Ok, so this is a real aside, but it was brought up. I’ve got a brass goat for my ar15 rifles. As a right handed shooter, it’s a non issue. The comment about taping a vhs tape to your lower is pretty spot on. Maybe it would be distracting to a lefty, but certainly not in the way of shooting. That said, there are a couple of downsides…
1.) It doesn’t flip out of the way of the ejection port. Clearing a malfunction is slower than without it as you must take it off to get access to the port.
2.) It may interfere with some magazines. The baseplates of Magpul pmags are large enough that they interfere with the brass goat hopper, if only just. They don’t drop free from my rifle(s) with the brass goat attached.
3.) The brass goat fits very snuggly on the lower receiver. Snuggly enough that it will eventually leave marks. Maybe that’s not a concern. But, it is an observation.
4.) The hopper isn’t that big. If you are doing a lot of running and gunning, and hoping to save your brass, you are going to be doing a lot of stopping and dumping too. You can use the brass goat as a massive shell deflector, by removing the hopper. Brass will fall straight down, instead of flinging out and away.
5.) It makes administrative range tasks more tedious. If your range has strict rules about “safe and show clear,” you’ll be installing and removing the brass goat every time the line goes cold.
That said, if you have a dead nuts reliable rifle, a square range with no ROs or other shooters, a lower that you don’t care if it looks like trash, run steel or aluminum mags exclusively, and have a need to save your brass, the brass goat is a great product.
It may sound like I’m down on the thing, but I really am not. I wish they made one for large frame rifles too.
