger than the case of a larger caliber would complicate the job. I'm sure it is possible, but maybe not practical.

 

[HSMITH]

Take two pipes about 4 feet long, touching at one and and about 3/4" apart at the other. Slope them down at about a 15* angle, open end down. Fabricate a sheet metal chute that keeps the brass from getting off the pipes. Place boxes under the length of the pipes. You can lightly shake the pipes while pouring brass slowly onto them and the brass will slide down dropping into the boxes as soon as the opening is big enough. The length of the pipes makes them seperate pretty well. You still have the 380/9mak/9par/38super nightmare and such but it does get the majority of the sorting done very well.

Commercial versions are available, and use a virbratory motion to slide the brass down the pipes.

 

[patentnonsense]

I can design one if somebody wants to make one - but I really doubt it would be economical. Brass is nearly as standardized as coins, but there are vastly more sizes.

Just doing some initial discarding with drop-through slots would be useful though. .22 rimfire cases go in the trash, and probably anything under .38/.357 (rimmed) or 10mm/.40 (rimless) isn't worth saving.

One of the problems with "raw brass" is that you get a lot of cases stuck together - but if we set up the weight-sorting right those that don't shake apart will just go into the discard bin.

 

[patentnonsense]

Thanks Hsmith - I posted before I saw your post. Yes, that sounds like a nice simple way to do initial classifying.

Do you know who makes or sells commercial machines?

 

[JuniorG]

Some of my most enjoyable winter days are spent dumping out the buckets of range brass I've gathered over the course of the year and sorting them out, 1st by caliber and then after the brass has been sized/deprimed and cleaned, by headstamp. Surprisingly it doesn't take long to have it all bagged and tagged and ready to load.

 

[redneck2]

There's a commercial reloader not too far from here that has a sorter. Still have to finish doing it by hand. Small cases get stuck inside big ones

Some are too close in size to reliably trust a machine

You also have some that are steel or aluminum vs brass

I suppose it could be done, but in the long run it'd be cheaper to hire someone or faster to just sort by hand

 

[Len_in_Phoenix]

Yes, there is. They're expensive and take quite a few years to set up properly, but once you have a few you'll never want to be without one again. My brass sorters both work very well now, so I'm working on upgrading to the enhanced versions that also clean guns.


"Ok kids, here are 3 buckets full of range brass......come get me after you're done sorting."




Len in Phoenix

 

[LAH]

Sorting tables are available from the parent company of Top Brass. Scharch Mfg. Inc. 1-800-836-4683. They're not cheap.