I feel the pain of our lefty bro's.
By careful eye-balling, I think the two rifles I fired have thrown the brass at an average of about 40-45 degrees from the horizontal, and slightly forward, say 75-80 degrees from the barrel axis.
Of course, I think you all know that this can be the subject of how much the extractor is lubed (not to mention clean). A bone-dry (and/or dirty) extractor compared to a clean and slightly lubed one will throw brass on slightly different trajectories.
About the deflector, I don’t know if and how it will work. The ejection port starts about 6 ¾” from the butt-pad. So, to understand how this is going to be, take any rifle you have (but we all know Deckard has only one rifle
) and mark 6 ¾” from the butt-plate with a piece of tape. To have a better idea, you can also tape a piece of cardboard (like a small box of matches or something) perpendicular on the stock at that mark. Try to see if it touches your face. Allow (theoretically) for some recoil, as the gun will move regardless of the fact that it’s a gas-op’ed 223.
It wouldn’t work for me. I tried this, the deflector would simply push my cheek away from the gun. It’s not funny being hit in your face with parts of a gun which are hard and sometimes with sharp edges. It’s MUCH more damaging than being hit in a boxing match, take my word for it, since I had them both.
I would say that you have to apply common sense and to pay attention to the geometrics of that deflector and have it work for you in both doing what it's supposed to do properly and not hitting you in the face.
One solution would be to make a long and very-very thick cheek rest from the butt-pad all the way forward to the ejection port. In this way, it would not present any edge or surface in front of your face. It can be at the same height with the stock, slightly thicker in the front than in the back, but again, with no sharp edges in front of the face. The front piece of this long part would also be (or contain) the said deflector, but it has to be contained in the thickness of the cheek rest, and not to stick out in any way.
To compensate for your head sitting away from the gun, the scope (red dot, whatever) would have to be offset on the right side of the rifle. It would work only assuming the dominant eye is the left eye.
I’ve made one of this for a lefty who had a Muzzle-Lite bull-pup stock for 10/22 back in the day when we were allowed to have them. It was a deflector initially, but later he had the idea to put a removable cover to double it as brass-catcher. I don’t know what became of that stock after the ban, but I’m sure it was destroyed
That friend is a notorious shyte starter on this forum.
It's premature since Type 97 didn't start to hit the market in numbers yet, but if anyone wants to try to build this in the future, keep in mind that 223 cases are much longer than 22RF and they come out of the port spinning.
My 2c

By careful eye-balling, I think the two rifles I fired have thrown the brass at an average of about 40-45 degrees from the horizontal, and slightly forward, say 75-80 degrees from the barrel axis.
Of course, I think you all know that this can be the subject of how much the extractor is lubed (not to mention clean). A bone-dry (and/or dirty) extractor compared to a clean and slightly lubed one will throw brass on slightly different trajectories.
About the deflector, I don’t know if and how it will work. The ejection port starts about 6 ¾” from the butt-pad. So, to understand how this is going to be, take any rifle you have (but we all know Deckard has only one rifle
It wouldn’t work for me. I tried this, the deflector would simply push my cheek away from the gun. It’s not funny being hit in your face with parts of a gun which are hard and sometimes with sharp edges. It’s MUCH more damaging than being hit in a boxing match, take my word for it, since I had them both.
I would say that you have to apply common sense and to pay attention to the geometrics of that deflector and have it work for you in both doing what it's supposed to do properly and not hitting you in the face.
One solution would be to make a long and very-very thick cheek rest from the butt-pad all the way forward to the ejection port. In this way, it would not present any edge or surface in front of your face. It can be at the same height with the stock, slightly thicker in the front than in the back, but again, with no sharp edges in front of the face. The front piece of this long part would also be (or contain) the said deflector, but it has to be contained in the thickness of the cheek rest, and not to stick out in any way.
To compensate for your head sitting away from the gun, the scope (red dot, whatever) would have to be offset on the right side of the rifle. It would work only assuming the dominant eye is the left eye.
I’ve made one of this for a lefty who had a Muzzle-Lite bull-pup stock for 10/22 back in the day when we were allowed to have them. It was a deflector initially, but later he had the idea to put a removable cover to double it as brass-catcher. I don’t know what became of that stock after the ban, but I’m sure it was destroyed
It's premature since Type 97 didn't start to hit the market in numbers yet, but if anyone wants to try to build this in the future, keep in mind that 223 cases are much longer than 22RF and they come out of the port spinning.
My 2c
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