So I decieded to make a brass deflector

I am left handed and I prefer to hold my rifle with my right hand extended and gripping over the top of the hand guard to control muzzle rise during rapid fire. Well since the 15-22 ejects the brass directly into my elbow and usually leaves the entire area covered in red marks and burns, I have been using a brass catcher. It works better on the 15-22 than it does on my AR15, but not buy much. Every time I finish a mag I roll the rifle to ensure all of the brass drops into the pouch.

So I went about designing a brass deflector that will mount to the right hand side picatinny rail. After I had drawn it up, I contracted a company to do a 3D printed model. I will have to adjust the size of the "shield" to accommodate for mounted optics such as scopes and red dot sites. I only run iron sites and I fitted a Primary Arms Red Dot with the riser base from my AR15. It interfered a little bit with the "shield". Upon initial testing this evening, I ran 5 32 round Promags, I had 1 case jam in between the bolt and the ejection port and 2 spent cases jam inside of the upper receiver on the last round. The spent cases may have bounced back into the receiver before the bolt closed. I will have to test this with regular S&W mags to see if there is a problem with the design, or Promags later this week. So far I have not really run into much issues Promags, except with the occasionally not holding the bolt back on the last round. So this issue maybe related to the Promag or with my design.

I have designed this with manufacturing cost in mind and hope to keep the price of it down to the $30 - $50 range. Reasonable estimate until I receive quotes from local machine shops. Once I feel it is good to go, I will contract a machine shop to make these.

Let me know what you think. Would you have a practical use for this? Is this something you would be interested in buying?

I would like one for my little girl. She is a lefty and has told me the brass is hot. I want her to keep shooting. She will be 8yr old next weekend.


Zack
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A nice idea. However I can see a couple of issues you may have. One is if you go it any serious matches they will likely not let you use that setup. Mainly because the RO won't be able to see the chamber is empty to make the range cold. Another issue is that since you can't see the chamber either, if you get a malfunction you may not be able to see to clear it. And unlike say a local club match where they may let you restart after a malfunction at a serious match you are on the clock till you finish re-engaging the targets or you max out your time. Consider what you may need to do is take that off to clear a problem. Not going to be easy.
The only way you will be able to overcome all those issues is if you build it so the deflector can be flipped out of the way to clear the port. Anything else is a waste of your design time. You could likely make something that used an AR-15 dustcover so that it could be locked in both the down and up positions. That way you would not have to redesign from scratch.

^good suggestion about the flip up. i personally like to visually check the chamber before and after mags.

even as a right handed shooter, i would use this to stop brass from hitting the guy to my right or even bouncing off the wall and burning me ha.

I have designed this with manufacturing cost in mind and hope to keep the price of it down to the $30 - $50 range.

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$30, yes; $50, no.

Most brass deflectors for the AR15 (considerably larger than yours) go for $20-$25.

Being a leftie myself I can appreciate the idea, although I don't have any problems with the ejected cases myself.

As others have said, not being able to show a clear chamber or quickly inspect in the event of a failure would be a problem.

If it could be modified to allow quick release or minimally made from clear plexiglass (perspex) it may work better.

there are twist on scope mounts that would work good for a quick disconnect set up for competion set ups or access in malfunction case. am sur you cover plate coul be modified for it.

Zax said:

If it could be modified to allow quick release or minimally made from clear plexiglass (perspex) it may work better.

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plexiglass or a see-through wire mesh would be awesome.

Thanks for the input. Definitely somethings to take into consideration.

When I did have those malfunctions, I rolled the rifle 90 degrees to see what was going on. First time was the spent shell stuck between the bolt and ejection port, I just racked the charging handle to clear it. The other two malfunctions I dropped the mag and racked the charging handle.

Take a look at this. It may solve the issue seeing into the chamber area. I will take a look at drawing something up that could possible swing out of the way.

That_Guy said:

Thanks for the input. Definitely somethings to take into consideration.

Take a look at this. It may solve the issue seeing into the chamber area. I will take a look at drawing something up that could possible swing out of the way.

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Interesting option.

How much??

I was thinking of making a similar device, but with a mech bag to simple catch the brass for recycling purposes, without having to sweep or pick them up off the ground.

My idea was very similar to yours, but I am struggling to find a good way to attach the bag.

Doug B said:

I was thinking of making a similar device, but with a mech bag to simple catch the brass for recycling purposes, without having to sweep or pick them up off the ground.

My idea was very similar to yours, but I am struggling to find a good way to attach the bag.

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You are kinda re-inventing the wheel. It's already been done by several companies. They all sell for under $15. It's not worth the effort to DIY.

Caldwell AR-15 Brass Catcher Nylon Mesh Black

UTG Deluxe Brass Catcher AR-15 Nylon Mesh Black

GMG Brass Catcher AR-15 Nylon Mesh Black

thumb screws for mounting so it can come right off would be nice as far as the original idea goes. making it in a way so you could see in would be great too.

shawnfergie said:

How much??

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This is in the development stage so no price yet. I estimate $30-$50 for the finished product. But I am looking at ways to keep the cost down, hence a very simple design.

Doug B said:

I was thinking of making a similar device, but with a mech bag to simple catch the brass for recycling purposes, without having to sweep or pick them up off the ground.

My idea was very similar to yours, but I am struggling to find a good way to attach the bag.

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I have been using the UTG brass catcher and it is a piece of junk. It has a stiff canvas wrap at the entrance to the bag and then the mesh bag droops down effectively plugging up the opening to the bag. If you were to design one with the stiff canvas only on the upper three sides with just mesh on the bottom it would probably work quite well.

thacheese said:

thumb screws for mounting so it can come right off would be nice as far as the original idea goes. making it in a way so you could see in would be great too.

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That may be a good idea. I am looking to keep this a low profile as possible, but that could be an option. I am looking into windowing out the shield on all faces of it to all maximum amount of light in and allow the user to see into what is going on.


I think I have a good idea on how to make this be able to swing out of the way. I may be able to incorporate the a swinging shield option or to lock the shield into place. I will work a bit more on the design and get back with everyone.

im definitely liking the windowed option. i dont believe there is a further need to make it swing out of the way once you can see what is going on. just make the holes as large as possible - slightly smaller than the casing and you're good to go.

w0ady said:

im definitely liking the windowed option. i dont believe there is a further need to make it swing out of the way once you can see what is going on. just make the holes as large as possible - slightly smaller than the casing and you're good to go.

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I agree with this.

Have you considered the possibility of using thick Kydex?

I could do kydex, which would be a bit cheaper but I don't have time to cut and shape it. Especially windowing it out. The way I have designed the shield, it will be straight forward to cut on a waterjet with out any additional machining processes. The most expensive part of this will be the picatinny mounting bracket, since that may potentially require a custom ground tool to mill the mounting slot.

That_Guy said:

I could do kydex, which would be a bit cheaper but I don't have time to cut and shape it. Especially windowing it out. The way I have designed the shield, it will be straight forward to cut on a waterjet with out any additional machining processes. The most expensive part of this will be the picatinny mounting bracket, since that may potentially require a custom ground tool to mill the mounting slot.

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I would have thought you could do that with Kydex, but I guess not. I admit I have never worked with the stuff.

That's true, it can be cut with a waterjet. Quick google check a sheet of 12x12 of kydex is half the cost of the same size piece of aluminum. But I would prefer to keep the shield aluminum. If I had time to properly form it, it might not be problem, but could potentially be inconsistent. With having the shield cut from aluminum, the machine shop can put it into a sheet metal brake and correctly form the piece to the right angle every time. I have to also look at this as what is my time worth. It would be time consuming to form and fit each piece, when I can get each piece formed in aluminum exactly the same (consistency) and drop it into it's packaging.