The 3 pan shell sorter

M

mrdaputer

New member
I bought this to speed up my sorting and man does it do the trick. I have been saving brass from a outdoor range for over a year. I sorted about 400 pcs by hand. Never again. If anyone has thought about getting one just do it and thank me later.;)
 
Looks neat. I'm a fan of scrounging brass but I've always sorted it by hand in the past. This could be a time saver even if it isn't perfect. Thanks for posting.
 
I keep thinking about one of these. Sure seems like a time saver. Does all the dirt,rocks, pine needles end up with all the 9mm?
 
They work really well for me too / only takes 15 min to sort an 8 gal tub of dirty range brass.

I shake them over a garbage can / dump about 2 cups of brass in at one time..../ over filling can make it slower.
 
How do the pans deal with nested brass? Even sorting by hand, I often have to deal with a .32 nested inside a 9mm nested inside a .40 cal nested inside a .45ACP. Looks kind of cool, but a PITA. If they're wet and muddy, which is often the case (no pun intended) then its even worse, as they are probably jammed with grit. All my random range brass goes in a bucket of warm water first, then through the media separator to get the remaining gravel out. Since I've been sorting by headstamp, calibers get sorted then too.
 
The nested or piggy back ones you need to pull apart as you see them because some get wedged in there pretty good. Check out the video or youtube. It is not a perfect system but either you spend thousand for a professional one or spend 10x or more doing it by hand. For about 40 bucks it has paid for it's self with the first big bucket I went through. ;)
 
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I forgot to say I tumble with the ss media pins. The black pan "9mm" works great just dump the tumbler with the pins and casings in that over a bucket it separates them very nicely. :cool: On Saturday I sorted about 100 lbs in 3 hours
 
If you only put a couple of cups of spent brass into the shakers .....its easy to toss them around ...and shake most of the nested brass away from each other.

If your spent brass is really wet and muddy ...you'll have to clean it off and let it dry before you use the shaker bins.
 
That looks like a good idea BUT by doing it that way when do you inspect the brass? I just use emtied butter tubs and 5 gallon Beadex bucket. The Beadex bucket is for the bad cases.
 
Hart, I don't look at the brass until after tumbling. I load on a Dillon 550 or Square Deal, and look at every case before I set it on the shell plate.
 
9X45 I didn't see any 9 mm get stuck in the 40 hard to believe. I have had some where I needed a needle nose pliers to get apart. But the concept is good. Big Jim I had over 200 lbs of brass needed a faster way. I dump about 800 separated brass in a 5 gallon bucket put in some dawn mix it up by hand and let sit for 15 minutes mix by hand again. I dump the dirty water outside. I then let the water run into the bucket in my laundry tub till the soap is all gone. I drain the water using the black pan then into my dehydrator. I then de prime and tumble a couple hundred when I need some. I guess there is many ways to get the job done. Between the pans and the auto feed bullet die I have saved many hours and made reloading much easier for me.
 
Sure, that makes sense.

I have the luxury of shooting at a good indoor range ( warm and dry )...so the brass I sweep up isn't dirty from the environment..so I don't have to wash it.
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Personally, when I get home from the range...all the brass I sweep up goes into a 5 gallon misc tub. When it gets full - I use shaker trays to separate by caliber.

I keep two 5 gallon storage tubs with a lid - for each caliber I reload for ( 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 acp, .38 spl. , .357 mag and .44 mag...) one is dirty waiting for cleaning ...one is "cleaned and sorted" ready to drop into the case feeder after I lube them. When the "cleaned and sorted" tub gets down to a few hundred...I run the "dirty tub" thru the vibrating cleaner - over a weekend a batch at a time. Then I sort out the headstamps I don't want ( S&B, AMERC, and stuff that looks ugly ).

I tend to reload one caliber at a time...and I'll run 40 boxes or so ( 2,000 rds ) ....and then I case gague each round...and box them up and put them on my storage shelf for range trips as needed. Then I reset the press for another caliber...but probably 90% of the time I'm reloading 9mm, .45 acp or .357 Mag...

But whatever works for you ...is good.
 
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