Shell Sorter review

[Rustynuts]

I bought two pans of the shell sorter (40 & 45) after two feeble attempts at making my own. The pans are expensive, but worth it I believe. The plastic is pretty thick, so these things should last awhile. In hindsight I should have just bought the 3-pan set as there's a lot of 22's mixed in with the 9mm only using 2. Some product and misc observations!

* People shoot a LOT of 9mm & 22! (obviously).
* The efficiency was pretty much 100%. Still need to check after tumbling, but it seemed like all brass went where it was supposed to.
* Sorted probably thousands of rounds in about 30-40 minutes (I can't gauge by volume or weight yet, check pics!).
* 38sp & 357mag get stuck pointing down in the blue 40 pan, pretty cool if you need to sort those as well.
* People DON'T shoot enough 45 (what I was after!).
* I hate having to pick out steel-cased ammo, seems a waste. Pretty easy to spot though.
* You can load the pans fairly full and then just shake for about 45 seconds. Most of the nested ones even come apart for you.
* WEAR earmuffs! That brass makes a racket when shaking.

Here are some pics. The green pan is a $2 cheapo from Walmart. Boxes are 9mm (left) and 40S&W. 45 is in oven drying after a quick wash. All of that brass was sorted, 45 washed and in the oven in under 1-hr.

 

[yhtomit]

Where did you buy this set? I like it! (Having spent too long shaking apart the twosies and threesies, then sorting by caliber ... even with not all that much brass, it's a pain!) What's it cost?

Also, at what temp are you drying that brass? I used to pick some brass from the range trash cans, but (on THR-gleaned advice) I'm now very paranoid about brass that I even suspect has been in or near a (very quick-burning) fire that I know sometimes is set in those cans. (I dry my wet brass first on newspaper and then in a sunny spot.)

timothy

 

[Rustynuts]

The sorters come from http://www.shellsorter.com/

I paid $28 plus shipping for the blue/yellow ones. You can get the 3-set for $40 (save a whopping $2!). It's a high price for 2 or 3 tubs of plastic, but I tried making mine and failed miserably! If you can find nice thick plastic pans and have the tools, you might be able to reproduce these. Not worth the effort IMHO. Just buy them.

I keep the heat fairly low maybe 150-170. I think it needs to get a lot hotter to get annealed (which you don't want to do!), something more like 400?

 

[jmorris]

Basspro sells a replacement Weber grill (around 14”) that is the correct size to capture 45 acp and let the others pass through. You can cull the steel with a magnet; aluminum on the other hand has to be picked by hand.

 

[yhtomit]

jmorris --- interesting! I wonder if there's an expedient 9-from-40 sorter, too If you have a link handy, would you mind pasting it in? (To that Weber top, that is.)

If not, the info is interesting anyhow -- is it cheaper than getting one of these shaker / strainer bowls?


Rustynuts -- thanks for the details. That's very tempting, even at $40.

timothy

 

[SR_]

I bought the 3 pan set about 10 days ago. I agree it's pricey, but after using it I'm very satisfied. (I saw it mentioned on an different board where it received favorable comments.)

As Rustynuts mentioned above, the 1st tray catches .45 and the second (middle tray) catches .40 (as well as the .38 and .357). The third tray catches 9mm, 380, 38 Super, etc. Everything that is smaller – including dirt, passes through the last pan.

I’ll have to rethink how I use the trays in the future. I lost track of how much I put into the trays. Pretty quickly I had a couple inches of small stuff in the last tray. With that much in there it was tough to shake. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it - but right now I'm out of brass that needs sorting.

Like Rustynuts, I found it greatly reduced my sorting time.

 

[jmorris]

Yhtimit, I have a friend that picks up a lot of brass with one of these http://www.baganut.com/, all he wants out of it is 45acp so I made the Weber grill 45 sorter for him (take a few fired cases in with you next time). 45acp only gets mixed with 45 gap when screening, but 40 can get mixed with 38/357, and 9X19 can get mixed with 38super, 9X18, 380 etc. Once my friend gets the 45 brass out I run the rest through my homemade sorter that will further separate the various case sizes. Even it is not perfect however as .223 falls in with .380 and 38 super and 9X21 fall into the same bin.

 

[yhtomit]

jmorris:

That's great! It took me a little while to grasp the scale, thinking that sign on the left was one of those 18-24" lawn signs for a politician.

.45ACP is what I think will end up saving me the most money (ha!), but I keep other calibers too, on the basis that I do shoot them now (9mm), would like to one day reload in order to shoot (.40, 38sp, etc), because they're interesting and I'd like to have my own collection of brass (357Sig, 25ACP, etc), and because once I've grabbed it, if it's useless as a casing it's still a recyclable metal which someone has already consecrated through labor, and which I can eventually turn into a few cents (.22LR, etc.)

timothy