SWS Brass Deflector is now available

I just got mine and tried it out today, had some bounceback. The guy in the next lane thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He didn't wear my brass, and he loved it.
 
Are you guys trying to reclaim your brass to reload? My gun clears the brass way clear of me. What is the purpose of this gizmo? Inquireing minds want to know. You can't reload rimfire ammo. Am I just clueless?

I shoot at a friend's home range, and I like shooting there so I police up my brass after every session. This deflector will make clean up a much easier and more pleasant task, especially if I can get the brass to fall into an old cooler, or box I build.

From my POV this add on is quite a good investment for shooters who collect brass, or who want to be courteous to their fellow shooters.

I will be ordering one of these very soon.
 
I just got mine and tried it out today, had some bounceback. The guy in the next lane thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He didn't wear my brass, and he loved it.

I couldn't get rid of the bounceback, I just had to take it off. :(
 
I have changed the angle, relative to the lower, on a couple of deflectors but it has been raining and I have not had a chance to get to the range to see what the results are.

On one I bent the rear out about 1/8" and the other bent the bottom out a little less. I am still thinking that the deflector being exactly parallel to the lower, both horizontally and vertically, is the problem. My ghetto version has the deflector at a 45 degree angle (vertically) to the lower and there is no problem with bounce back. I think the fact that the deflector itself is a length of soft rail ladder contributes to the lack of bounce back, as well.
 
Went to the range yesterday, I took mounted the original brass deflector to the mounting base, which was 1 rail notch forward because the new deflector is longer. Before shooting, I bent the aft end of the deflector outboard a small amount (pulled it away from the rifle).

Ran through 140 rounds of Federal Champion 36g CPHP, and only 1 shell casing bounced back into the chamber. The first 100 rounds were slow fire, and the last 40 I fired at a fairly fast rate.

I also believe that because the deflector is exactly parallel to the lower, it causes the bounce-back into my chamber. Others may have a different result, but that one small change worked for me.

Grabbed some washers from storage, and will try them between the mounting base and both deflectors (long and short). Afterwards, I will post my results here. Hopefully I can go tomorrow morning.

Thanks to everyone here for all the advice, and the brainstorming. Especially to SimpleWeaponsSolutions! He's been awesome! :-)
 
Mine is still parallel to the lower, I just angled the aft end away from the rifle. No idea of how far, but just a little as it was mounted, and I did not want to damage anything by applying too much force.

That did make a tremendous difference though.

Before... 8 bounce backs in 25 rounds
Yesterday... 1 bounce back in 140 rounds

Maybe tilting the deflector a little is the next step. I'm thinking that if the vertical surface angles down a little, that the brass will bounce downward instead of horizontal. (hope that makes sense)
 
I thought about trying to bend mine outward too, but would need for SWS to confirm that I could still return it if that doesn't work.
 
I will not be returning mine. I'll just keep experimenting with it until it works. I consider it a challenge. Besides, if I fail to think of something, there are enough people here to help with ideas!
 
I thought about trying to bend mine outward too, but would need for SWS to confirm that I could still return it if that doesn't work.

I have no problem with accepting a return on it, even if you take it to the range and use it as a target to take out your frustrations on it. If you would like I still have a handful of cosmetic blemished shields that I can send you to mess around with. If you would like a couple of them, send me a pm with a ship to address.

If anyone scratches, breaks, mangles, etc their brass deflector I will still accept a return on it or send replacement parts. Just send me a pm or email me [email protected]
 
I notice that the in-the-white deflectors you sent me are both slightly longer and thicker than the production version.
 
They should be all around the same thickness. There may be slight variations as the shields are cut with a waterjet from a large sheet of aluminum.

After the first run of brass deflectors I increased the length a little bit.
 
I finally got the chance to test out my deflector. Overall, it worked fine. I had a few stove pipes where the ejected casing bounced backed into the chamber. It was more prevalent during double taps. Nothing new from what has already been said. I believe I had one of the first production runs.
 
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SWS Brass Deflector Quick Review

The folks at Simple Weapons Solutions were nice enough to send me a brass deflector to test with some sub-sonic ammunition. My review of the rifle enhancement follows.

This test was conducted at a friend's ranch on a private range. So we both had opportunity to act as shooter and observer for the duration of the test, with no other distractions.

The range of ammunition was all in the 1,000 to 1,080 fps range, well under the speed of sound. The stages of fire included slow and rapid fire segments, with the breech of the rifle in various positions relative to the horizon.

I normally shoot the gun suppressed, but removed it to make the test more relevant.

In a nutshell, here are the results.

673834357_o.jpg


Synopsis of Results

RC = Round Count
FTF = Failure to Feed
FTFIRE = Failure to Fire
STOVE = Brass kicking back into chamber, post ejection

The number of stovepipe failures is statistically insignificant. I honestly expected more problems with the short cases from the Aguila SSS, due to their violent ejection behavior, but oddly enough did not see that in the testing.

As you can see from the table, the only significant number is in the FTFIRE column. I believe this is due to using an ALG/ACT trigger and hammer with the standard S&W blue hammer spring. I did not have this problem prior to the installation of the ACT trigger, and believe my S&W armorer gave me some not so great advice to use the factory hammer spring. I will install the ALG hammer spring when I clean the gun.

Observations

We both acted as observers, and saw the same behavior in the operation of the rifle.

I installed the deflector on the trailing edge of the rail. That is to say, I used three sections of rail so the entire SWS mount was seated on the forearm. In this mounting position, we both saw numerous instances of the brass bouncing out of the space between the rear edge of the deflector and the upper receiver deflector post.

This issue was solved by moving the install point on the rail one notch closer to the receiver. In our humble opinion, if we were the designer of the deflector, it would make sense to extend the length about another ¼ inch rearward to cover the gap. This would provide a more elegant mounting solution than the mount overhanging the rear end of the forearm. See the arrows in the following photo.

673834162_o.jpg


Observing the angles of the brass as it was ejected from the gun; we felt it might also make sense to extend the top section of the deflector (before the downward bend begins) by another ¼ inch or so. Bowing out the main body of the deflector away from the mount might accomplish the same thing. We felt this might lessen the amount of general "rattle around" we saw prior to the case being forced downward by gravity.

673834171_o.jpg


The other thing we noticed was the tendency of some of the cases to catch on the cutouts prior to drop. It appeared as if the case would occasionally catch on one of the edges of the cutouts and change its angle of motion. This might contribute to an occasional stovepipe. The best remedy for this would probably be to radius the inside edges of the cutouts when they are being cut on the mill. A rounded inner edge would eliminate what we saw.

We both thought it was a well engineered and well made device. It certainly more than lives up to what we feel is a nice range enhancement to eliminate spiting brass at the next shooter down the line.

Two thumbs up! :D
 
They should be all around the same thickness. There may be slight variations as the shields are cut with a waterjet from a large sheet of aluminum.

After the first run of brass deflectors I increased the length a little bit.

Original deflector, first generation - 0.120
Replacements - 0.125

It's surprising that the .005 is actually noticeable.

I am hoping to get back to the range Tuesday afternoon.
 
DirtDart,

A little off topic, but what model EoTech is that, XPS or EXPS. Also, why do you have it on a riser?

I am looking for one, and would like an absolute co-witness with the Magpul BUIS.

Thanks for all of the testing and observation. And thanks for the future information.
 
DirtDart,

A little off topic, but what model EoTech is that, XPS or EXPS. Also, why do you have it on a riser?

I am looking for one, and would like an absolute co-witness with the Magpul BUIS.

Thanks for all of the testing and observation. And thanks for the future information.

It is an XPS2-0. It is on the riser to set it up for lower 1/3 co-witness with the Magpul BUIS.

As you are probably aware, the EXPS series is already elevated for lower 1/3.
 
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