[topo42]

Club got a Brass Wizzard for indoor range. , to discourage sweeping up brass.

Brass Wizard™

The product is very well made and works with some limitations.

If the brass is clustered you have to roll over it to spread it out .
If the Wizzard has (for me 30 or so 9mm cases in it ) the already picked up cases will fall out when picking up new cases -
Rolling a little faster or changing the angle seems to help.

It does what it says but not as fast as sweeping , thus very few shoothers seem to be using it.

Hope in the near future to try it on the outdoor range I think it would be more useful on trhe stone & grass surfaces .

FYI

 

[Turn Key]

We use those wizards during our local Glock GSSF matches to keep the bays cleaner for the shooters off the tarps.

They work OK on gravel too, but do pick up some.

TK

 

[Smithy]

Before the "Brass Wizard" came out (we're talking several years ago) I was shooting registered NSSA skeet and going through around a case (500 not 250) of shotshells per week. A lot of folk shooting their 10,000 dollar Perrazi's could afford to buy new and leave laying prime Winchester AA's.

About the same time I saw an obscure ad very small in the back of one of my gun magazines for a shot shell picker upper. They wanted $125.00 for it (which was a LOT at the time) but the man on the phone swore that it was the best thing since sliced bread and I wouldn't regret the purchase. So I got one.

It was entirely made of plastic except for maybe some axle rods and screws. It had a series of star shaped wheels that were about 16" in diameter and on the end of each star finger was a larger bulb of plastic. About 20 of these wheels were placed on the axle and they themselves were the unit's wheels. There was a comb that interlaced the wheels to remove picked up shells and that piece lead to a bucket that trailed the unit to collect the hulls. Buy all rights it was the size and looks of a lawn mower, but boy did it work!

After several rounds were done and folks took a brake or after the shoot altogether I'd slip out on the field and run my shell mower. One pass was all it ever took period. I never had to back up and over to get the shells even if they were in a heaped up pile like you'd sometimes see in the trap fields. I had more choice AA hulls than I knew what to do with. If any of the star wheels got brittle or broken, it was a simple task to pop the wheels off and slip in a new one to replace the broken one.

As I found out later, the technology for the hull picker upper came from nut production. Almond and Walnut growers had similar units to pick up errant nuts during harvest (the ones the bigger machines missed) or for the small grower that couldn't afford the larger machines. Well one of the nut growers was also a shooter and gave it a try on shotgun hulls. A few tweeks and enlargement of the wheels and he was in business. I don't see them advertised anymore and my unit was sold to a range who was very happy to get it for their fields. Its only problem was that small rocks looked an awful lot like shotgun hulls so if you had a rocky terrain you'd end up with a handful of rocks as well. Smithy.

 

[Larry the Liberal]

I just took delivery on a Brass Mower ... which is identical to the Brass Wizard. Also, the price is the same. I figure there's a guy in a garage somewhere in Georgia putting them together.

This handy tool is certainly a back and knee saver. It takes a little bit of technique to get really good at it ... but after a few minutes the brass rolls up rather easily. Do not apply any pressure to the unit ... just let it roll. Also, if you can approach the casings where they are parallel (not perpendicular) to the wires of the cage ... they pick right up.

I use mine at an outdoor range ... it works fine on cement, dirt and grass ... however, it will pick up small rocks, stones and nuts. topo42 is right ... clustered casings can be a bit of a challenge. Spreading them out or rolling back and forth at different angles helps quite a bit.

My unit will also pick up 22 brass ... nobody wants it and it never gets picked up ... this stuff is everywhere! I figure that I'm doing my club a service by rolling up all this unwanted brass and helping the range look better. So far I have almost a half pound of it.

Selling all that 22 brass should pay for my Mower in about 3 or 4 years.