3-Projects With One From My “Bucket List”

With temperatures steaming in the low 100s, I’ve hibernated to my shop lately since it’s too hot to shoot at the gun club, and the trout aren’t really biting in this weather.

However, it is summer. My biological clock says its time to shoot, so my mind turns to those things related to shooting and, in this case, reloading. It’s easy to fire through several thousand rounds a season.

For the last five or six years I’ve been using a cardboard box to catch the completed rounds as they come off the press. Every time I reload I think how nice it would be to have a wooden tray/tote to catch my rounds, particularly one that would hold more than 65-75 rounds. I’ve mentally designed the idea tote, but just never got around to making it—leaving it on my “bucket list” for those “someday projects.”

As each shell is reloaded, it drops into the box. My “shell catcher tote” needed to have ramps which would direct the shell away from that point where it drops into the tote, since they build up in that immediate area and bounce out all over the place. The tote had to be large enough to hold approximately 250 rounds (a case). It also had to lock over the bench dog that holds the press on the bench; and, it had to fit around the walnut riser assembly used to raise the press so I could install counters (two counters: one cumulative and a second for current load count).

You can see in the first three photos that the tote locks over the bench dog and wraps around the riser. Will it hold 250 rounds? I am too busy building it to stop and reload that many, but I’m sure it’s going to hold more that 65 rounds. Photo 4 shows the three 45-degree ramps I incorporated in the design to direct the shells throughout the entire tote and avoid the build up problems. And, photo 5 shows the new tote beside the cardboard catcher I had been using.

Thanks for looking and comments are always welcome.

P.S. The other two wood working projects are: (1) the wood bench hook that I mount the press to the bench with, which is the solid brown, bottom piece; and (2) the walnut riser which is actually Baltic birch with walnut veneer, containing many angles and various mounts for the two counters. The bench hook was built back in 2005 when I started reloading. The walnut riser was constructed during the winter of 2006/2007.

-- John C. -- "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth." George Washington