Hit the Motherlode for Range Brass!

I'm getting better about leaving .223, 9mm, 380 and 40 brass where it lies at the range despite it being thick most weekends. I still constantly scan (and crawl) for .45acp and 38 special though:-)
 
Now if i can find---

I cant seem to find 45 Colt longs or .357 Sig brass
it seems they are not shot very much at the range I belong to.
A member who shoots .357 Sig saved me some, about 200.
Now looking for .308 brass for my M&P 10. 10mm's are probably the hardest to find, don't shoot them myself
 
When stationed at Quantico many years ago, a neighbor was the WTB commander.
He authorized me to sign out any open range on weekends.
One Saturday went out to a pistol range. Surprise.
Scattered all over were nickel plated 357 Magnum cases, in groups of 6.
Picked up about a 5 gallon bucket load of them.
Thank you FBI!
 
"after a while you'll stop, 9mm brass is everywhere....."

this very week end, [Father forgive my sins] I shot entire match with new factory loads 9mm Blazer brass. Have BUCKETS of it at home, as well as being simply too geezered out in the knee to chase it down....so I donated it to the on-site live posse buddies who wanted to mess with it...

Seemed like a win-win at the time.....
 
In the 3 years I've been a member of the local Conservation Club ($30 annual membership), I've picked up over 20,000 pcs. of 9mm brass. About 25-30% I give to a buddy, after it's been de-primed and cleaned of course :-) I helped him get set up to reload his own, and he appreciates it. Not to mention all the other brass that gets left behind-all once fired factory!! Life is good for us reloaders/scroungers :-)
 
I use to collect range brass at a public Pa. Game Commission shooting range. One morning a guy and girl were there picking up everything, including the steel and aluminum cases.
I asked them why they were saving everything.......and they said it was part of their public service for some crime they committed. They take it back to the police station as proof of their work.
 
If you shoot at a private gun club to which you pay dues and about which you care, think about this. One club to which I belong had an elderly member slip and fall on discarded brass littering the concrete at one of our outdoor ranges. He suffered a broken hip but fortunately did not sue the club. Instead, he (correctly) blamed slob members for his injury.

But you know damned well that he could have won a financial settlement if he had brought litigation against the club given the anti-gun tendencies of those making up juries these days. A lot of gun clubs are not properly insured (Is yours?) and such an award could bankrupt and close them, all because of members who do not recognise their littering habit for exactly what it is.

I just don't get how anyone can just let the stuff fly (toward others many times) and wind up on the ground and then put insulting icing on the cake by leaving without cleaning up after themselves. I even use my catch net when shooting my bolt-action 22s. It beats picking up any of those little critters that roll off my bench.

Sorry if I ruffled any feathers but if you've ever served your club as an officer or director, you know how costly careless members can be.

Ed
 
BRASS PICKER-UPPER

Tinhack: If I could get electric down to the range in the spring said:
Tinhack: Consider getting one of those roller cages w/the long handle. They're only forty-five bucks plus shipping. I'm with you on age & have found one of those do-dads a great boon for us old pharts!

Hank M.
 
I don't reload 9mm anymore. I try to keep 500 brass cleaned, deprimed and swaged, to give to people just starting reloading. In 223, I do it with bags of 200. All the 40 brass goes away fast too. Everything else is mine!

Ivan
 
Brass can be a pain in the butt....

When I first started as a firearms instructor for our academy we mostly used commercial reloaded ammunition, and most officers shot .38 specials. All shooters on our range policed their brass and we turned it in for credit towards our next ammunition order. In the early '90's it was mandated that all training was done with commercial ammunition, no reloads. This was also about the same time that everyone was switching to semi automatics. I was range master by this time and brass was my responsibility. Initially I got five cents per round and the local gun shops would pick up the policed brass to sell in their shops. Then it was down to one cent per round, then they were over loaded and didn't want it any more.

For awhile I sold it to a well known commercial reloader but it had to be sorted and then shipped. They paid me for the brass in credit towards their ammunition, which worked well as most of our ammunition for our sniper rifles came from them. I would have a couple of my range officers pick up 1/2 dozen prisoner trustees for a day when it was closed for maintenance. They would police all of the brass and sort it... then back home to jail for the night.

That deal eventually fell through and I was stuck with literally truck loads of once fired brass. We serviced 39 agencies and some of my bigger classes had 70 students and they would shoot 1,500 rounds each per week. It was nothing to have 40-50 five gallon buckets of assorted brass in my storage building. It was literally a huge pain in the butt. I shot a lot of I.P.S.C. and I.D.P.A. during those years and when friends were crying about brass, I would bring them a whole bucket of once fired .45, 9mm or .40 brass. At the time we shot Federal GM .308 out of all of our sniper rifles and I bought it in bulk. That was the only brass most guys were even interested in. Most of the other stuff I couldn't even give away.

I eventually had to start selling it for scrap, just to get rid of it. I actually got between .45 and .80 cents a pound for brass. I would have one of my range officers take a truck load of buckets of brass to the scrap yard... usually 600-750 pounds, four times each year. The stupid part was that the way my accounts were set up through the City, I couldn't put that money back into my ammunition budget, I had to put it in my range maintenance budget??? As a result, we did have a envious facility... buildings painted and kept up, trees, shrubs, more steel plate trees and pepper poppers than we could use.

I retired last year and prior to doing so I arranged a deal with a scrap yard from out of state that services a lot of police ranges. They brought in one-way drums and left them on sight. The officers policed their brass and poured it into the funnel shaped tops, with the only provision being that they wanted no aluminum cases. Every month or two they sent a flat bed truck with a Tommy lift on it up to pick up the barrels and leave empty ones, and then just sent me a check.

As a result, I have more brass than I or my sons will ever use here at the house.... .45, .40, .9mm,. 357 Sig, .223, .308. But we do go through a lot of it and enjoy the loading aspect.
 
I can beat that. I found 375 41 Magnum in the trash at our range. 275 where primed. Popped out the primers and they cleaned up real nice.
 
I'm a brass rat too. I pick it all up even if I don't reload it. I'm amazed at the number of people who leave it. I've became over whelmed with .223/5.56 brass. I must have 15 or 20 lbs of it and only been collecting it a year. One day I was looking at all that .223 brass and decided I needed a rifle to shoot it. One thing led to another. You know the rest of the story.
 
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At present I have five buckets full of 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 Special, .357, etc. brass, and more .30-'06, .223, and .308 brass than I can use in two lifetimes. I have access to an essentially unlimited supply of .40 S&W fired brass (from the Border Patrol) which I don't bother to pick up as I have no guns in .40 S&W. I still try to leave the range with as much brass as I fired that day, but I don't pick up any more than that, unless it is something nice, like nickel-plated.
 
I was going to buy some 38 short colt brass to try in my new 8 shot revolver...but the Brass Gods came through. As I was testing some loads for the new pistol at my local range a shooter asked if I saved 38 special brass. I ended up with 500 once fired Winchester 38's which I trimmed to 38 short colt length. Hey they were free and I had the time...only took about 2 hours. One of the best parts was the Winchester brass for whatever reason fit my .025 moon clips. Typically they take the .020 moons. So yes I pickup range brass and with my revolver and moon clips I don't have to bend over at all.
 
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