Homemade brass sorting device

[sheepdog]

Thinking about taking an old paper shuffler and fitting it with a descending grid to help sort out brass a little. Just not sure how best to do it. Any ideas?

[Mk42gunner]

I'm guessing this is for pistol brass? If so how about drilling holes like in the stackable coin sorters, then shaking the heck out of it?

Leave the .45's on top, then the .40/10mm, 9mm, etc..

Robert

[KCSO]

I put the grandkids to work and have a contest to see who can fill their bucket first. I never found an affordable machine to do it.

[jmorris]

Here is one I built out of stuff I had sitting around. The concept is, counter rotating shafts that taper from small to large and brass falls out when the opening is the proper diameter. Precision is key in it’s ability to sort well and making it longer would be good too. I just used the longest pieces of seamless 4130 I had but it will sort .380 from 9mm from 38 super (something the shell shorter types can‘t do). It goes up to 45 LC.




Here is a video of when I first got it running.

[ANeat]

Nice JM, I love the chip brush in the case colator

[bigboredad]

stuff you had just sitting around. wow we definitely have some different hobbies. Nice job I am amazed what the guys on here can come up with and make happen. I for one am impressed

[jmorris]

The chip brush didn't make it into the finished version I had to send it back to NASA. My hobbies are to build things, I don't understand why my wife calls my treasure "junk".

[hammerhead357]

jmorris that is a nice case sorting device. At one time there was a sorter made that worked the same way. It was made by an outfit in Dallas that went by the name Ben's Machines. His didn't have a collator but had a hopper that had a belt running at the bottom and this dumped cases out onto the rollers. He had some sort of a vibrating setup on the case hopper also.
But yours is a neat set up and shows good work....Wes

After I looked at yours again I realized that Ben's had 2 sets of rollers in it but all that would do is speed the sorting up and make it more complicated....

[RedneckAlbertan]

Out of cureosity, how fast are your 2 shafts turning?

[WILCO]

That was slicker than bear grease!! Great job.

[easy ed]

Check out this utube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH-7d9IuVqY

[Wayne Smith]

Mr. Morris, do I assume correctly that it will have problems with rimmed cases?

[Adam10mm]

Camdex sells their machine like that for $11,000.

[EMC45]

Check out this utube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH-7d9IuVqY

I have seen this before!! AWESOME!!!!!

[jmorris]

I think the gear motor on the shaft is 30rpm 120v ac and the hopper motor is the same but dc I put and adjustable power supply on them so I could adjust the feed rate by voltage so they wouldn't stack in the feed tube. It does rimmed cases too.

[cheese1566]

Check out this utube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH-7d9IuVqY

That one is way too cool also. I downloaded the series of videos to build one in the future. Problem is, I don't know what I would use one for since my progressives are older (Hornady Pro-7/Projector and a RCBS Ammo-Master II).

[AZ-Stew]

jmorris,

As a mechanical designer, I'm fascinated by small machines that do their job well. Yours certainly qualifies.

Did you create a table of rim sizes and figure out the rest from there, or did you have another method of arriving at this design?? I never know when I'll need a particular mechanism to do my work. Everyone where I work thinks I'm a genius. All I do is recycle other mechanisms I've seen. I don't want to steal your design for THIS job, but I'm very interested in how you arrived at your assembly geometry.

Thanks for any insight you can give,

Stew

[ANeat]

AZ here is a commercial machine similar to JM's... Freakshow mentioned it earlier.



http://www.camdexloader.com/CaseSorter.aspx#

There are a lot of guys on here similar to JM, show them a few pics of something they want and they go make it.

[Adam10mm]

Mr Morris is a reloading Jedi. It comes with the territory.

[jmorris]

jmorris,

As a mechanical designer, I'm fascinated by small machines that do their job well. Yours certainly qualifies.

Did you create a table of rim sizes and figure out the rest from there, or did you have another method of arriving at this design?? I never know when I'll need a particular mechanism to do my work. Everyone where I work thinks I'm a genius. All I do is recycle other mechanisms I've seen. I don't want to steal your design for THIS job, but I'm very interested in how you arrived at your assembly geometry.

Thanks for any insight you can give,

Stew

I am always thinking of a better way of doing things I guess. I have built 4 different brass sorting machines and n the combined time involved I could have sorted all the brass that I’ll ever need but that’s not the point, the fun is making something that works. As mentioned above my hobby and work I guess is to build things, once they work I move on to the next project, notice the lack of paint. If they fail I just make another. It certainly helps if you can figure out what others have done and copy or improve on the idea.

Before and after a few attempts I looked for information on the Camdex and Scarch sorters but came up empty handed (except for the profile photo in the link above) so I just measured the smallest and largest case that I wanted to sort and gapped the rollers accordingly. Then I started setting brass on the rollers and watched where they fell, broke sheet metal for the dividers and set them in the spots that different diameters of brass fell. If you look close you will notice they are not equal distant apart from each other.