Never thought that this would happen...

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.
 
BC38 said:
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.
Click to expand...

I will personally "chew out" anybody trying to pick my brass before me saying it's OK or not.:mad:
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Sometimes for safety reasons?

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.
 
Liftrat said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
BC38 said:
Yeah, he'd only do the "sweep around your feet" thing to me ONE time.
Click to expand...

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.
 
started early

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.
 
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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