Need tips on sorting some pistol brass

T

turtlehead

New member
And I know about the sorting buckets but want to do this now.

I have a bucket of mixed 380, 9 and 40. Any tips for speeding this up?
 
I just dump them onto a large cookie sheet and then pick out the larger .45 and .40 brass first. Then you just have to carefully look and pick out the slightly smaller .380 which is the real trick. Once you get used to it it's not as difficult as it sounds. Beside, if you miss a few .380 it's real easy to tell the difference when sizing later on.
 
I purchased 23.000 cases from an iron and metal yard in Yonkers, NY; most of the cases were pistol. The majority of the pistol cases were 9mm and 38 Special.

I do not have anything sorted in buckets, I sort by head stamps, rather than pick up ever case and read the head stamp I bounced the 9mm cases in a container until the heavy case head stood the cases up and then covered the cases with a flat board and then flipped. The flipping left the cases upside down on the board with the head stamps up. There were only three different head stamps; FC, WIN and R-P.

There was enough difference between the 38 Special cases that most could be separated without reading the head stamp.

I found 3 Berdan primed cases and then I lost them.

F. Guffey
 
Set some upright on newspaper on the table. Squeeze them into a straight line between a couple of yard sticks. The .40 is tallest, so set the yardstick on top and pull sideways to knock the 40's over. The 9mm will be the next tallest. Set the yardstick on top of them and knock them over the other way. Now your 380's will be standing and the 40's will lay to one side of the line of standing 380's and the 9mm's to the other.
 
If you plan on doing sorting down the road I say Shell Sorter.
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mrdaputer, that is a good plan with no down side, the sorter with the smallest holes could be used to separate cases from media. I have one with two handles that works but generates a lot of noise.

F. Guffey

When I started sorting the 23,000 cases I called for help and offered to divide the cases. My help was not interested in taking the cases, he only wanted to know where the cases were; meaning he would call of he needed cases.
 
Berry's also makes a media separator with continuously variable slits for brass sorting, but it does cost more. But I think the OP wanted to do this right away and without waiting for an order to arrive.
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There could be an advantage to waiting, the new and improved model could have the ability to sort by head stamp.

F. Guffey
 
Lol. It was free and that's the way it came. Already pulled the 45s out because that was easy. I looked at the rest of them and said "No way".

Am sorting my brass as it's picked up now.
 
After a bit of sorting you'll prolly be able to tell the .40s from the 9mms with just a glance, but the .380s from 9mm is still a "look closely at the length" task...
 
I've been separating 9 mm from .380 ACP by shaking them so they stand upright, sitting up the stragglers by hand, then looking at the heights and picking them out. Uncle Nick's yardstick trick is too cool to not try it.
 
Turtlehead, just north of me there was one of those motor rage events. A driver allowed himself to be provoked and then he rolled the window down and started shooting.

After the road was cleared traffic was allowed back on the highway. And then someone got the good ideal to stop/divert traffic to allow for cleaning the highway for evidence; the pistol used was a 9mm. And I wondered what chance they had of finding those cases after most of them were embedded into tires and hauled off.

F. Guffey
 
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