Building a Brass Sortation System

[Sgt Preston]

Sgt Preston here. I have a good friend who buys used brass from gun ranges & sorts it and re- sell it over the internet to reloaders. Joe buys huge quantities & sorts it by hand in his garage. Joe spends way toooooo much time sorting brass & inhaling lead. I want to help Joe turn sorting into a mechanical process that hopefully takes less time. I have some ideas on how to proceed & have looked at the internet for additional ideas. So my question for you guys & gals is have you ever sorted a lot of brass? How did you go about it. My thought is to build a set of grids that would let smaller diameter stuff fall thru. The width of the long slots would be slightly less than the brass it was meant to trap. For example the largest grid would trap 45ACP, 41's & 44's. So the slot width might be .469 or 15/32. I plan to mount lengths of 3/8 electrical conduit to the bottom of a rectangular wooden frame. The tubing would run lengthwise. The round shape of the conduit pieces would form a natural "funnel" for the brass to lay in or to fall thru. The spacing between the tubes for the largest grid would be 15/32. You would "sift" the brass over a large trash can. 41,44 & 45 would stay in the box, smaller stuff would simply fall thru. At that point you would empty the larger "saved" brass into another bucket for further sorting later. After all the large stuff was sorted out you would move to the next box which would filter 357Sig, 10mm & 40's. I figure there would be a total of 5 grids required to go from .380 - 44Mag. My thought would be to add a vibrator & to stack the grids on top of each other later. Do you guys & gals have any other ideas? I have looked at www.shellsorter.com products & they look like they would work well but not for 2000 pounds of brass. Your ideas please. Thanks! Sgt Preston USMC LLA

 

[Sgt Preston]

Sgt Preston here. I have a good friend who buys used brass from gun ranges & sorts it and re- sell it over the internet to reloaders. Joe buys huge quantities & sorts it by hand in his garage. Joe spends way toooooo much time sorting brass & inhaling lead. I want to help Joe turn sorting into a mechanical process that hopefully takes less time. I have some ideas on how to proceed & have looked at the internet for additional ideas. So my question for you guys & gals is have you ever sorted a lot of brass? How did you go about it. My thought is to build a set of grids that would let smaller diameter stuff fall thru. The width of the long slots would be slightly less than the brass it was meant to trap. For example the largest grid would trap 45ACP, 41's & 44's. So the slot width might be .469 or 15/32. I plan to mount lengths of 3/8 electrical conduit to the bottom of a rectangular wooden frame. The tubing would run lengthwise. The round shape of the conduit pieces would form a natural "funnel" for the brass to lay in or to fall thru. The spacing between the tubes for the largest grid would be 15/32. You would "sift" the brass over a large trash can. 41,44 & 45 would stay in the box, smaller stuff would simply fall thru. At that point you would empty the larger "saved" brass into another bucket for further sorting later. After all the large stuff was sorted out you would move to the next box which would filter 357Sig, 10mm & 40's. I figure there would be a total of 5 grids required to go from .380 - 44Mag. My thought would be to add a vibrator & to stack the grids on top of each other later. Do you guys & gals have any other ideas? I have looked at www.shellsorter.com products & they look like they would work well but not for 2000 pounds of brass. Your ideas please. Thanks! Sgt Preston USMC LLA

 

[dg101win]

My first thought was to suggest the Shell Sorter that shows in the link you posted. My second thought would be something like that but maybe using something on the order of 30 Gal trash can lids. However I think they would be too flimsy.
Ideally a larger version of the Dillon case media seperator,maybe hooked up to a motor.
But I think what you suggest sounds pretty good for a minimal outlay of cash. Maybe one or two set of grids and change the size of the conduit instead of 5 individual grids.

Either way good luck.

 

[Skip Sackett]

Sarge, Dillon sells the same thing. That's what I have for separating the 5 gallon buckets I buy on occasion. It takes a while but I'm not trying to do it as a business yet either.

Maybe when I get retired!

 

[Sgt Preston]

Hi Skip, I saw the one in the Dillon Blue Book also. I researched their supplier & found his website. There is a link to his website in my origonal topic (above). I also thought of mounting a 5 gallon bucket to the bottom half of Joe's Dillon brass vibrator to automate & speed up the sifting process. I'm still in the research stage of this little project. I let you all know what we end up with & if it works & how well it works. The end product will be simple cheap & home made. Skip as a point of reference, at the present time Joe has about 30 full buckets in his garage. Preston

 

[max]

I think it would be cheaper to hire an illegal alien to do the work.

 

[Duke426]

Originally posted by max:
I think it would be cheaper to hire an illegal alien to do the work.

 

[Sgt Preston]

Originally posted by max:
I think it would be cheaper to hire an illegal alien to do the work.

Max I just spit coffee all over my computer screen & am laughing my ass off! I'll tell Joe for sure. Thanks I needed that!

 

[Sgt Preston]

Sgt Preston back again. Quote by smith crazy

That's what I have for separating the 5 gallon buckets I buy on occasion. It takes a while

Skip could you guess-timate how long it took you the last time you seperated a 5 gallon bucket into the 3 main groups? Thanks buddy. Preston

 

[Rule3]

Sgt,

Here is a link to a nice homemade one that is very sturdy.
http://www.seecamp.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1224782839/0#0

I have the plastic ones, with the .380 insert which is aluminum. They are pretty heavy plastic and IMO will hold uo for a long time. Heck for the price you could buy two sets.

 

[Sgt Preston]

Thanks OCD1, they look great. My other thought would be to make 2 identical slotted plates, both slotted for the largest diameter to be trapped. They would be mounted one on top of the other. The bottom one would be stationary, the top one could move left or right & be clamped to fit "any" size you wanted to trap. My friend Joe has ordered the 4 piece set from "ShellSorter". So Joe & I will be sorting some brass by the middle of next week. I'll write back & let everybody know how it actually turns out. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

 

[Rule3]

I of course did not have as much brass as your friend but find the shell sorter to work very well.

A tip is to just use the largest first (45) and do not put to much in at one time. Do not use them stacked together, Then move on to the next and then the next. Then when you have just 9mm and .380 use the insert to sort out the 380. The rimed case (38, 357) will hang in the slots.

Just do not overload them and try to fill it up and it works much better and faster.

 

[Sgt Preston]

OCD1 thanks for the "how to" info. I was also thinking that stacking the plastic trays would pose all kind of "hang ups" in to lower trays. I'm going to mount a 5 gallon bucket to the bottom half of Joe's brass vibrator to help mechanize to "sifting" process. Once we get it working, I'll keep track of how many buckets of 45 we get per hour & post the results. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

 

[Skip Sackett]

Hey Sarge,
I usually have help doing it. My wife and I use it as fellowship time.

I suppose an hour or so if all you did was get the three main groups. We never do that as the "45" one catches 30cal rifle and that needs sub-separated. Same with the 40S&W grate and 38spl/357Mag. Then when you get to the bottom one again I sub-sort 223, 9mm and such. That is the one that has the most in it by the way!

I can tell you that stacking them one on top of the other over one bucket doesn't work for nothin'. We do one at a time. If you could get them to fasten to a Frankford Arsenal tumbler (they aren't too fast) I though of cutting the bottom out of 2 5 gallon buckets, stacking them with the grates in between and turning the crazy thing on. You might have to use some "tech" screws to hold it together, or duct tape for that matter! Just might work!

Can you say "hillbilly"?

 

[dennis40x]

As an example 45ACP and 9X19mm cases separating/sorting out could be a potential problem. Dependent on the volume of cases and movement during the process there could be a tendency of the 9X19mm cases to insert within the 45ACP cases. The occurrence percentage may or may not prove to be nettlesome

 

[Skip Sackett]

I can tell you by experience that those aren't the worst ones. 9mm inside of 40S&W are far worse. 80% of the buckets I get are 9mm and 40S&W.
Nettlesome is a kind way of saying it!

 

[Sgt Preston]

Sgt Preston back again. Skip thanks for the input & advice. To mount the bucket to the vibrator, I plan to drill a 3/8 hole in the center of the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. I'll & mount it to the bottom half of Joe's vibrator. I'll support the center of the bucket with a large flat washer (2" x 1/4" thick) with a hex lock nut under the washer. I'll use another large washer inside the bucket & a "thumb nut" of some sort to lock it down. I hope this speeds up & powers the "sifting". I also see this as a multistep process where Step 1 saves 45ACP and up only. Once all the brass has been sorted into the 3 main groups Joe's on his own & he will still need to spread it out on a table & make his "picks". Right now he has 30 buckets full of assorted brass. Once he has several buckets of each major size group he can manage his time better & further sub-divide the stuff. I hope this works & am pretty sure it will be better than what he is doing now. I'll post the results once we get it up & running. We are hoping to have all the pieces in place by Wednesday the 17th. Wish us luck. By the way, Joe is the guy who helped me get started in reloading & was very helpful while I was "serving my apprenticeship". He's a good guy. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

 

[Skip Sackett]

He's a good guy.

Takes one to know one!

I want to know if this works Sarge.

To further separate you could use hardware cloth fastened in the buckets in between each sifter. You can get it in different sizes. Like in the bottom bucket, about halfway up, you could put a piece that had 1/4" or 3/16" cloth and that would keep the 9mm, 223, 380 out of the mixture of 22 and 22mag brass.

Just a thought.

 

[Sgt Preston]

Skip, I think I'll give your hardware cloth idea a shot & try to let the 22's & dirt fall thru. Also, thanks for the compliment! I'll take a few pieces of empty brass to the hardware store & see what size hardware cloth will keep 9mm above the junk pile. By the way, being unemployed is really tough "work": gym every morning, gun range every afternoon & then reloading & "special" projects in the evening. Then in a few weeks I'll have to start riding my bike again & taking some "Dennis40X type hikes" thru the hills & woods. I do keep sending out my resumes, but (thankfully) I don't get many replies. I'll be turning 65 in a few days & it definitely does have it's advantages. I am now a card carrying MediCare participant. Semper Fi! Preston

 

[Beans]

I'll be turning 65 in a few days & it definitely does have it's advantages. I am now a card carrying MediCare participant.

Retirement is everything it is cracked up to be.

I just turned 65.