After a range session today I noticed the following:

9mm: I don't reload it and probably never will, but casually collect my empties on general principle. About a 60% recovery rate.

45 ACP: I am set up to reload, but at this point am just saving brass against a future ammo drought. I make it a point to reclaim as many as I can. Again, about 75%, mostly because everyone else is shooting 9mm or .40 S&W and it stands out.

38 Super: I reload out of a combination of experimentation and economic necessity. I scour the floor, the adjacent lanes and the seating area. When the aliens visit us, I expect them to bring a load of mismatched socks and empty .38 Super cases and ask us to quit sending them stuff they can't use.

.22LR: Every case lands neatly on the bench, at my feet or in my pocket.

Go figure.

__________________
I need ammo, not a ride.

Hunting brass has become an obsession with me.

My OCD and my "no brass left behind" policy has caused me to literally make a fool out of myself looking for my fired brass.

At the range in Texas any brass left was fair game, picked up more 9s, 38s, 357s, 45s than I will probably ever load. Good thing though, the range here requires you pick up all your own brass and either take it home or give it to the range master for the club to resale. There is never anything left to scrounge.

I pick up all center fired brass. I have more than enough of the calibers I reload so I have a 5 gallon bucket for the rest. When full I take it to the metal salvage yard and sell it.

Years ago I coined the term "range ostrich". It applies to those, including me, who are on the range, head down, pecking at brass.

I try to collect my brass, except for 22LR. I reload many pistol calibers and I also save my rifle brass as I may one day start reloading rifle calibers. Fortunately, I shoot on an outdoor range that is equipped with tables. I set up a big, plastic storage tub near the ejection port of my pistols or semi-auto rifles when shooting. It's not a perfect system, but it does cut down on the range ostrich time.

I'll shoot 200 rounds of 9mm and come home with 400 pieces of brass. Any other caliber I come home with what I shot.

I use to scrounge brass at my outdoor range but don't anymore. Just pick up my own brass.

At my local public/commercial range, the local volunteer range meisters stare you down when you pick up your own brass. They appear to want to convince you that any/all range brass is "theirs". Geez, at that rate it would nearly double my range fees.

As a result, I built my own local HG range/target. I fire from my garage/shop's overhead doorway (7yd), or further back in the shop (~10-11yd) when not chronographing reloads. Far enough for SD practice.

FWIW, I will attempt to workup loads for my Rem 222 from here as well, but we'll see how that goes. I block access to my driveway while my range is hot, for both safety and liability reasons...
Life is good in rural Texas...

Attached Images

20180622_115337.jpg (145.9 KB, 82 views)

Like jake1945, I'll pick up any centerfire brass, and scrap what I can't use. I shoot at an outdoor public range, and haven't had to buy pistol or 5.56 brass in years :-). I have noticed that with the economy doing better more people just walk away from their brass. PS; "range ostrich"; I love it!

My outdoor range has collection barrels that donate brass to the youth shooting program. They want everyone to clean up their brass after themselves, you can either keep it or throw it in the barrel. I keep my centerfire brass and then throw any .22 or stragglers into the barrel. With poured concrete firing lines it's pretty easy to sweep up and keep track.

In my experience most semi-automatic pistols come equipped with an invisible, intermittently operating matter transportation device that, every now and then, dematerializes brass and rematerializes it elsewhere, perhaps in a different state, time zone or even planet.

When I shoot at indoor ranges, I'll pick up my brass and throw it in the bucket at home. Outdoor matches I leave it. I can't see picking through the grass and gravel, I buy once fired 9mm brass for $20 per thousand, it's not worth it to me to pick it up. (Indoor I have a "Lobby Dustpan" to pick up the brass, doesn't work too well outside)

__________________
Minimize the variables

It seems to me that my 45 brass sprouts legs when it hits the ground. I have to go looking for them, then after a long search they all of a sudden appear where I first looked..

The only thing I don't like about 10 mm - policing the brass as I want to find EVERY case if I possibly can. 9 mm I pick up but if I lose 10% it doesn't bother me. Right now it doesn't save significant money for me to reload 9 so I've got hundreds of once fired cases, just in case reloading is a necessity sometime in the future.

One of the guns I shoot is a CZ-82 in 9mm Mak. I make my cases out of 9mm Para cases, resizing and trimming to size. It's a bit tedious, but with the excess of 9mm Para cases lying around, cheaper than buy Mak cases.

The CZ-82 is known to launch empties into sub-orbital altitudes in every direction on the compass. Fifty percent recovery rate is a hopeful goal. Really frustrating when the guy next to me has a 1911 that tosses all his empties directly into a 5-gal bucket behind his right shoulder.

Another great thing about revolvers and bolt actions and moon clip guns are king. My back is stiff, my knees hurt enough without crawling around in the gravel.

I always shoot out in the National Forest, I always promise myself I'm only going to pick up my own brass, and leave the rest of the stuff. I also tell myself 98 out of 100 is a good recovery percentage. Well I don't leave till I find all my brass, 100%, and I wind up picking up everything else left on the ground. Like others I have been selling the other brass for scrap.

I can't stand coming back home with less brass than I started out with!
Back in the early 1970's I would get up early on Sunday mornings and go to the local public pistol range with a broom and 5 gallon bucket. Hardly anyone reloaded and the amount of brass they left was amazing.
The only handgun brass I have actually purchased was last year, 100 357 magnum cases from Starline.... Lots of 38 special was left but hardly any 357 .
Gary

I agree, 38 Super is the most allusive of all brass.

Some ranges frown on picking up brass because they don’t want to take the chance of people bending over or sweeping the area behind the firing line with a firearm. I’ve seen people go forward of the firing line when the line is hot to pick up brass.

Maybe it's the cheap side of me (when I see a 45 ACP case on the ground, I often visualize a dime laying there.), I pick up a lot of brass from the range. When I started reloading, ninety-eight percent of my brass was scrounged, range pick ups and that "thought process" still hangs on. Besides I've gotten a good education concerning firearm brass from picking it up...

Glad to see I'm not imagining it.

I should have mentioned that this particular indoor range is liberally carpeted with spent brass due to 2 factors:

1) the staff is so busy showing/selling guns on the sales floor that they seldom come back to broom (actually squeegee) the range.

2) I seem to be in the distinct minority of shooters who try to recover brass.

As a result my empties do not land on pristine space, but in a jumble of brass. I squeegee the area behind my lane before I start to shoot, but that lasts only as long as it takes the shooters on either side to cut look with their high-cap 9mms and 40s. I have considered buying one of those squirrel-cage brass pickers, but hate to spend range time I am paying for cleaning up other people's brass.

__________________
I need ammo, not a ride.

Here’s some brass I make sure I don’t leave behind

You can NEVER have too much brass. After the shortages I can relate to people that lived through the depression that never threw anything away.

__________________
"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Does any else do a mini celebration dance when they find odd cases espcially defunct caliber revolver brass?
Ok its probably just me then

90% of what I shoot is from revolver.At my age,shooting autos and then doing the chicken dance is not my favorite activity since it:

A) is tough on my knees

B)makes me look clumsy

C)makes me wonder how come people all around me are laughing

Our city range has a concrete deck, but my 10 mm throws brass 20 feet or so to my right and back. So as not to pepper the other shooters with hot brass, I try to get the end slot. That means my brass goes in the gravel and on the side berm. There are days I spend more time picking up brass than shooting. I might save time by following your example, pick up everything.

__________________
Time wounds all heels

One range that I used to use frowned on you picking picking up brass. They wanted it to sell. I started marking the base of my brass with a magic marker and then there wasn't much they could say when I picked them up.

__________________
Mighty 90's,Trying 4 a 100!

....but you have to wait for a new crop to spring up.

__________________
"He was kinda funny lookin'"

At the indoor range I frequented, my first task after I got to my stall was to sweep all the brass in my area either to the brass barrel or in front of the line. So, when I was done all the brass on the floor was mine (I never frequented any ranges that claimed "if it hits the floor, it's ours"!)

My wife said "My husband is a guy who won't bend over to pick up a quarter, but he'll crawl hands and knees to pick up his brass." Once I realized she was right, I bought a net brass catcher with an adjustable stand.

Behavior of brass?

OP is right about 9mm . . . my net catches ~90% of the brass and what it misses is easy to find because it's sharpie-marked across the bases. And right about 22LR . . . not enbough power for those little things to stray far from the net.

But 45ACP is a different animal . . . seems either my ejector or the cases themselves have a wicked sense of humor. No telling how they will miss the net, bounce off the bay walls, or bounce along the floor. Worst part is I reload ONLY small primer 45ACP, so those cases are more important to me as they are harder to come by where I shoot.

I shoot backcountry mostly. I handload. I intensely dislike seeing brass in the country. It upsets me that fellow shooters are littering the few rural areas we have left, to look like the city. Phoenix area within 30 miles is FILTHY. BLM and NFS is shutting places down. Pigs just keep moving out further.

The first task is to layout my big blue plastic tarp. It catches 99% of the semi-auto calibers and it is easy at the end to dump in the bucket.

Sorting is another thing I don't care to do. It requires you to pay attention or risk messing up your loader.
90% of my shooting is revolver. I have marked coffee cans with 38, 357, 44S, 44M, 45 ACP, 45Colt, and 357MAX. I dump each used cylinder of brass directly into the correct can. No more sorting !

I do a lot of cleanup for others. In really dirty spots, I go out at night with a flashlight and the brass shines like a spotlight. Much easier than during the day. You should see the Rangers grin from ear to ear when they see my garbage cans full of other people's deteriorated garbage. I've had several tell me about secret spots knowing I would take care of it.

Keep safe and keep it clean ! Pay it forward.


Prescut

If you go by the television show Married With Children, the aliens did use Al Bundy's socks to fuel their flying saucer. ;-)

It was a time of great darkness. A giant comet cut a path of destruction through the universe. The one man who could save them all was unappreciated on his homeworld. But on planet Preludon, they still sing songs about the man whose socks created fuel for the ships that battled the comet and stopped it, savings hundreds of worlds to include Earth.

This man's name?

Al Bundy!

__________________
Authorized AMSOIL Dealer

A curious thing I have found is that I can spend ten minutes scouring the desert floor for an elusive lost case before giving up, yet come back to that spot two weeks later, get out of my vehicle, and it is the first thing I see.

Lately I have begun putting all 5,56mm, 9mm and .40--the three most common calibers I find-- in big containers marked 'unsorted,' as an alternative to my obsessive sorting by headstamp of stuff I will die before I will ever use.

In 1973, after the all-Army rifle matches, a friend and I made a second police of the deserted firing line for missed brass. I recovered a quantity of 7,62mm NATO match brass. Four decades later I sold them on the internet. So there IS a point to hoarding...its just a matter of patience.

I gotta remember that one!!Well officer I'm just picking up brass-much easier to see it with this 1,000,000 candle power bull light. Oh...the rifle??? That's in case I see a snake.

__________________
Forum consigliere

At my age and current level (read - Volume) of shooting. I have enough brass (of the common calibers I shoot) to last several lifetimes. I TRY not to pick up brass, unless it is, 1. pristine or 2. in a round I don't think I have enough of. Examples are: 223,9mm - they have to be clean and bright, not muddy or grungy. On the other hand, I am not so fussy when it comes to 300 mags(Win, Whby or H&H) or Metrics(6,6.5,7,7.65,8) or hard to find calibers of any kind(250 Savage and such) I pick up brass for guns I don't shoot and give or trade them to folks that do shoot that gun.

Now, you will note that I said "Try" not to pick up brass. Mostly I pick up anything that is reloadable. (with the exception of 25 auto and 380)

I am sure that when I die or move to someplace where they can change my undies for me, people will go down to my basement and look at the bunker and reloading rooms and say " What in the Hell was he thinking"

Sorry for a little thread drift, but I really like the design of your backstop.
Is that 3/8" steel plate?
Do you fill the bottom with sand or something to cushion & trap the deflected bullets and keep them from chewing up the boards that form the floor of the box?
I assume the target side is open so you can reach in and retrieve the spent bullets in the bottom of the box?

The only handgun brass I actually hunt is 10mm. I pick up as much brass as I can in any caliber I own, it doesn't go bad & I hate the idea of some **** taking it in for scrap. Yes I reload 9mm, why not, 50% savings or more is just that.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

The indoor range I'm a member of is great about brass. I usually go on weekday afternoons when there's often nobody else there. The RO's will happily squeegee my brass aside. 9mm I don't really care about but with 10mm and 38 Super, I'm getting 95% back, or better! Those guns are ICBM's (Inter Continental Brass Launchers). I originally figured 50% recovery would be ok so 10mm and 38 Super are pretty cheap to shoot at this rate!