...too much brass left at the range by all these newbe shooters.

It's gotten to the point that even us brass scroungers are leaving stuff on the ground. Me and my Monday morning brass hounds are wearing ourselves out doing the chicken dance in all this heat. I find myself deliberately avoiding all the piles of 40S&W and 223 that are left. I guess that I've become selective, or something. However, I did find (and stoop for) a cache of 357Max and 38Spl. This just seems weird to me, the stuff that people are leaving on the ground.

Anyone else seeing this at their ranges?

With all this covid19 I have not been able to get to the range. I have plenty of brass though to keep me busy

My favorite range out by my lake cabin has a brass hog that goes there EVERY day an picks up every round he can find. If you find anything more than your own to be picked up you're lucky.

Of course he acts like he's been appointed as some kind of defacto range master or like he's the guy who owns the range too (its actually DNR land).

I was able to pick up a hundred or so 9mm, a hand full of 45acp, and a couple of boxes worth of 223 when I was there Friday.

The brass hog was up at the other end of the range and we had some new shooters close by who didn't want their brass. I jumped in and picked it up just on principle.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

Had a guy at the club called him Brass Bob, picked up everything in sight. I know for a fact that he doesn’t reload. So Maybe he takes it to the scrap yard or gives to someone

Yeah, our brass hog is a retired guy who is processing and selling the brass he can't use himself to generate beer money.
I have no problem with that - if he weren't such a hog about it and didn't act like he owns the place.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

The range I use has a clean up your own brass policy, behind the firing line of course. There is a brass collector, I can't tell you the name we have for him without violating forum rules, that is there at least twice a day. He will grab a squeegee and go up and down the firing line raking the brass including around and in front of shooters feet as they are shooting.

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U.S. Coast Guard, retired CPO

Yeah, he'd only do the "sweep around your feet" thing to me ONE time. Especially if he was sweeping up MY brass.
I have a name for that kind of person that I CAN use here without fear of getting a ding. I call them THEIVES.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I hate it when that happens. no kidding.
Jim

There’s always plenty of 223 and 40 as you said but lately there’s been a lot of 45 acp. Over two or three trips recently I’ve picked up an ammo can full. There’s never a shortage of 9mm also.

38/357 go in cycles and has been scarce lately. I think I’m the only 38 super shooter and never find any except an occasional stray of my own. 45LC is another scarce cartridge. I think in the years I’ve been shooting there I’ve only found 2 cartridges.

Once in a while I’ll find a few 380’s and although I don’t load them I’ll find som 45-70 brass and 30 blackout. Also I’ll find some 50 action express from time to time and a few 10mm.

I wish someone would start shooting 38 super and 45 LC and leave them behind.

So many new gun owners, so little ammo, after the big scare, the things will get back to normal, hopefully

Can you pick up 30 lbs of range brass in an hour?

It's been years since I've visited the public range that I used to live close to. But I scooped up enough pistol brass in various calibers to last me all the rest of my shooting day as well as some rifle calibers that I shoot as well. I appreciate all those non reloaders that left me all that brass.

I nearly always pick up my own stuff if I can ferret it out and if the range allows. I enjoy shuffling around and looking at what people leave, mostly to see the odd balls. I seldom pick any of it up to keep, but once in a while something just has to be scrounged. I once came upon several dozen nickel plated .375 H&H that went home with me to be converted to .300 H&H. What a find! Most everything else is ground clutter.

I don't re-load nor do I pick up my brass but I'm starting to think I should start, if only to post a "free to good home" ad for those that do.

My club allows everyone to collect there own stuff.

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I only take a knee for God

Wait until the panic really hits. Before the 2016 elections you couldn't find brass. Maybe it was because ammo was too scarce to shoot. There is plenty on the ground right now.

You might as well. Someone is picking it up, and I look at it like I'm walking around picking up nickels. Even when I pick up calibers I don't shoot, I can always sell them, or better yet, trade them for something I can use.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I have so much 9mm I have been loading and shooting everything but the WIN headstamp, leaving it behind, and I have another three gallons of brass to blow off. I have two gallons of once shot WIN and a couple thousand rounds of reloaded 9mm WIN on the shelf. I switched over to 45 small primer and I have enough to last many years. I am setting good on 9mm and 45.

If anybody has any excess 10mm, 357MAG, or 44MAG I will be glad to take it off your hands. I could also use some more 6.8SPC in rifle.

I’ll usually save my revolver calibers, but as far as I’m concerned semi-auto brass leaves the gun and flies into another dimension. I ain’t crawling around looking for it.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

Picked up brass to reload for years. Then picked up brass just so i could find my own brass. Now at our range we would welcome anyone that came out to clean up all the brass while no one was shooting. Would even propose giving them a free membership. Have a lot of 5 gallon bucket fulls. Those wire basket rollers are basically worthless for more than a handful. Squeegee, cut short, can rake up brass pretty good on ground/grass. Then shovel and sift.

Buckets of 9mm and 45 ACP small primer laying on my club’s range. Nobody here wants the stuff

The outdoor range I go to is pretty lightly used IMO so there's not a ton of brass laying around. I spread a tarp and save just about all of my brass other than the occasional piece that flies off to the great unknown. Still I usually come home with more brass than the rounds shot as I always find some leftovers from others.

I only pick up the 3 calibers I shoot and seldom find .45 acp but often see at least a few 9mm and .223's. Now and then I come across a good size pile of .223 and feel like I hit the lottery. I don't bother with stuff that's been there a while or stomped into the mud. I just take what's laying on top and still looks like new.

The indoor range here allows you to pick up your brass. Hardly ANYONE collects their brass! They allow rifle calibers also, so you can find all manner of brass on the floor. Brass is swept up, sorted by caliber and sold at the upstairs gun shop. If you ask the RO nicely and you're a regular at the range, he will usually give you brass. They have 5 gal. buckets full of the stuff!

Another indoor range I used to go to just sold their brass as scrap; that always broke my heart!! :-(

I've always picked up my brass and if I notice someone who is leaving theirs, I always ask if they mind if I pick it up. Lately I've gone to shooting mostly revolvers so most of my brass goes from the cylinder back into the box.

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Ed

I will personally "chew out" anybody trying to pick my brass before me saying it's OK or not.

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Expect the unexpected

I gather you're not shooting .30 Luger; .30 Mauser; .30 Tokarev or 9mm Browning Long.

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Expect the unexpected

theres a range squirrel at mine too. No .22 will escape his hungry little hands

Here brass is $1.00/lb at the scrap yard.

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S&W Accumulator

I go to a private range and my work schedule is such that when I go to the range I get there right at opening in the middle of the week. I can't remember the last time I didn't have the bay to myself.

I don't reload but I do collect my brass because I can sell it for scrap. When I'm done shooting I pick up all the brass in my general area but I don't really pay attention to what it is because I'm going to scrap it anyway but since I shoot 9mm I would think.45 ACP would be noticeable but I don't recall picking any up recently.

I'm not aware of any brass rats at my range but I did see one guy digging lead out of the berm one day.

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Retired Career Security Guard

Lots of brass available at my public range these days. Mainly 5.56/223 and 9mm, but some revolver cases & even M1 carbine. Being cheap, and having lived through some shortages, I'll pick up almost anything except rimfire. Even if I don't reload it, I can trade it, or, when/if prices go back up, sell it for scrap.
It is interesting that with the ammo shortages, anything even gets left at all. Not like back in the Great Recession, when it was hard to find a stray piece, much less pounds of brass. And, yes, I've seen folks digging lead out of the berms, too. Good for them.

I wonder how many decapping pins I have broken leaving all my Berdan primed .303 laying about?

There are a lot of reloaders in my area, and not a lot of brass is left at thr "range", and I no longer pick up 9mm or 223/5.56 brass. But there was one old "homeless" feller that would park his camper near the range and pick up everything brass; rimfire and reloadable. But he was polite stayed out of everyone's way and often picked up shotshells and put them in the trash so no one questioned him. If there was someone shooting, he would stay off to the side out of the way. We all just left him to gather some brass for salvage money...

The outdoor range I go to now is operated by the state Game and Fish Commission. It just opened a couple of months ago after years of delays. There brass that the shooter doesn’t want gets raked up by the Range Officers almost as soon as it hits the ground. Digging through the brass buckets is not encourage but no one gets yelled at for doing it. The brass is ultimately sold and I assume the profits go back to the range's operating fund. There was a case at another Game Commission range a few years ago where the employees were accused of selling all or part of the range brass and/or not turning in the profits. I believe it resulted in some prosecutions.

Previously, we were allowed to use the County Sheriff’s Office rifle range and you were welcome to any brass that went into the brass bucket. (The public was only allowed to use the range one or two weekends a month and could only shoot rifle or shotgun ammo on the SO's range). At that range you had a couple of characters that seemed like they only reason they came was to shoot a few .22s and hang around all day to get brass as the other shooters came and went. One of the brass hounds wore a salty-looking Marine Corps cover and plenty of whiskers. He paced up and down the firing line and loudly identified all the mil-surp rifles on the line and explained their individual virtues and shortcomings to anyone that would listen or to the owner himself. He also had a bad habit of going forward of the firing line while the range was “hot” to retrieve brass. He got yelled at by both the shooters and the Sheriff's Office ROs but the glitter of shinny hot rifle brass seemed irresistible to him.

I moved about 6 years ago and I came to the realization that I had enough rifle and pistol brass (and lead too) to last the rest of my life but its still hard to not pick up nice, once-fired rifle and pistol brass that other shooters don't want.

An indoor range that I used to frequent, also had the "on-duty" RSO take a long handled squeegee and just "pull" spent cases back from the shooters bay, sometimes as they were reloading or moving target in/out.

He was not intrusive, and explained that the reason was simply too many "newbies" were doing mag dumps and others were younger folk, and older ladies that were so excited about shooting that they were stumbling and loosing their footing stepping on spent rounds therefore he was doing the pull back for safety.

The range did have a dog poo scooper basket that others (not the RSO) would sweep up spent rounds pulled back way behind the firing lines and dump them into large trash buckets. If your session was done you could root through the big container and take what brass you want.

If you wanted all your own brass, you simply needed to tell the RSO at session start, and then you needed to be sure you weren't ejecting into adjacent bays, and you could use the squeegee at end of session.

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Charlie B
SWCA#3083, SWHF#570

I mine the berm at my personal range. Melt and cast. Some the same lead may have been down the barrel two or three times.

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S&W Accumulator

Oh yeah. You can't pick up my brass with both hands grasping your 'nads. There's rude and there's stupid. Both at one time is a problem.

I shoot .30 Luger pretty often. Same rule applies.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

When I was in junior high we had a week of what they called mini-courses. No 3R's that week. Bowling, Judo, Trap Shooting, you get the idea. My first time shooting clays. Our instructor was a past state champion. My gun was a hand-me-down Mossberg bolt action single shot. That bolt was hard to work! Instructor noticed the action was in the stock crooked, and it turned out, my brother had cross-threaded the stock bolt. I told the instructor I never had a problem hitting what I aimed at. Two days of trap shooting, never missing a bird, and he was convinced. Now....I was smart. I had never reloaded, and didn't know anyone who did, but I knew about it. I was able to acquire five big sacks of hulls, all that had been used by everybody. I kept the 20 and 12 gauge, as that is what I had access to. I got a loader for Christmas that year, and didn't have to pay for hulls for over two years. It pays to think ahead.

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Good Shootin!!

At Camp Perry as a USAR shooter I didn't need to pick up brass. When I had brass scavengers reaching between my legs during slow fire I had to put a stop to it.

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Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

I pick up any abandon brass that I reload for: .380, 9mm, .38 S&W, .38 Spl., .357, .40 S&W, .41 Mag., .44 Spl., .44 Mag., 45acp, and .45 Colt.

The new breed of shooter must have more money than we did ... they leave brass all over the range floor . Years ago at the public range shooters came on Saturday to shoot and went to church Sunday mornings.
I would get up at first light on Sunday morning and go to the range and sweep up all the fired brass.
After amassing several lifetime supplies of once fired brass and factory boxes I finally had to throw the towel in and admit that shooters were leaving much more than I could ever use / recycle ... my trips "brass scrounging" came to an end .
What's sad is after 50 years of reloading I have not found one younger relative or friend who was even interested in learning to reload or cast bullets .. I would have loved to pass this interesting hobby along but alas no interest has been shown .
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

Been buying 9mm for .03 per case cleaned and .45 for .05 but I still can’t make myself stop picking up brass.. I know it comes from my teen days when I picked up brass and empty shotgun hulls Because I had no extra money for shooting. I would buy 100 shotgun primers on Friday so I could shoot 4 rounds of skeet on Sunday. I had to cast wadcutters so I could shoot pistol. I still remember on my 18th birthday I got 1k pistol and 1k shotgun primers. Thought I was rich. Loaded 1oz of shot for skeet loads when everyone else loaded 1 1/8 oz just to make it last longer. Actually those may have been the best shooting days I ever experienced.

I have loaded for 38 and all the straight side 32s for years, so I clear my cylinders into some sort of container to bring home. Back when I was shooting 45s and now that I am shooting a nine, I’m down on my knees after I shoot “worshipping the brass idols.” With the supply I have of 45s I could probably leave them on the ground, but old habits die hard.

Froggie

That is just rude and stealing.

I view brass on the ground as property of the shooter until they tell you that you can have it or they abandon it when leaving. If I am cleaning mine up and find something that isn't mine, I will offer it to the shooter before I claim anything.

Rosewood

I eagerly opened this up, as I recalled a similar opening sentence to a certain adult magazine's forum letters. I perused these purely for the articles of course. They started with the same, "You'll never believe what happened to me at the <range> today... I eagerly dug into the immense <piles of brass> until I was exhausted. I will always remember the handfuls of <brass>..."

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NICK-SWCA-NRA BENEFACTOR LIFE

I'm lucky on that last score. My 21 year old is starting to express interest in learning to reload. Now if he can just find the time from all his other busy-ness...

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

If you don't cast your own,there are some calibers not worth reloading for when you have to buy the projectile(9mm,.223).
This fact combined with the fast moving around life the younger people are in makes it so it ain't economically worth it to spend time they don't have reloading.
They then let others do the chicken dance.

Right now with the panic and ammo when you can find it sells for a premium, I find that today it is well worth it to load 9mm and .223. Right now, even buying 9mm brass at .03 each, I'm loading Hytek Coated 115gr for somewhere between $5-6 a box. Around here target 9mm is going for $20-25 a box IF you can find it. Had a new set of 9mm dies that came with a load of stuff I bought probably 10 years ago and thought I would never use them. I normally shoot way more .38 than 9mm but lately my use of the 9mm has increased drastically, so loading has been real good for me. Now I'm noticing that projectiles are getting hard to find as well as primers and powder. Thankfully I've got a good supply of 9mm, .38 special and .45acp loaded and have components to stay way ahead of the shortage.

I know some don't like them but I don't discriminate when it comes to 45 ACP with small pistol primers. I separate mine and just take one or the other out when I go shooting. I'm not hurting on primers but it's nice to have options and I have lots more SP primers than I do LP since the 45 ACP is the only pistol cartridge I shoot that that takes LP primers.

Currently only reload 38/357 and they dont get dropped.

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Some assembly required..

Wait til you’re shooting something exotic for which neither factory ammo nor empty brass are common. Then you’ll be careful. My 327 FM cases never hit the ground.

Froggie