Brass catcher

[buck1]

I resisted it for years but I finally got a 1911. Picking up and loosing brass is the pits!!!
How do you guys deal with this? What have you made?? Thanks....Buck

[Jim]

Usta was, the only place I had to shoot my 45 was a grassy area. I spread out a tarp, stood to the left and let the brass land on that.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Buck : Picking up the brass is easy.... www.thenutwizard.com. Dillion sells them also. best $50 I have spent.

I would also recommend the Three Tier Brass Sorting Sieve System sold by Dillion and Midway USA. It is well worth the $40 and is made of thick plastic and works very well. I have sorted 1000 rounds out of an indoor range's single brass bucket in 20 minutes using this tool.

You can find both of these tools on the Dillion Reloading website. Both pay for themselves quickly and you'll see what I'm talking about instantly. This is good stuff!

When you go to places where you can't pick up spent brass, then the "leverite" attitude must prevail. As in " lev'er right there." You just have to resign yourself to letting go. I overcome the loss by only shooting undesirable brass in those venues.

By undesrable I mean offbrand brass that I don't want to reload more than once. In my .40S&W that means anything except Winchester, and in .45 ACP that menas things like Win NT with the small primers. This way I don't care if it hits the ground and I have to walk away.

Finding sources for range brass that you can go to to replenish your supplies has to be part of the system also. Most ranges recycle, and will either allow you to look thru there brass cans or help clean up. This is what I do and I can usually stay well ahead of the game. With .45 brass anything you find other than steel and aluminum is suitable to reload many times.

I just did a 4 day Practical Rifle Course at Front Sight this last week end and I had to (because of a new policy) leave 400 rnds of .223 brass laying there. There were 56 guys who were shooting .223 in that class and it was a hard thing to do. Our class left in excess of 20,000 rnds of brass laying! I was twitching badly! Still I will pick up that much at my other sources in a week so it's not the end of the world. I would not shoot New Brass that I had paid for at this venue, but I would shoot range brass, or Wolf ammo. So you see how I cope with these issues.

Do check out the Dillion Reloading site for the two tools I mentioned above.

And I hope this helps you in some way.

Randy

[buck1]

I was wondering about those pick up tools.
I am allowed to pick up my brass it is just that I loose about 1/4-1/3 of it in the dirt ,grass, etc.
The tarps seem doable as well.. Thanks Guys!!!...Buck

[geargnasher]

I use the bridge of my shooting glasses with my Kimber, tried three different ejectors and over half of the cases still hit me square in the bridge of the nose or in the right lens. So much for the ambi-safety, this is NOT a gun for southpaws. The idea I employ is the simple, cheap, blue tarp. Cranky ejectors, wind, leaves, etc. make the tarp idea iffy. I'm finding I like revolvers more and more.

There was a fella who had at least three Youtube vids posted demonstrating his stick and net brass catcher that fit on .30 and .50 caliber steel ammo cans, I think he was trying to start a company selling them, I don't know if he succeeded, but if you can't get one from him, copy his idea, it was the best one I've seen yet.

The Mrs and I are heading to FrontSite this fall for the basic defensive pistol class courtesy of a good friend of mine, we're trying to figure out how to handle the ammo issue. I think I might have to bite the bullet and purchase a freakin' Glunk in 9mm to do the course, and shoot non-brass ammo. I know I'm gonna cry when I see the front-end loader come in and scrape up 15,000 rounds of pistol brass in an afternoon.

Gear

[geargnasher]

Here's one of the guy's vids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg6b_G9zdwI&feature=fvsr

Gear

[justingrosche]

I made a catch net that works well off the bench to catch my AR brass and it didnt cost a thing to make. I took a wire frame from a political candidate (which happened to be an Anti) ripped the paper off it and strung an old mesh laundry around the frame and secured it with zip ties. I doubled the bottom over to make a pouch. To make it stand upright I used a 2X6 with holes for the stakes to slid into.
It worked well for the AR but not so much for the Auto pistols because its height

[44fanatic]

I made a catch net that works well off the bench to catch my AR brass and it didnt cost a thing to make. I took a wire frame from a political candidate (which happened to be an Anti) ripped the paper off it and strung an old mesh laundry around the frame and secured it with zip ties. I doubled the bottom over to make a pouch. To make it stand upright I used a 2X6 with holes for the stakes to slid into.
It worked well for the AR but not so much for the Auto pistols because its height

Thinking the same design, but with PVC pipe to get a "standing height" brass catcher may do the trick. Relatively cheap and easy to make.

[buck1]

Great help!!

[frankenfab]

I shoot under an awning and have some surplus camo nets from Sportsman's Guide hung up like curtains. I would like to build a frame out of PVC (like a soccer goal) for something portable.

[zardoz]

Out on my pistol range, I put up a inexpensive screen tent, about 10' by 12' I got off of Amazon. I think you can get them in the $50 to $60 range or less at Wal-Mart sometimes as well.

I put a 12' by 12' blue tarp on the ground under the tent. Everything is pegged taut to the ground with those steel tent pegs that look like big nails with a plastic fitting on the top.

I pretty much leave it up all the time, except when snow is predicted. Learned to hard way, that even a minor snow fall will collapse them in short order. Since my range is out in the mixed forest, I have to sweep the floor of leaves and needles every so often, but no problem with a wide shop broom.

Now, after shooting, all the brass hits the screen walls, and falls to the tarp floor, easily found and recovered.

A bit of overkill maybe, but it has made the hobby so much more enjoyable to recover EVERYTHING, especially that 10mm brass.

[bobthenailer]

A+ on dillons brass/ nut wizzard . the only thing i changed was the wooden handel to a telescoping aluminum handel. now it lighter and stores eaiser !

[3006guns]

A friend of mine made a frame out of 3/4" pvc, shaped like a small pup tent then covered it loosely with some of that orange netting used at construction sites (they usually throw it away after the project is complete). Both ends are left open.

He set this a-frame affair on the bench so that he was enclosed by it when shooting any of his self loading rifles or handguns. The ejected brass hits the loose fabric and looses velocity immediately, falling to the bench. At the end of the session he simply gathers his brass, folds the "tent" in half and heads for home.

[bobthenailer]

Ive seen some people use a large golfing type umbrella upside down sticking the point into the ground . it works farily well and is compact and easy to set up .

[Jamesconn]

Go buy those little plastic baby pools

[RP]

I prefer to call them water friendly cost effective pools. They also work good for coolers for large parties.