A 3D Printed Brass Catcher Project
I'm pretty sure you can just go out and buy one of these somewhere online or in a brick-N-mortar store but I'm to cheap to do that so I thought I'd make my own. I've seen the Brass-Catchers that are made for automatic rifles and a few for semi-auto pistols but those are mainly for pistols that have the short rudimentary light or other attachment rail on the underside of the frame. Neither of my semi-autos have such a rail so this is another reason I've decided to make my own.
One of the very few things I hate about going out and shooting my guns as a reloader is having to go hunting for my spent brass; especially the having to bending over and picking it up part. The older I get, the more I dislike that part of shooting my guns. When I'm out bumming around in the desert doing some stump shooting my spent brass becomes darn near invisible once it hits the ground.
I'm talking about shooting with my Kimber 45 or my Khar Arms 9mm. Brass isn't cheap anymore like it used to be; especially the 45 brass. I used to have a bunch of it but over the years I slowly but surely stopped looking for it once it hit the ground. Now I don't want to have to buy more so out of necessity I make an effort to retrieve all my spent cases. If I can get this Brass-Catcher to work for me it will bring me one step closer to not having to be constantly on the lookout where my empties are flying off to.
The first part of this project has been completed and printed. It took a bit of post-print sanding and filing after the third try to get it to fit my Kimber Classic Custom just right. I just finished modeling the small basket portion of this Brass-Catcher so tomorrow I'll be printing that also. I'm hoping that the little basket that the brass will fly into will fit perfectly the first time around. The little basket is designed to be swappable; meaning that it should fit the 3D printed section I'll be making for both pistols.
I'll post some pics as soon as I get them edited. I think it's going to work; at least it looks like it will. I'll just have to wait and see how long the ABS plastic I'm printing it out of will hold up. If I lined everything up just right, when they're ejected from the pistol I should get nothing but net. As long as my empties don't hit the plastic frame of my catch-basket it should hold up indefinitely.
I'll be back with those pics later. This post was just a primer.
HollowPoint
4 Attachment(s)
Got It All Printed Up And Assembled
I was only able to get my CAD/Computer renderings edited for uploading this time around. I still have a bit more work to do around the house before I can photograph my completed 3D Printed Brass-Catcher actually mounted on my Pistol.
The prints came out as I'd hoped they would. I already mentioned that the lower component of my Brass-Catcher took me three different tries to finally get all of the curves and angles just right so that it securely hugged the underside of the pistol frame. It's a pretty secure fit; not so snug as to mar the finish and not so loose that the recoil will dislodge it from it's place. (I Hope)
The Upper component came off the printer looking like it would work the first time around. It did take a little bit of cleaning it up with a file and light sanding to get it to fit into the slot in the lower section. The upper section took an hour and a half to print and the lower section took an hour and fifteen minutes.
I was also able to stitch together the Cloth-Mesh-Sock that my fired brass will fall or fly into. I have yet to photograph my completed Brass-Catcher mounted on my pistol; although I did mount it to check to see how it fit, I didn't take any photos. I was just getting to anxious and impatient so I put it all together to see how it would look and feel.
I also manually cycled the action to make sure that the spent brass would eject in the correct general direction. It looked promising.
I'll have to finish up the work around the house before I can take any decent photos of the assembled and mounted Brass-Catcher unit. Those photos will be forthcoming either tomorrow or the next day. Then it's just a matter of finding the free time to make it to the shooting range for testing. I really envy you guys who have backyard shooting ranges. I have to drive thirty miles one way to get to my nearest shooting range.
I'm hoping that these CAD Renderings will be enough to peak your interest until I can get some real life photos to show you. I'll be back.
HollowPoint
4 Attachment(s)
Here's those photos I promised
They should be self explanatory. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
Why print it in an orange color??? Because, that's the only filament color I happened to have enough of on hand. I could have said that it was done as part of the design and it may have sounded like a plausible reason; being that this shade of orange can be seen as a "Blaze-Orange" similar to a high visibility safety color. In reality, it's the only filament I had enough of to make these prints.
I bought this orange filament back when I was doing my fishing lure project. That fishing lure project worked like gang-busters. I'm hoping this Brass-Catcher project will also work out well. These are budget restraints projects.
HollowPoint
2 Attachment(s)
I Got The Lower Component Printed Up for My Khar Arms 9mm
It took a couple of different tries to get this one right but that's one less try than it took to get my 1911 patterned Kimber 45 semi auto's lower Brass-Catcher component to work..
I used my cell phone camera to take these photos so they are a little on the blurry side but, they show enough detail to get the gist of what I was attempting to achieve. Now hopefully I'll be able to take them with me for testing the next time I'm out at the shooting range working up loads for my Tikka T3 rifle.
I'll try to remember to take some photos while I'm at the range just to have photographic proof of whether they worked or not. I may take my SunGlasses-Video camera to get birds-eye view of these Brass-Catchers in action; or, inaction depending on how they work out. If they fail I'll post that too.
HollowPoint