small arms casings

has anyone made or know a source for spent .50 or .30 cal casings for 1/35 armor and dioramas?

I want to add a bunch to a sherman I am (still) working on

I have no doubt that there’s an AM manufacturer who makes spent casings, but it would be far cheaper to make them yourself out of stretched sprue or appropriately sized styrene rod. You’re going to need a magnifying glass to see that they’re not hollow.

good point. one of the reasons it takes me so d@#$ long to make a model is I get caught up in details that only I know are there

Thin copper wire cut to proper length with a sprue cutter is how I make mine…

Tiny bits of brass tube also do very well.

Yeah, go with sprue… If you don’t wanna paint, grab some brass from the LHS… Anything smaller than 20mm is a waste of money (I wouldn’t pay for 20mm either), even if someone DOES make it AM…

thanks fellas!

hey Manny, your dios and figs are killer!

Mission Models does a set of spent shells and complete rounds in brass. The rounds also comes with miniscule PE links for the belt as well. Each link has to be bent to shape too. They are stupidly small and not worth it in my opinion, $15-$18 for 50 tiny rounds. Brass or plastic rod looks just as good in this scale.

Here is a review on the Mission Models sets.

Brass rod is the way to go. No painting, just cut and your done.

Don’t ask for links…I don’t even want to think of Gino’s source…I’ll be blind going that small.

Rounds Complete!!

Wow… Having to bend links… Way over the top IMHO… Side note on ammo though… I make rounds for the Mother Deuce from straight pins, but only to fill the space from the gun to the ammo can, about 6 rounds-worth… A little strip of black from a Sharpie finishes the links… Box of 300 run about 2.99 at Hobby Lobby… I just lay down a few pins on a piece of masking tape after cutting them to more or less the same length, making sure the tips line up, then hold them with a needle-nose to grind them to the same length with a Dremmel. Hit the feed tray with a smear of CA and drop the rounds into place.

Mission Models also makes spent 20mm casings.

Versus working hinges on the Voyager and Lionroar 20mm flak38/KwK38 ammo boxes? You just have to think of the links as hinges which in reality they are. Oh and simply wear Optivisors and you’ll be fine.

If you gotta wear optivisors to build 'em, you gotta wear 'em to see 'em… That’s me motto…[:D]

Look at it this way if you enter a diorama into a contest that has a M2 .50 Caliber HMG and you place the casings near the gun they probably would still deduct points for not adding the spent belt links.

Heh… I look at it like the links are smaller, lighter, and “bouncier” than the casings and go all over the place and into the dirt and grass and you can’t see 'em anyway… If I were doing this guy in the picture and the same scale, perhaps, but not with a 2-inch high figure…

It’s been my experience that firing the Ma Deuce from a flex-mount in an M109, FAASV, and M548, the brass is pretty obvious and a few stay near the gun, but the links go everywhere and bounce into cracks and crevices and every little hidey-hole rather than lay in a pile with the brass. It’s also been my experience that the closest most judges have been to a .50 is a glass case in a museum, and the ones that have been “intimate” with Mother Deuce know what I’m talking about…

I agree with Hans. This is how I represented it using 0.020 plastic rod, for both rounds and links, on a USMC Abrams.

It works for me.

Even if your firing Ma from a truck mount, the primary thing you see when you look is the floor and seat full of brass casings. The links seem to disappear into the sea of brass.

On the tracks, I agree…the go everywhere. They seem to bounce better than the casings.

Optivisors…I agree…just trying to keep away from the electron microscope!!!

For the amount of time you would spend on the links…and with their black color…they may not be noticed…but the brass will stand out from any OD, Camo or Winter paint on the vehicle and adds a nice touch.

Rounds Complete!!

Sometimes .50 caliber brass wasn’t brass colored it was a olive drab color to cut down on glare from the brass.

Ummm… I don’t know about that…Not that I’ve ever seen, anyway…They look bright and shiny outta the can, and I’ve seen (and fired) thousands of .50 rounds… They might look OD from corosion though if they’re really old and have been exposed to the air and humidity for a long time… On the other hand, 25 & 30mm, I have seen that, as well 40mm M-203 brass… That said, 13mm German and 7.92mm Mauser were green-lookin’ but that’s because they were steel casings instead of brass, and there was a some kind of preservative sprayed on them to prevent rust… After they were fired, they changed color again, to kind of a grayish/steel color from the heat of the prop.

Well from experience, I can tell you the links are smaller, lighter, and MUCH bouncier, but most of them still land where the empty casings go. Next time I go to the range, I’ll take a photo of what I mean. Although it will be the 1919 .30 cal and not the M2. Same idea though.