Striping Your Brass, How Do You Guys Do It

[mcb]

So I came up with this idea last night. I took my cordless screw drive and jammed a small cone shaped plastic cap in the hex drive, a little scotch tape to keep it there. It was a red cap off a powder can spout that I use with my one pound cans of black powder. The small end of the cap just fits in the hex socket of my cordless screwdriver. The fat end of the cap just fit over a 40S&W case.

Now I like to put my loaded ammo in those flat 100 plastic cases you can get from Dillon and other places so I can quickly inspect primers and OAL. So you just grab your favorite color Sharpie and work down the rows. The electric screw drive in one had and the Sharpie in the other. Since most of those 1000 round cases for 40 cal are actually for 40-45 cal there is plenty of room to slip the tip of a Sharpie between the rows. I can stripe 100 rounds in just two or three minutes. The strips arent perfect given that the round will wobble in the large holes but it's fast and easy and the wobbly strips are distinctive too.

Just and idea

mcb

Edited January 4, 2006 by mcb

[John Heiter]

Now if you had done it with an impact wrench so it made those cool Nascar pit crew noises every time you striped one I might be tempted to think you were on to something but ...eh, I think I'll just stick to Nolan's tool.

[mcb]

Yah but you can make those sounds impact tools yourself while your doing it. I looked at Nolan's tool but the handling each round seemed like it would be slow so I gave my cordless screwdriver a try. Not to mention it was stuff I had laying around already.

mcb

[shred]

Cool idea. You're probably limited to one color, but it beats the old swipe-a-marker across the headstamp routine by a mile.

[D.carden]

Now if you had done it with an impact wrench so it made those cool Nascar pit crew noises every time you striped one I might be tempted to think you were on to something but ...eh, I think I'll just stick to Nolan's tool.

John, which noise.

The fast" free-spinning" noise, or the "grunting" almost got 500lb of torque noise.

[LPatterson]

+1 for Nolan's Brass Master. It works best when you hold it in your weak hand and spin the brass strong hand only.

I'm working strong hand - weak hand drills that way.

[Dream]

John

I am starting to worry about U

[TimWarner]

I just use some Dychem layout fluid to mark my brass. It comes in red and blue as far as I know, and comes off when tumbled. Also, it has some lubricating properties, so if any comes off in the gun I'm not worried.

[Jim Norman]

Nive part about the system Nolan came up with is that it also checks for high primers and splits at the same time.

I run mine through a EGW checker, then pick-em up while wathcing TV an spin'em over the markers. Twobins on my lap, and I'm done in a couple minutes.

I use a couple different color codes.

2 Black, Major, full length,

2 red, Steel loads, full length

1 red, 1 black short rounds, minor, for production

other codes of course can also be worked out.

Another good reason is Nolan, hey, he's one of us. why rip him off, the darn thing is cheap enough

Jim Norman

[Harmon]

marking 40 brass is kinda a moot point. if it needs to be done(super-super comp and 45s), i do it after i box the ammo. just take a marker over the case heads. i have a extra large marker that marks the whole case head...i doubt there is a faster way

[Loves2Shoot]

There are 24 colors of sharpies making a unique color combo is pretty easy.

[Jim Norman]

Harmongreer,

It isn't the speed here that counts. a stripped case is visible on it's side, marking the heads is not as easy when it comes to sorting the brass later. I can look at a pile of brass and pick mine up first time everytime, headstamp marking, I have to handle virtually every piece.

Jim