Ammo Tray Cover/Box

Recycle your disposable ammo tray into a fully-enclosed protective ammo box! This tray cover is designed for a specific commonly used ammo tray, to covert the tray into a more protective, stackable, re-usable 9mm ammo box.

Sometimes called a "Universal Ammo Tray" often used for reloading, these commercial trays are also used by both CCI Blazer Brass and Federal (and probably others) in new cardboard ammo boxes. You can even buy them separately online, or used ones on eBay.

I really like the spacing between rounds - I can get my fingers around any cartridge, for loading. Most all commercial boxes just pack the ammo too tightly for me, and are hard to use. The 3D printer designs I've seen also pack the rounds too close together.

But these disposable trays seem to come in only cardboard boxes, and even multiple trays in one light-cardboard box. The multiple-tray box is a real problem, because once you use most from one tray, the box is useless for all the other trays in the box (rounds fall out), since they are not packed tightly in the box anymore. With separate cardboard boxes, it's relatively easy to smash the top of the box in handling, possibly even pushing a bullet into the casing more than it should (from what I've read).

So, I created this simplistic design for a lid/cover for these trays, turning them into very usable storage boxes. The ridge around the top of the lid allows stacking the trays, as shown in the photo. The finished box fits well into even the smaller/narrow ammo cans.

I've designed the cover as a half-cover, with a latch on each end so two halves snap together on/around the tray. Slots around the inside perimeter, and tabs that go between the rounds and the tray's round sleeves, provide protection for each round, and also strengthens and supports the otherwise somewhat flexible tray. The solid plastic top, and the tabs between each row of rounds, provides some pretty substantial protection for vertical impacts. Minimal design, pretty good protection.

Two covers are needed for each tray. No supports are needed when printing the cover.

Update 3/7/2021

I added a quadrant cover, essentially halves of the main half-cover - the white covers in the photos above. This lets you quickly dump out 10 or 15 rounds at a time, for loading, if you want. You can also cut a tray in half, and use these quadrant covers to make a smaller 25-round box. Just some other options.