yhtomit
Member
Sorry, that subject line is pretty ambiguous, but I wasn't coming up with a great headline.
1) Last weekend, after some unexpected scrounging at an outdoor range, I was reminded of a question that's been brewing in my head for a while: has someone on the Lazyweb created a chart which anyone could point me to which supplies an approximate round count for brass in various conditions, based on weight and / or volume?
For example: if I have a 3-gallon bucket full of .45 ACP brass, all of it dirty and with primers in, is there an easy reference that will show me this equals 1298 cases, give-or-take? (Sorry, that number is random, and No, I don't have gallons of .45 cases to either count or weigh )
Or, if I have an odd-sized container, but know the weight of the brass in there ("1.7 lbs of 9mm brass, primers removed, tumbled"), I'd like to get a result that way, too.
I know different brands of brass in a given caliber will vary in weight (and perhaps within it, too), and that dirt adds weight (though I bet not much), primers obviously do, too -- so approximation is all I'm looking for.
Now, if there *isn't* such a conversion cheatsheet, I see no reason it would be hard to make, but if there is I'd rather not reinvent the axle.
2) I like to see the inventions that people here come up with (or can point to), and I wonder if anyone's created a brass-sorting machine. There comes a point where even though my brain sees that a .40 and a .45 case are considerable different, the sorting task gets slowed down with persistent second guessing, and that applied with much greater force to sorting 9mm Luger from .380 and the occasional Makarov (of which I've found a single piece, so far ). The first handfuls are easy, it's when cartridge #498 and #499 suddenly look more similar than they should. My thought was that as a first-round sort could be done mechanically, the brain would be fresher for seeking outliers within the piles thus created.
OTOH, I'm not sure if a homemade device could be precise enough to make such fine sorting choices anyhow. (At least not among the various off-by-one-mm 9mm varieties.)
I could imagine a multi-layer shaking screen something like is used by some archaeologists, and I wonder if anyone is using such a thing. (It would take away the pirate-greed pleasure of sorting the treasure by hand, though ...)
Do such things exists? I don't personally need one, since my ammo gathering is sporadic and usually doesn't get more than a few handfuls anyhow, I'm really just curious.
timothy
EDIT: attached below a "before and after" shot of a surprisingly small total volume of brass (didn't weigh it); the "round mound" picture has everything but the much smaller number of rifle cartridges (though the 30-30 was fired in a handgun -- it's not in the pile).
Notes:
1) Can anyone identify the (loaded) rifle cartridge?
2) The "rejects" pile includes mostly 9mm, .40 and .45 cases with dented case mouths or which just look tired. I don't shoot high volumes and am starting reloading at a ridiculously slow and paranoid pace, so I have an embarrassment of riches, and am perfectly happy to reject brass that doesn't look nicely clean
1) Last weekend, after some unexpected scrounging at an outdoor range, I was reminded of a question that's been brewing in my head for a while: has someone on the Lazyweb created a chart which anyone could point me to which supplies an approximate round count for brass in various conditions, based on weight and / or volume?
For example: if I have a 3-gallon bucket full of .45 ACP brass, all of it dirty and with primers in, is there an easy reference that will show me this equals 1298 cases, give-or-take? (Sorry, that number is random, and No, I don't have gallons of .45 cases to either count or weigh )
Or, if I have an odd-sized container, but know the weight of the brass in there ("1.7 lbs of 9mm brass, primers removed, tumbled"), I'd like to get a result that way, too.
I know different brands of brass in a given caliber will vary in weight (and perhaps within it, too), and that dirt adds weight (though I bet not much), primers obviously do, too -- so approximation is all I'm looking for.
Now, if there *isn't* such a conversion cheatsheet, I see no reason it would be hard to make, but if there is I'd rather not reinvent the axle.
2) I like to see the inventions that people here come up with (or can point to), and I wonder if anyone's created a brass-sorting machine. There comes a point where even though my brain sees that a .40 and a .45 case are considerable different, the sorting task gets slowed down with persistent second guessing, and that applied with much greater force to sorting 9mm Luger from .380 and the occasional Makarov (of which I've found a single piece, so far ). The first handfuls are easy, it's when cartridge #498 and #499 suddenly look more similar than they should. My thought was that as a first-round sort could be done mechanically, the brain would be fresher for seeking outliers within the piles thus created.
OTOH, I'm not sure if a homemade device could be precise enough to make such fine sorting choices anyhow. (At least not among the various off-by-one-mm 9mm varieties.)
I could imagine a multi-layer shaking screen something like is used by some archaeologists, and I wonder if anyone is using such a thing. (It would take away the pirate-greed pleasure of sorting the treasure by hand, though ...)
Do such things exists? I don't personally need one, since my ammo gathering is sporadic and usually doesn't get more than a few handfuls anyhow, I'm really just curious.
timothy
EDIT: attached below a "before and after" shot of a surprisingly small total volume of brass (didn't weigh it); the "round mound" picture has everything but the much smaller number of rifle cartridges (though the 30-30 was fired in a handgun -- it's not in the pile).
Notes:
1) Can anyone identify the (loaded) rifle cartridge?
2) The "rejects" pile includes mostly 9mm, .40 and .45 cases with dented case mouths or which just look tired. I don't shoot high volumes and am starting reloading at a ridiculously slow and paranoid pace, so I have an embarrassment of riches, and am perfectly happy to reject brass that doesn't look nicely clean
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