I have a huge pail (35 pound cat litter bucket) of 9MM brass that has never been reloaded. It’s all been resized and expanded, plus wet tumbled. I honestly don’t know how many but it’s gotta be well over 5000 pieces. What’s the going rate for 9MM brass?

Most reloaders simply pick up the brass they need for reloading off the range floor.

People who load in those large quantities won't add any value for the time you already put in. It might sell at a gun show for 4 or 5 cents each. I have a bag of 1000 no-one even looks at!!

Ivan

I really don' t know what the going rate for de-primed, re-sized, washed, once-fired brass would be when sold for re-use. The national average scrap value of brass cases was $1.18 per pound as of Friday and has been as high as $2 in the past year.

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Pisgah

I buy 9mm range brass a couple times a year. Shopping around can land it at $30 - $40 per thousand. It can and does sell for more sometimes, but not to me. I think the last batch I bought was 2500 and it was $65 or $70 to my door.

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Just Say No - To Social Media

I have several thousand, but have never bought any. I used to pick it up at the range, but I only pick up my own now.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

Just so you know there are 115 pieces of 9mm brass in a pound. The pail is probably 2 pounds.

You would think that in this environment of severe ammo shortages that it would be worth a lot! Problem being, however, is that powder, primers and other reloading components are also in short supply the!

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otis

I hope you were happy with the brass I sold you, Alhunt.
2500 pieces will fit in a if it fits it ships medium priority box, they ship for around 17 bucks.

$2 a pound at the scrap yard...

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S&W factory revolver armorer

3 to 4 cents/piece, with shipping included.

AlHunt & Cracker are on point. For processed brass going to say $35-40/1000 delivered, is fair.
~118 cases per pound and 1000 cases should weigh out to ~8.5 lbs.

Pricing may be up a touch at the moment though.

Ha! I couldn't remember where or who that batch came from. Yep, it's exactly what I expected. About 1/2 is loaded and Zombie-Ready and the rest is in process.

I'm always on the lookout for a deal. A friend of mine (who I recently upgraded to "great friend") traded me into quite a few small pistol primers so I'll be killing the rest of that box off as time permits.

ETA: Now I remember, that was the 5K you split into 2. That's what it was. I should have done the whole 5K. Who knew the zombie apocalypse was right around the corner ...

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Just Say No - To Social Media

With shipping as high as it is, including shipping at 3-4 cents per case, doesn't leave a lot for "profit". I sent a 10 pound package of a defective product from Illinois to California UPS and it cost me $24. The USPS boxes are probably the cheapest way to ship brass. There has been so much 9mm brass generated over the last 25 years that it is one the least valuable cases. Until all the recent unrest you could buy new loaded 9mm for $8-$10 a box so reloading didn't make a lot of sense to many folks. The economics change some when we are talking about rarer brass like .45 Colt, .357 magnum or 10mm. I sold some once fired 10mm brass a few years ago for 10 cents each plus shipping and could have sold a lot more. It may be up some now from that price.

9mm & 223/5.56 brass as well as other popular para military brass is hard to sell. The new shooters are not reloaders and thousands of cases are swept up at ranges. There are always people willing to give away common brass.

I almost always come home from the range with more 9mm and .223 cases than the number of rounds I shoot. I use a tarp to catch all mine then pick up a lot that's just left lying on the ground by other shooters.

Even now with the ammo shortage there's usually a fair amount of 9mm brass on the ground.

I saw on another forum a guy selling 1lb ingots of copper for $10. If you look on You Tube there are many videos of guys smelting copper, brass, aluminum in small home made furnaces. I can see this as educational project but they are into it. Stacking up ingots like they are gold. The point is, not counting any value on your labor, how much did it cost to smelt that pound of metal. I’m saying more than scrap value of the metal. A pound of copper is less than $3 today. When you look at cleaning, depriming and sizing common cartridge brass you would be better off just to offer it bulk the way it is. Value? It will always be worth at least scrap price for brass.

4 cents a case for 9mm

I have 5 home depot buckets full of 9mm range brass. Just bend down and pick it up, it's all over the place.... since it's so readily available, it isn't worth much.

I was just fishing. Yeah, it was all range pick-up. I agree it's everywhere, but not now. I hit the county range and pickings are slim. It's not taking up much space so I'll keep it for now. I just reload the thousands of cases I already have until they split, anyway.

Value really depends on the quantity purchased. Smaller quantities, 10 cents a piece shipped is a decent price right now. For larger quantities, 5 to 7 cents seems to be market price right now. Of course for in-person sales you can reduce those prices a few cents per piece.

There have been millions of rounds shot and left lying on the ground or on the floor each month over the last 25 years. Over the last few months, not so much.

Even used brass has gotten hard to find in a lot of places. It was so plentiful a year ago that most people wouldn't bother to pick it up, even if they reloaded. A lot of those who did, and collected big buckets full, have now sold off about all they are willing to sell.

So now anyone with a bunch of it on hand has something of value. Still not a huge value, but getting more valuable every day.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

Some brands are not even worth picking up. S&B, and American Something?. If it isn't Win, RP, Starline or Fed I leave it where i found it.

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Front sight and squeeze

$30/1000 is about the going rate.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

I recently sold over 4,000 cases of FC, R-P, Win & Speer, deprimed but not sized, for $4/100 plus shipping. With much smaller quantities the shipping makes it not so worth while. I was able to get it all into a large flat rate box, with some cardboard reinforcement. Better than scrap prices, and it gets it out of my way. I agree, brass is still out there, but there’s not as much as there used to be.

Random range brass is discounted.
Authentic once fired brass is a step below new unfired.
The type of pistol it was fired from can be an important factor for some reloader's application.

Hmmm - good question! Like some stated above, at the Club I belong to one can pick up huge amounts of popular calibers right out of the Range Buckets. Almost all of it is once fired too! So what is it worth?? As scrap it goes for about $1.30 / pound. As reloadable ammo the last I heard was .02 cents each, however that was prior to the craziness we are now experiencing.

If a person really wants to know what it is selling for with shipping, look at completed auctions on Gun Broker.

1000 tumbled pieces shipped for $72 (7.2 cents each)
9mm once fired range brass 1,000+ pieces tumbled and cleaned - Reloading Supplies at GunBroker.com : 885586089

1000 un-tumbled pieces shipped for $62 (6.2 cents each)
9mm Brass Once Fired 9 mm Nice Clean Glock S&W - Reloading Supplies at GunBroker.com : 885805185

500 tumbled nickel pieces shipped for $60 (12 cents each)
9mm brass (nickel 500 pieces) once fired shiny fast shipping - Reloading Supplies at GunBroker.com : 885551479

500 tumbled pieces brass shipped for $38 (7.6 cents each)
500 ct. 9mm Once Fired Brass Free Shipping - Reloading Supplies at GunBroker.com : 885074837

The days of 2 cents per piece brass are over (for now) just like the days of 2 cent primers and 5 cent cast lead bullets.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

They would be worth much more if primed and ready to load
extreme bullets, used to sell them.

LOL, got that right, especially with primers going for 8-10 cents apiece these days!

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

When I was looking for used 9mm brass, I'd wait until the last hour of the gun show to buy. Sellers would go as low as $15./1000 because they didn't want to haul it home.

USPSA Open gun shooters are mostly shooting 9mm major loads in their race guns. The ammo is custom loaded to very high pressure and velocity. The shooters generally leave their brass on the ground because they assume the brass might fail if re-used. I have seen a race gun blow up at a shooting match locally. The shooter was not hurt(just stunned) but his expensive race gun was toast. So...some of the range brass picked up and resold maybe weakened. Our club has an older couple who come to the range the morning after a match and "harvest" the brass. I don't know if they scrap it or resell.

The race gunners try to find a reseller of once-fired brass and buy in quantity. They get upset when the brass looks very used.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

The site that I usually buy my brass from lists Cleaned, Processed (not expanded) brass at $92/1000, $144/2500.
Hope that helps.

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Draw me not without reason...

Shipping included or shipping extra? It can make a significant difference.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

Well I guess my .02 cents each estimate was too far on the past - only a few years ago that's what it was, but because of the current "crises" I guess guy's can get crazy numbers now.

Yeah, when I first started reloading I bought a few hundred at 2-3 cents each unprocessed or 4-5 cents each cleaned. That was before I realized how easy it was to get it for free just picking it up at the ranges.

These days anything with anything to do with guns, especially ammo, the prices are 3x what they were between this drought and the last one.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

FWIW, I just paid $50 plus $8 shipping for 500+ rounds of beautifully processed FC head stamp 9mm brass:

9mm Brass, Federal FC, Clean & Deprimed, Ready to Load, 500 pcs - Reloading Supplies at GunBroker.com : 886256301

I am using all FC brass at the moment and wanted to maintain consistency. Mixed-headstamp pickup brass is obviously much cheaper than this.

Do you have a local gun forum with a classifieds section? That's where I would look. It's going to vary by location.

Wasn't too long ago a lot of guys were declaring... "It's not worth my time to reload 9mm!"