Brass scroungers...BEST score ever??

[Frank237]

The post on .44 mag brass got me thinking. I was visiting a Range several yrs back and they had 5 gal buckets full of brass with all sorts of uncommon stuff; .41 mag, .45 Colt, .357 sig, 10mm, .44 mag etc.

I scrounged 50 pounds of good stuff in a few hours.

Other good scores were when the FBI used our Range they would leave thousands of rds of pistol and 10mm MP-5 brass laying on the deck.

To the brass scrounging reloaders out there...What was your best score EVER??


FN in MT

 

[Maximumbob54]

When the NV Highway Patrol left the range. I'm set on .40SW for the rest of my life or until I buy another few Sigma .40SW mags... Whichever comes first. I was using a broken snow shovel and a rake to pour the stuff into old paint buckets. I was in Heaven that hot dry very dusty afternoon. My cousin laughed her but off at me...

 

[growr]

Had a similar experience when I lived in Idaho Falls, the INEEL security team would train on our range instead of theirs. Sometimes they would leave behind literally thousands of 9mm, .40 S&W brass and thousands of .223 for anyone that felt like picking it up. I got several 5 gallon buckets of each. That is MY best deal.
Randy
PS. What range near Craig does the FBI train on? Great Falls? Helena? I used to live in GTF..

 

[M29since14]

I have never hit a big one yet, but your story reminds me of an older gentleman who like to attend the local bullseye shoots around here. He did not shoot any more, but he liked to talk with the shooters and offer advice. He had a reputation for standing behind shooters and snagging the flying .45 brass out of the air, sticking it in his pocket, and walking away before anyone could say anything to him. Everyone knew he did it, but he thought he was getting away with something. I don't believe anyone ever called him on the carpet over it, but it was a source of amusement that he went to that much trouble for a few empty cases.

 

[mgjohn]

Went to the range one day and saw the ground near the bench covered in brass. Picked up what would fill several 5 gallon buckets. Mostly 9mm with a fair share of 45acp and 44 mag.

There was so much brass I was looking for containers to put it in.

In the trash/fire barrel was a large box that contained live factory ammo.
Turned out to be 250 rounds of RP 45 auto and 1500 rounds of RP 9mm.
Never was able to found out who used the range that day.
Don't know if they left the ammo on purpose or run off and for got it.

Had a guy show up at the range one day looking to get rid of some odd brass and bullets. I paid him 10.00 for 500+ 375 H&H cases and 5500+ 375 H&H bullets. The bullets were the old Herters brand.
I aquired a 375 rifle very soon after that.

 

[filmit]

I used to manage a gun store and an older gentleman was going to be going into a senior center and was selling his house, wanted to dispose of his ammo. I hauled out three wheel barrows full of ammo & brass. 15 bricks of 22 ammo, 100lbs of 38 special brass, 15,000 rounds of loaded 38 special wadcutters. A couple hundred rounds each of 308 and 30-06 both tracer and A.P., About a dozen ammo cans and a few boxes of shotgun shells.

He just wanted rid of it and didn't want it in the wrong hands. I've scored before, but this was the ultimate holy-grail of all scores.

 

[canoeguy]

When I lived near Virginia Beach, Va., the Navy Seals stationed in Little Creek would use several public ranges, they always left thier brass behind. I still have several thousand nickel plated .357 Magnum cases they left behind while training with thier revolvers.....

 

[rburg]

Wow, you guys scored big time.

My best was back about 1974. It was a winter day and snowy, but I wanted to test out a few loads before my wife went to work. She was a 2nd shift nurse and I had a few hours. But as fate would have it, the local PD was doing their quals that day at the public range. So they threw me out, not wanting any "mere civilians" to see how badly they performed. So I drove home, dejected. But it was OK because it kept on snowing. Overnight the snow had turned to a miserable drizzle. But rain melts snow.

So I left home early for the range, leaving my wife and the kid to suffer. When I got there, the range was predictably empty. As I walked out in the rain I noticed something shiny, then more. Overnight the moisture had somehow sprouted hundreds of once fired 357 Mag brass. It was everywhere. So I gave up shooting and went to scrounging. I finally ended up dumping the brass in the wells behind the front seat so I could keep on reusing my range box as I walked and crawled around, getting rich. It was riches beyond my fondest dreams. I'd been impoverished to the point where I felt fortunate to even have 50 empties, shot way more than once. But cops are rich, the city pays their ammo bill so they don't care (besides, the brass had melted its way into the snow so it was invisible.!)

But I still had some time, so I decided to put up a target and fire my test loads. That didn't work, either. When I got to the target stands I noticed bullets washing out of the backstop. Lots of them. Some were jacketed (I didn't care) but many were also lead.

I live and play among hillbillies. The more impoverished or lazy shoot at milk jugs. You've seen them, the one gallon kind. They were everywhere by the backstop. Many still looked like they'd hold deformed bullets. So I started picking them up and putting them in the perforated jugs. You can't carry a full jug of lead (the math seems to be lead weighs 12 or so times as much as water/milk, which is maybe 8.3#, so a gallon of lead is well over 100#). When you get a jug 1/4th full, its time to put it away and start another. I probably put 5 or 6 such jugs of lead in the car. Then I was cold, soaked, but as happy as I'd been in a while. So I went home to a wife and kid that weren't as understanding, but they were happy that I was happy.

I spent over a week of evenings decapping and resizing the brass. It held me for a few years with ease. I've still got some of the brass I loaded back then (I try to never waste anything.)

So if you ask what heaven will be like? It'll be an empty range full of once fired brass, with me free to pick it all up. I've been there!

 

[Smith357]

A dumpster full of 12 gauge AA hulls back when I was playing sporting clays every weekend.

We showed up at the club just after some big tournament had just taken place. My buddy went over to the dumpster to toss something out and started dumpster diving. We were making fun of him at first until he yelled out it was full of hulls then we joined him taking thousands of Winchester AA hulls.

 

[mkk41]

During my Navy years , I was assigned to 'Station Ordnance' at 3 bases. I was bringing home 5gal buckets of once fired .45/5.56/7.62 brass. We literally had 55gal drums of it. Some guys would ask , or steal it an sell it for scrap. Gunshops that sold reloads were eager to buy it too.

 

[Coaltminer]

Went to the range yesterday at a WV state forest. They have a range at just about all locations, which is many. WV Dept. of Corrections had some folks out there training with Glock 21's. Picked up all their brass, Speer Lawman. Not to Change the subject, but my dad and I used to live in MA, belonged to a gun club. When they had trap shooting competitions, we picked up hundreds of unbroken clay targets to use again. I can still remember hauling them to my truck from the snowbound fields. Ain't nostalgia a bitch ?

 

[BUFF]

Not all that glitters is gold... or brass!

One Tuesday morning I had no classes and went to the range. They were closed on Mondays except for private groups or government agencies that rented the facility. So Tuesdays were sometimes great for brass pick-up.

(I guess we are cheap in Utah. Most departments pick up their brass and take it with them here, so it wasn't a common deal to score big.)

Well, the covered firing line and benches were covered with nice, shiny .30 M-1 Carbine brass. Buckets of it! I had no carbine at the time but... I filled every container I could scrounge. I picked up probably 3,000 to 5,000 empties. I stored them away for later.

I bought a carbine. I bought dies and components to load a thousand rounds. I fired up the Rock Chucker and sized/decapped the first case. The decapping pin bent.

I looked inside the fired case.

It was Berdan primed.

Every single one of them were Berdan primed.

I groaned audibly.

 

[papajohn428]

Our club range lets the local LEO's train there, we shut it down on certain days and let them do their thing. As soon as they leave the scroungers appear out of the woodwork. One day I got there a little bit too late to get in on the scrounging, so I just sat at my bench and watched. A car pulled up behind me, it was two FBI guys who had been tasked with getting rid of their old brass. It had been found stashed in a closet and the boss wanted it gone, so they asked me if the club guys would want it.

It was somewhere upwards of 20,000 once-fired nickle 38 +P+ brass cases.

I took 2,000 home, and left the rest on the table. I heard later one guy took 10K for himself, and sold it.

 

[Engineer1911]

In 1972 I was shooting on the range behind the gun shop where I bought my Win 9422. A guy just left when I arrived. I found 38 out of forty CIL Imperial 44 mag cases. Some day I'll own a 44 mag. Most expensive free brass I ever picked up.

I owned a TC in 30 Herrett and had just bought 100 30-30 for $7 at a sport shop where I bought the TC. At a gun show in Minneapolis in 1981, I asked the table owner if he had an 30-30 brass. He said, "I'll sell all the Federal 30-30 brass I have for $20." How many cases do you have? I left with 765 pieces of brass. Spent a month down the basement cutting necks and trimming to length. 900+ rounds of ammo lasts a long time for a single shot pistol!

 

[M29since14]

...Every single one of them were Berdan primed.

I groaned audibly.

Well, at least you can sell the brass for scrap, and you did get some exercise scooping it up.

On a similar note, every now and then I see some really nice looking 9mm cases and will scoop them up and throw them in the bag with my other stuff. Sometimes these cases, which appear to be brass, turn out to be steel. The magnet knows the difference, but it is hard to tell when just glancing at them. Strangely enough, these cases seem to have boxer primers, so one can easily be fooled.

 

[PhilOhio]

Once a year, our Thompson collectors group gets together in southern Ohio, and a day is spent in competitive shooting on a police range. It may not be the largest amount of .45 ACP brass laid down in a day, but it gets there the fastest.

 

[ChuckS1]

I certainly have got my lifetime supply of .45 ACP and 9mm brass from scrounging, but the best score for me was a box of the John Wayne commemorative .45 Colt brass, with the box, that someone left in the brass bucket at my range. I haven't reloaded it, and guess I might not, just for whatever collector value it may have.

 

[50 target]

Boy this brings back memories. Like one poster when I started out acquiring my guns, I was so broke I couldn't pay attention. Used to go the range at Ft. Benning Rifle & Pistol Club with my son, about 10-11 yrs old. His job was to go diving into the barbage cans for brass before we even unloaded our gear. One Sat. we came up with a box of Rem 38 spl, 357 mag and 44 spl brass with boxes. Also found the receipt where the person bought it and paid $66.00 for the 3 boxes. My wife was with us and would not go back with us because we embarrassed her with our scavenging. My son and I looked at her like what's the deal. Heck, we thought everybody did it. Of course being poor changes your attitude. I can buy what I want now but I do not waste and I still pick up leftover brass and even empty boxes I can use. One person's trash is another person's treasure.

Happy hunting.

 

[LTC]

I'm at the range at least two times a week. I make a habit of checking the brass buckets. Over the past 2 years I must have accumulated 40 gal. of once fired 9mm, .40S&W & .45ACP brass.

If I never pick up another case I have enough to last my lifetime X2. .40S&W is the most popular. We have police using the club to train and qualify. If you get there as they are leaving you can usually score 500 - 600 pieces. One local dept. uses .45ACP, I like to watch the schedule and pick up behind them.

The only brass that goes to waste at the club is .22lr.

I have been reloading for about 2 years and have not purchased any factory ammunition since I started. I am just now starting to get into casting my own bullets. This will probably reduce my per round price by at least 50%. I get my lead the same place I get my brass. Free for the taking.

LTC