I have a client that wants a wall mounted rail.  The design that we have talked about will use a decent amount of metal making it quite heavy.  Normally I would just make sure that all the wall brackets are on the studs.  However, this wall is brick with plaster and I have never mounted to that before.  Would I use sleeve anchors in the brick to mount it?

That's what I'd do. Just make sure to check how solid the brickwork is. If the mortar is the slightest bit soft I wouldn't mess with it, I've taken down chimneys by taken out just a handful of bricks just because the mortar was getting soft.

Probably sleeve anchors but......

Not all brick is the same.  If this is an internal wall on an old place you might be opening a can of worms.  Very often in the old days bricks were made locally out of inferior clays and under-fired.  They can be quite soft.  The softer bricks were usually used on internal walls whereas the harder ones from the center of the brick kiln tended to be used on the more structural and weather resistance needing outer walls.  Putting a fastener into a soft brick may cause it to crack or pop a divot out.

The local bricks in my tiny town were so soft that they are barely usable as bricks.  They fail really easily and sleeve anchors would probably pop about 25% of the time.

Modern bricks are far harder and should take a sleeve anchor just fine.

So, I'd have plan A and B--standard sleeve (compression) anchors if the bricks seem hard enough and epoxied-in anchors if there is any question of brick hardness.  Go easy on the drilling, also.

 

Would putting epoxy in the hole before inserting the sleeve anchor be beneficial?

 

Sleeve anchors work by compression.  Either the material is solid enough to take that compression or it isn't.  Epoxy won't really affect that.  There are anchors designed to be epoxied in for those cases where you can't rely on standard compression.  They often have threaded inserts.

You haven't mentioned how big the fasteners you intend to use are so it's hard to be more specific.  #9 screws, probably not a big deal either way.  1/2" lag bolts, probably a BIG deal either way.

Here's an example of an epoxy in threaded anchor that goes down to 1/4"  http://anchorco.com/media/mconnect_uploadfiles/p/o/powersert.pdf  just for reference.  There are other styles also.

Id go with Kozzy on the epoxy anchors. In the past I've used them to hold plates into the floor of a WW2 german observation bunker. Cant remember the brand name though but it had a little glass might have been thin plastic  bulb that you dropped in then inserted the bolt which broke the bulb and released the epoxy.

Thanks guys.  I have found the glass epoxy bulbs and anchors.  That seems like the route to go.