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

This sounds like a very good project! With my bad back, even popping off some pistol rounds at my backyard range can end up in frustration from lost empties. Good luck!

Looking forward to some pictures of your final version.

I got my CAD renderings finished up last night and the small basket section of my Brass-Catcher printed up this morning. It came out looking pretty good but I haven't had time to play around with it to see what kind of filing and sanding it may need to get it to look presentable.

The CAD computer renderings I've posted in the past look pristine and perfect; just as I dreamed or imagined they would be but in reality my 3D printer's print-resolution isn't the best. Most times it takes a bit of post-print filing and sanding to get the parts to look half way decent.

I also have to make the little cloth-mesh-sock to hang off of my 3D printed creation in order to have something for my empty brass to fly into. It's all falling together fairly quickly but I find myself now having to take care of other things around the house that I hadn't planned on having to do. I hope to have those pics up later today or tomorrow some time.

By the way; I printed my Brass-Catcher components out of some bright orange ABS filament. Why Orange? Because, it's all I had on hand; besides, the orange color could be plausibly interpreted as being the color of "Safety-Orange." I only mention it because with many things gun related a more Manly-Black color or some other military color might be preferable. Hey, these are just budget projects from a guy that's to cheap to drive down the road and buy one off the shelf.

HollowPoint

You sound like a kindred soul! :grin: Why buy something for $15 when it can be cooked up at home for $3 or $4..... and 10 or 15 hours time??? :bigsmyl2:

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

Very interesting project. I don’t think I have ever seen a brass catcher for a pistol, I used to have on for my AR but I never did use it much.

What printer are you using?


Check out my website www.theballisticassistant.com

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Originally Posted by Valornor

Very interesting project. I don’t think I have ever seen a brass catcher for a pistol, I used to have on for my AR but I never did use it much.

What printer are you using?


Check out my website www.theballisticassistant.com

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I'm using a FlashForge Creator Pro 3D printer. Don't let the word "Pro" fool you. Perhaps in the hands of a real "Pro" one can get excellent prints with this machine but I'm anything but a pro. I don't use it enough to get really good at it. There are just to many other things in life that I like to do besides focusing mainly on or around 3D printing.

Still, I do like owning this printer because I have alot of ideas and projects I can use this for prototyping to see if those ideas will actually work or not.

I've seen Brass-Catchers for semi-auto pistols before but if I recall correctly, the ones I came across on the internet were mainly designed around those pistols that had the integral short rudimentary picatinny rail on the front-most underside of the frames. This way they could use that short length of rail to securely attach their Brass-Catcher onto.

Mine feels like it has a good grasp of the frame but there is a chance that it may not be a good enough grasp. Only time and testing will tell me if further tweaks need to be made to my design.

HollowPoint

Very nice.:popcorn:

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

Any chance you could make a snap-on deflector that would direct the brass straight down or close to it rather than using a sock? I understand the sock is so that you don't have to bend down and pick the brass up or keep it from getting contaminated but with a deflector, it wouldn't get heaver the more you shoot.

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Originally Posted by Camper64

Any chance you could make a snap-on deflector that would direct the brass straight down or close to it rather than using a sock? I understand the sock is so that you don't have to bend down and pick the brass up or keep it from getting contaminated but with a deflector, it wouldn't get heaver the more you shoot.

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I'm sure it could be done with a deflector instead of a sock. What I'm not sure about is if the impact of the empty brass on the deflector would jar loose the small component attached to the slide. With the sock setup the cloth mesh acts as a sort of energy absorber as the brass hits the cloth and is deflected along the length of the sock till it hits bottom.

You're right about the weight increase but I don't think that one or two mag-full's of empties will make to much difference. I may have a different opinion on that after I test it though.

The only way to know for sure would be try it. My main purpose for making this Brass-Catcher was so that I don't have to go looking for my empty cases after they're ejected and so that I don't have to bend over to pick them up when I do find them.

If you have a 3D printer and a CAD software that you can design a deflector I'd be more than happy to email you the STL file for the lower section; provided your pistol is of the same configuration. I'm not really sure if the outside geometry of all Kimber-styled 1911's are the same across the aboard. If they are then my little gizmo should fit any 1911 with the same shaped lower frame.

The deflector doesn't even have to be 3D printed. You can fabricate a deflector out of just about anything I suppose. Perhaps if your design has some spring to it, that might mitigate some of the impact shock that would dislodge the lower section from the frame. All that's holding it on is the snug fit and the 1/8" or so of the slide-release pin protruding out the right side of the frame.

HollowPoint

If the weight of the empty brass is a problem, just remove the bottom of the sock. It will then drop the brass after slowing it down. You could probably catch it with a box or bucket as long as you stand in one spot firing at a fixed target. You could also extend the sock so that it dropped the brass to the bottom of the bucket.

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Originally Posted by ulav8r

If the weight of the empty brass is a problem, just remove the bottom of the sock. It will then drop the brass after slowing it down. You could probably catch it with a box or bucket as long as you stand in one spot firing at a fixed target. You could also extend the sock so that it dropped the brass to the bottom of the bucket.

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That's a good idea for range sessions. I never thought of that. I think I'd still prefer the short enclosed sock when I'm out in the sticks just stump shooting or hunting.

There's alot of different ways to skin this cat. It just takes a little imagination. A deflector or an extended sock are just two more examples of common sense at work.

HollowPoint

With any luck I'll have the frame-mounted component of my Brass-Catcher for my Khar Arms 9mm printed up tomorrow morning some time. I printed up the preliminary component I modeled for that particular gun this morning and although it came out of the printer looking pretty good, it needed all kinds of hand fitting to get it to fit the outer surfaces of the frame of the 9mm.

It took me about an hour and a half to file down that first print so that it would conform to the contours of little Khar pistol. I then took new measurements based on the whittled down prototype print and proceeded to tweak the CAD model in order to get what I hope will be the correct measurements necessary to get this new lower component to work.

The upper basket or sock component fit into the slot of the new lower component quite nicely with a minimum of clean up. I was hoping it would so I could just use the same upper Brass-Catcher component for both pistols. To bad that newly printed lower component needed so much filing to get it to work.

I'm really wanting to get both pistols set up with it's respective lower Brass-Catcher component before I go out for my next range session. I'd like to kill three birds with one stone. I want to be able to test these Brass-Catcher projects while I'm out for my first round of load work-up for that 223 Tikka T3 Lite I recently re-barreled and re-chambered. I was able to do the fire forming I needed to do early last week. Some of you may recall that when I re-barreled that Tikka rifle I went from a factory 23" barrel to a spiral fluted 16 inch barrel.

In an attempt to mitigate some of the velocity loss from going to a shorter barrel I decided to re-chamber to 223 Ackley Improved. It seemed to shoot pretty darn good with the standard 223 non-fire-formed brass at the time so I have high hopes that it will be the tack driver that some of the other Tikka rifles I've owned.

I'll post some of the last photos of this project once I get that range session completed.

HollowPoint

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

OK, this is the last one. I found that I had just enough cloth mesh left over to make one last Brass-Catcher. This last one is made to fit my Tikka Rifles.

The shooting benches at my local shooting range are set up side by side. Even with my bolt action Tikkas, unless I make a conscious effort to cycle the action as gingerly as possible it's guaranteed to kick the brass out the right side far enough to where I have to go looking for it one bench over; or farther depending on what it happens to bounce off of. To that end I decided to model a quick set of three components to use up the last of my cloth mesh.

I also went ahead and reinforced the cloth mesh on the sock or basket that I made for the pistol Brass-Catcher while I was waiting for this latest version to finish printing. I was able to print out all three components in one session. I'm pretty sure it's going to work just like I'm 98-percent sure that both my pistol Brass-Catchers will work as well. I just have to test them to confirm this.

I'm hoping to be able to test them next week some time. That will give me a bit more time to load up some more rounds for my Tikka Hunter as well as the Tikka Lite.

The photos were taken with my cell phone. This is the reason for the grainy images and the poor color gradients. They're good enough to give you all an idea of what I was shooting for. In the off chance any of you guys would like to print a set of your own, let me know and I can email you the STL files so you can print them on your own 3D printers. The sock or basket can be made out of one of your wife's stockings. Everyone has lost one of their sweat socks somewhere along the line that has left you with one lone sock you've held onto hoping that the lost sock would turn up some day; but never has.

This may be a way for you to put that lone sock to use again.

HollowPoint

Wow, one of these would sure be awesome on a cz52

As printed, I think this Brass-Catcher should fit just about any bolt action that wears a scope with a one inch scope tube. I did have to tweak the plastic frame on my initial print due to the interference I was getting from the windage knob on the scope.

I printed that updated version yesterday and it now clears the windage knob on the scope. I also printed an additional little doodad that is meant to fit in the upper horizontal slots of the plastic basket-frame. That extra doodad serves as a support for the roof of the basket or sock. It keeps the upper side of the sock up and out of the way of the ejected brass so that it flies into the basket, hits the wall of the basket farthest away from the ejection port and falls harmlessly to the bottom of the sock/basket.

Initially it was working fine with the empty cases I was using to test but one out of five of those ejected cases would hit the slumped down roof of the basket and bounce back into the ejection port or dribble out the bottom of the basket onto the floor. This additional little 3D printed doodad I'm eluding to just holds the roof of the basket up and out of the way.

The entire Brass-Catcher unit is easily removed and disassembled when the shooting session is finished.

HollowPoint

I'd like to give the 1911 try, I expect I'll have to modify, but my Kimber micro 9 throws brass in about a 270 degree circle from 5 to 20 feet out. (I'm not kidding) I've lost more brass with that gun than any other. And it isn't consistent from one shot to the next. Most of my other guns will drop in a 6 ft circle or even less, but this one launches. I'll PM you my email

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Originally Posted by Handloader109

I'd like to give the 1911 try, I expect I'll have to modify, but my Kimber micro 9 throws brass in about a 270 degree circle from 5 to 20 feet out. (I'm not kidding) I've lost more brass with that gun than any other. And it isn't consistent from one shot to the next. Most of my other guns will drop in a 6 ft circle or even less, but this one launches. I'll PM you my email

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HandLoader: I didn't notice this particular post until after I'd read your PM.

I'll be including the STL files for the rifle Brass-Catcher in same the Zip file I'm emailing you. "Brass Catcher" and the "CopyBrass Catcher" files are the two components for the 1911 pattern pistol. The other three are the STL files for the rifle Brass-Catcher.

I'll be real busy tomorrow so I'm going to try to get that out first thing in the morning. Let us know If you're able to get them to work out for you. Hopefully they go off without a hitch. I wasn't so lucky. My prints always require a certain amount of post-print finishing to get them just right.

HollowPoint

Can you post the stl files on castboolits?

It might make better sense to make a sticky here with URLs for sites like thingiverse, for 3d printed handy objects, and try to keep it up to date? STL files tend to be 100k+ for smaller objects (for example a micro SD card holder), a 3d printed brass catcher could be 1 Megabyte or larger potentially, bit large for on here I think?

G'day from Downunder[smilie=s:

G'day , have you had a chance to get to the range to test out the brass catcher yet ? if so did it stay attached to the pistol and was it a success ? I am quite interested in this because if it works I will be able to have a .45 auto again .

Regards Paul . :-P

Guys I made a stand up brass catcher from a cheap fishnet, a hoop of copper tubing, 2 wireties, empty tater sack & a block of 4x4. Sits on the bench right next to the rest & catches everything once in place. I really like the idea of 3D prints too, just wish we could find some method for print small metal parts. There is a world of need now for our vintage pieces.

A thousand pardons everyone. Since retiring in 2018 I haven't really visited the Cast Boolits site as often as I used to. I had no idea that this thread was still live. I just happened to post another project over on the "Special-Projects" pages and I noticed after scanning through the forum that this project thread seemed to be still active.

Since the time I originally posted this brass-catcher project thread I have had about a dozen guys email me or message me about STL files. A couple of times I had to dig up those files cause I periodically clear all the files off of my laptop to make room for more stuff.

I have those Brass-Catcher files on a Zip file right now that I can easily email to any who might still be interested. I hope to upload all that stuff to my Thingiverse account in the near future. I thought when I retired I'd have alot more free time to do more of the things I'd been putting off till after I retired but, I've never been so busy since retiring from the work force.

HollowPoint

I dod something similar but don't have 3d printer, I molded a coat hangar to wrap around my hand instead of the gun and have a loop with net behind it so it does not matter which gun since it holds by a strap around back of my hand .

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Originally Posted by mf79

I dod something similar but don't have 3d printer, I molded a coat hangar to wrap around my hand instead of the gun and have a loop with net behind it so it does not matter which gun since it holds by a strap around back of my hand .

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I thought of doing something similar before modeling the dedicated components to fit directly onto my hand guns. I did find that with my finished and tested 3D printed brass catcher parts they were aligned with the ejection ports of my pistols just fine but, I encountered a problem when I noticed that one out of four empties would hit the catch-net which was dangling across the face of the catch-net and just fall to the ground rather than into my catch-net.

The inertia of those ejected brass pieces was not enough to push their way into my catch-net. Using a couple of zip-ties I was able to place two ties across the top of the mouth of the 3D printed components to hold the catch-net up high enough to keep the sagging catch-net from blocking the entrance into the said catch-net. All is right with the world now.

HollowPoint

I'd like one for my TT 33 pistols. You have to look a county away to find your brass.

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Originally Posted by jdfoxinc

I'd like one for my TT 33 pistols. You have to look a county away to find your brass.

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I felt the same way about having to look for the brass ejected by my pistols. When out stumbling around in the desert and just stump shooting that ejected brass became nearly invisible when it hit the ground. At the shooting range, picking up my empty brass could sometimes become contentious if there were other shooters shooting the same calibers and also picking up their brass at the same time.

I think that a more universal brass catcher would be made to fit the palm of one's hand rather that making specific dedicated brass catchers for each and every model of semi auto pistol. I think that mf79 had a good idea with his design of a hand held brass catcher.

HollowPoint

If brass pickup leads to contention, use a sharpie and mark your case heads in a unique manner, solves that

Can you please share CAD file for 3D printing, I have Glock 21 and Glock 44 for which I need empty shell catcher. ameenkitekar@yahoo.co.in

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

This is a good thread that I missed a couple yr ago, but only got my 3D printer last year. Good thread - did you upload the stl files to thingiverse or one of those sites?

I LOVE all the sharing done on this site.