Sorting Brass

[NorCal24]

Yup, I almost wish people would stop shooting .380 for this reason...

Hey now. I love my pocket pistol.

[NorCal24]

When I decap the 9mm on a single stage press, I can tell those little .380 buggers right away, I toss them.

I know I should save the little .380 moles...

Yes please do they are kind of difficult to find sometimes.

[justpaul]

Damn, I want to get one of those and mount it on a tumbler

YUP !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlZaMxbDUgQ

[NorCal24]

I've been messing around with 5 gallon buckets with various size holes drilled in the bottom. Stack them from largest hole to smallest hole. Been working pretty good so far. And total cost was only about 15 bucks for 4 5 gallon buckets.

[ElDub1950]

for some reason I'm envious of people who have/need 20 gallons of brass LOL

I never have more than about 1000 at a time and only clean 400-500 and load about 200-300 at a time. A couple of evenings restocks what I shot the previous week. I've only been loading 6 months and the whole process with my single stage is still relaxing and interesting.

[SonofWWIIDI]

These work. Amazon & Midway have them too.

Still have to hand sort the 380 out of the 9mm of course but saves most of the time.

They have a shell plate for .380 now. It does take an extra step for me though.

Being just a plate and not another pan, once the brass is sorted (i.e. .45, .40, 9/.380) you insert the .380 plate into the pan, and resort the 9/.380. Takes a bit longer, but not that big a deal while watching the boob toob and having a beer or two.

YMMV

[Gryff]

I've been messing around with 5 gallon buckets with various size holes drilled in the bottom. Stack them from largest hole to smallest hole. Been working pretty good so far. And total cost was only about 15 bucks for 4 5 gallon buckets.

Too big. Fill it any more full than the brass sorter mentioned above, and you can shake it until the second coming and you still won't get the smaller cases to work their way to the bottom.

This is also true with the brass sorter shown above. Any more than a couple hundred cases and it won't sort correctly without shaking it forever.

[drdarrin@sbcglobal.net]

I've been sorting pistol cases by hand since I started reloading for auto loaders; about 5-6 years or so. I've seen the Shell Sorter in Midway's ads and thought that was a pretty expensive alternative to my hand method. I recently helped a fellow reloader set up his equipment and he loaned me his Shell Sorter.

What a difference! I now have my own shell sorter. All the junk ends up in the bottom bucket and I only have a few case-in-case issues that have to be manually separated. My casings make it through it several times before they end up in the case feeder, just to make sure. When you're dealing with open 5 gallon buckets of 9mm, 40 and 45 brass, it's easy to get a case in the wrong bucket.

Now, if I just find a way to easily sort out the LP and SP 45 cases.

[Pauliedad]

I don't mind the sitting at the TV routine. Also gives me a chance to inspect each piece.
Every now and then I find a .40 that has split. Never found any other pistol round with a split.
With rifle, I sort by caliber prior to decapping then by headstamp after wet tumbling.

[stilly]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

What you want is the Shellsorter.

I can process a full bucket of brass in about a half hour/hour depending on how much I overload or pick out things.

As I sort my brass I pick out the 38/357, 44/45lc, the .223, the .308, the 10mm and the .30 carbine now.

When it comes down to it all, I get the .327 hanging up in the 9mm too, but I will sort them easily as well. Then in the bottom of the bucket I will take out the 32 acp/22lr/25acp and bag them up as well.

The shellsorter IS the BEST way to sort by spending as little as possible. Just do not put more than about 5-7 handfulls of brass in at a time and it will not get overloaded. Also, it IS loud so wear some headphones or earmuffs. AND rubber gloves (nitrile/latex) will keep your hands cleaner. As will a fairy mask but I don't wear those, just the gloves.

If you really have a LOT of brass like that, then it also helps to get 3 large 27 gallon or so Rubbermaid bins (blue) whatever that you can put next to each other on a shelf and when you have sorted and sorted your brass, you can then just DUMP the colored sorter into the bin that will hold THAT brass until you can further process it. I painted three dots on my bins, yellow/blue/black and after sorting shells for a few minutes I will dump the brass into each of those as I work my way down.

BTW, when you get these, you start with all three stacked and sitting inside the top of a 5 gallon bucket. Then just lift them off one at a time.


When it comes to seperating 9mm from the .380 it is simple. Since I wet process, I stand up all of my brass on a table or smooth surface before I decap it. Any shorties will usually be .380 and you can see the difference immediately so they get pushed aside until I am ready to decap .380.

[JMP]

.380 ACP should be purged from the face of the earth.

[rm1911]

.380 ACP should be purged from the face of the earth.

Yes!!!

And whoever decided that SPP 45acp was a good idea should burn in hell. Talk about a reloading nightmare :!:!