What unique things have you found at the range?

Nothing really exciting. Odd bullets embedded into other bullets. A bunch of medicine vials that once held veterinary type medicine. Someone was using them for targets. I was kind of worried about those. A bunch of 223/5.56's partially and completely separated. I kept a few for my collection including one that had a loaded cartridge tightly jammed into the separated case neck. An odd assortment of forgotten gear such as scope turret caps, lens covers, a staple gun, shooting glasses, ect. Occasionally a bunch of M1 Garand clips with brass! And over time, a whole bunch of unfired rounds with shallow firing pin indentions. Like you get with a dirty AR or a dirty Remington 742. Also an assortment of odd cartridges fired in incorrect chambers. Such as 308's fired in '06 chambers and Winchester Magnums fired in Weatherby chambers. Recently a couple of magazines worth of 357 Sigs fired in a 40 S&W pistol. And dozens and dozens of dropped 22 rimfire. I pick these up and twist the bullets out of them to go into my next large lead smelt. I leave the forgotten gear on the bench in hopes that the owner will return looking for it.

Occasionally I’ll get some newly fired brass worth picking up and reloading.

Sadly, in many of the public/BLM areas I can shoot at I find acres of broken glass bottles, old TVs and about five thousand pounds of shot up cans and plastic bottles that slob shooters leave about .

A magnetospeed sporter. I contacted the range to see if anyone called in on it. About a month later I got a call from the range that someone had called. I returned it.
Other than that, just stuff like Riomouse stated.

Mostly other people’s junk and garbage.

I did find a Smith & Wesson 9mm once at an outdoor shooting area. It was just lying on a tree stump in a nice holster. I left it there until we were ready to go and I picked it up, unloaded it and put it in my gun bag.
As I was driving out the dirt road leaving the area I saw a green Toyota truck coming at a quick pace. I waved the guy down and asked him if he was looking for something. He was the guy that left the gun behind. I gave it back to him. Boy was he embarrassed. He had taken his girlfriend friend shooting and in a moment of distraction laid the pistol down to help her with something and that is where it stayed until I picked it up.
I was dreading turning it in to the police. I am glad I found the rightful owner.

Oh, I also found a nearly new portable medical folding commode stand at a shooting area I used to frequent. Weirdest thing I ever found at a shooting area. I left it there.

A staple gun which I turned in at the range office. I did point out that no, I was not that honest, I already had several better than the one I found.

Ron

Lightman, M1 Garand clips WITH brass??? How could that happen? The shooter must have picked up the fired brass and re-inserted them back in the clip. But why? Weird.
I've found hats and staple guns over the years, plus a few magazines. Also a full cardboard box of once fired .38 brass, about 2000 rounds, left behind when the prison guards trained at the range. Thanks, guys.

Probably this .30-06 case. As I remember it was a Turkish case, obviously with excessive headspace. Why didn’t it separate???

We found a vagrant camping out behind the 100 yard berm. They guy had no idea he was on a range but he told us that it wouldn't bother him if we wanted to go ahead and shoot. So we were forced to carry out an eviction.

In the army on ranges and training areas, just about any piece of field gear you could imagine. Drop zones are always good for a giggle- surprising what falls off of people in the air.

Shooting pallet nails seems popular.

Nothing as odd as a shot nail but someone welded a 14”x3/4” round steel plate to a sign post and just stuck it in one of the berms at our gun club. I yanked it out, it is illegal to stick targets in the berms like this one was, and I tossed it on a table behind the firing line. It was still there the next day. I am not putting together a target Stan’s so I can shoot it.
I figure if they did not come back to retrieve it then it is abandoned. Nice find for me.

Starter52 said:

Lightman, M1 Garand clips WITH brass??? How could that happen? The shooter must have picked up the fired brass and re-inserted them back in the clip. But why? Weird.

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I agree, kind of strange. One can only guess. My thought was maybe they had a non shooter along that got bored. I'm not complaining, kind of thought it was a nice find.

A friend claimed to have found women's underwear at a private range he shot at. Possibly true; the bra he had hanging by his reloading table probably wouldn't have fit him anyway...

Ya, it's really nice when you find one that fits you.........

A colt AR15 just sitting on the bench.
My wife actually found it and asked if it was mine.
I flagged down the owner as he was leaving.
He was grateful and embarrassed.

I once found an American flag bikini with a hot blond in it at the range, wish I could have taken that home. Made shooting a hard thing to pay attention to that day.

I found four boxes of 44 mag brass at my shooting spot one time, someone may have left them for me on purpose. I also found three full boxes of new Remington 30-06 180 grn at that same spot. Loved the free ammo since nobody was there to ask about it.

Riomouse911 said:

Occasionally I’ll get some newly fired brass worth picking up and reloading.

Sadly, in many of the public/BLM areas I can shoot at I find acres of broken glass bottles, old TVs and about five thousand pounds of shot up cans and plastic bottles that slob shooters leave about .

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Tragedy of the commons. Lots of lowlife chuckleheads out there who don't care about anything more than their own fleeting amusement.

Massive amounts of junk out in the desert. Stripped cars, trailers, fridges, washing machines, shredded propane tanks (!!!), all kinds of stuff. The kind of stuff that starts wildfires or gets shooting spots shut down. Occasionally unidentified pistol magazines, and in one instance, three or four handfuls of .25 acp just thrown in the dirt.

A buddy of mine liked to take whatever slugs he found and just chuck them out in random parking lots because he thought it was funny.

In retrospect, my dad is a really conscientious guy and a better role model every time I think about it. When we were kids and he'd take us shooting out in the desert, he'd always bring trash bags and have us pick up garbage when we were done. We didn't reload, but he'd have us police as much of our own brass and shotshells as we could. He also liked to have a few junk car speakers in the truck (to collect black sand and test meteorwrongs with), and there were a few times we even brought back a couple gallons of steel cases.

I wish more shooters would clean up after themselves.

Drail said:

Ya, it's really nice when you find one that fits you.........

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...?

How about two bullets welded together from a head on impact?



The simunition case isn’t one I come across very often.

A new glock, a wallet with a bunch of money in it, keys, and a tooth.

I left the tooth. Other stuff I was able to trace back to owners and then return.

Not so much strange, but more like a fantasy.

I used to be the rangemaster for our local sportsman association. We shared the range with the local police academy. This was back when the .40 S&W was still fairly new and many departments were beginning to transition over to it. I came out one morning to open the range for its public hours only to discover the range was literally littered with brand new once fired Winchester .40 S&W brass. As in thousands of them. I called the lieutenant in charge of the range to ask if they wanted to come get them and he said, 'no', we could have them. The sheriff's department had been out the day before qualifying with their new .40 autos and had simply left it all.

Myself and several other range officers picked it all up. I went home with literally a five gallon bucket full of brass and I didn't even have a .40! Could have gotten still more, but I simply could not bend over one more time. My back hurt all day.

Because the police academy used the range as well we'd occasionally find all sorts of interesting stuff. If we found a lot of 10mm brass then we knew the feds had been out with their subguns. Empty tear gas canisters, and remains of explosive simulators (once an intact one). One club member found a half-dozen spent all brass twelve gauge cases.

Starter52 said:

The shooter must have picked up the fired brass and re-inserted them back in the clip. But why? Weird.

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Why is it weird? It is a handy way to transport the brass and clip back home.

25-20 WCF said:

View attachment 822398 Probably this .30-06 case. As I remember it was a Turkish case, obviously with excessive headspace. Why didn’t it separate???

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If you take a magnet to it you'll find that it's probably a steel case. I've found a few of those also. The groove is by design.

The most interesting things I've found were about 30 9x19 cases that were fired in a 40 S&W. They were all in the same little area and all the same headstamp. I don't know how it took 30 rounds (or more) to figure out that something wasn't right.

Matt