Trash Brass

I pick up all I can when I'm picking up my own. I haven't raided the brass buckets yet because I assume my club sells it for scrap. One of these days I'll remember to ask the RSO what they do with it. If they're not selling it, I'll take it too. Out at the public ranges, BLM and state, I pick up all the center fire brass I see. Even if I don't reload it specifically, it will someday pay for some future gun toys.

Waterboy3313 said:

Here is my trash brass.
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Those are trashed cases. The brass in that bucket is scrap. And worth a new bipod when full.

I pick up all brass. The rimfire case’s brass weighs just as much as an Ultra Mag case’s brass. It all adds up. And it’s not left back to the Earth.
Oh, she’ll happily take it, but humans worked hard to pull it from her fingers and dirt. I don’t want to just throw it back, not when all those little guys can be made into a great big one!

When I hit the range, I always bring a range brass bucket. Sometimes it’s needed for snapping turtles, too!

Its free game. If they are going to throw it away or just leave it behind. I am more then happy to grab it. When I was first married my wife and I would go to the places people liked to shoot (fields, not a real range) and we would walk around and pick up all the brass. It was great during deer season since you could find some good rifle calibers. Once found 20, 338 Lapua. Some times going to the local recycling place they will have a large drum full of brass casings. You just have to pay for the weight of the brass. When I first got my 40 S&W that is what I did since all the brass from the police range went there. One thing I love about reloading is trying to keep the cost of shooting super low.

Walkalong said:

I am slowing down on my brass scrounging simply because I have a lot from picking it up for decades, and I am getting older, harder to pick it all up.

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It keeps getting further and further down there, don't it, especially in this heat.

I always come home with more brass than I shot. Now I have a full blue barrel of 9mm but I still pick it up.

I am lucky that in my range I can go to the berm and pick up the bullets to melt for casting. I pick up only the brass that I reload and match my calibers. I don't pick up 9mm or .380 as I find 9mm to be cheap. The .380 I don't shoot as much but carry the gun at night when I do my walking.
I did pick up 2 cases of 30 Remington which I don't own a rifle for but converted the cases to 10mm. I've got 5 gal buckets of range brass separated and recycle a lot of the .223 to 300 blackout too especially those that have the neck bent since I cut below that. I guess that qualifies me as a range brass trash rat.

About a month or so ago I was out shooting on my day off. There was an interesting person parked next to my usual spot. He ended up giving me around 900+ 45 acp cases. He said his goal was to shoot as fast as he could at 7 yards. I didn't question him but he drove off and left his whole target stand setup. A little weird but that was my best 45 acp brass score ever. He handed it all over in the factory boxes. He said he wanted 40 cases. I managed to scrounge up about 30 from where I was shooting and we made a trade.

Does any one load 5.7X28?

Is that caliber only available in pistol?

I'm a bit 'snobby' w/rifle brass pickin right now, but trash can pickin is still a big part of it.

I've been on a 'Hornady fired only once 6.5 Creedmore' pickin binge for a couple months now.

I always look at who's shooting what while I'm there. A Shooter with Box-fulls of new Hornady 6.5 on the bench always gets my attention.
Almost always, you'll find it later in the trash or on the ground.

Empty boxes of my desired case found in the trash also grab my attention,,, If it ain't in the box, It' all but a given it has to be somewhere close,,,,

My "best" haul was 80 fired only once Hornady 6.5 Creedmore. (I get a bit bummed out if I don't find all 20 cases for each empty box I find)

In a couple months, I've scrounged 700+, all Hornady, all believed to be fired only once, 6.5 cases so far, and climbing...

My next step,,, (sooner or later,,,) will be to finally break down and buy my first 6.5, (It ain't the first time I had the brass before I had the the gun. Won't be the last either! LOL!)

I,m the same way, i picked up a bunch of 300 Blackout brass.
I recently bought a set of 300 Blackout dies.
A friend gave me a 80% lower.that I had milled.
Now it's time to go upstairs & load it up then buy a 300 Blackout upper.

No shame here with combing the trash cans for .223 brass.

bassjam said:

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.

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Most of the pistol and revolver brass I load is free range once fired, many times the box and shell holder is included : )

I always check. Found some gems in 20+years.

A near full box of 38 spcl
Many packages of partial targets
Many boxes with random empty cases
A poly AK magazine (didn't feed but made a good epoxy filled stand of the ak)
And probably more

My kids all have bruises on their ankles.

From dad suspending them over shooting range trash cans.

I’m not ashamed of picking up free brass, from the ground or the can. I don’t care if it’s good or bad reloadable or not. If it’s brass, I pick it up.
I sort it out at the house and put all the trash brass in a bucket. When the trash brass bucket gets full, I sell it as scrap.
Here’s my bucket right now.

jleyring said:

Some times going to the local recycling place they will have a large drum full of brass casings. You just have to pay for the weight of the brass. When I first got my 40 S&W that is what I did since all the brass from the police range went there.

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My shooting buddy runs a metal recycling place. When he gets in a bunch of brass, he will let me sift through it to take what I want, I just pay the going rate for scrap brass (what he gets for it, which was $1.50 per pound last time). I keep some, sell what I don't want, and usually do a little better than break even. I also take all my reject brass and spent primers and trade even - last time that was 16 lbs worth.

Highland Lofts said:

Does any one load 5.7X28?

Is that caliber only available in pistol?

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There is an upper for AR15 that is chambered in 5.7. The problem, I hear, is that 5.7 is straight blowback design and requires a coating on the brass to run reliably. You can't clean the coating off when reloading it.

That would be a neat little caliber in like a single-shot H&R Handi-rifle.
Or a mag fed bolt action rifle.

Brass is like little gold nuggets waiting to be picked up to come home with you


I will pick up just a couple more, a couple more, .....much later ah ok that's enough

When I visit my club they have two cans for boxes and other trash and 3 buckets for brass and one for shotgun shells. When the rifle is cooling down I grab a bucket and dump it on the bench and start picking. I only grab what I load and if it looks questionable it goes back into the bucket. I then slap on a rubber glove and grab whatever ammo boxes are in the trash can or burn barrel. I dont do this when other member are around because the club sells these buckets once a month for scrap. The way I look at it is they get my $65yr plus work hours and have an average of $50k a month in the bank account from all these public shoots they put on and club house and grounds rentals I can swipe a few lbs of brass. There isnt a rule against it but some of the old timers who think they own the place get all bent out of shape when you take brass from the ground or buckets. Heck, most of my stuff comes from the ground.

Each Range / situation is different. I've been to unattended 'BLM'-style ranges where you're hard pressed to find much of anything.
We have nothing like that here in Houston. Too many idiots/not enough land,,,

At least 2 public outdoor Ranges here sweep it up/store it in multiple 55 gallon drums until they have 'a load' (or the price is right, not sure)
The percentage of pickers compared to non-pickers is so small, I'm not sure us pickers event put a dent in it.

I used to bring my scrap cases back to the Range/dump it in their buckets , but the RO indicated their Buyer didn't like that as the Buyer turns around and sells it as 'once-fired'. I keep / recycle them now.

My Fave Range knows I don't pick up anything I do not shoot, (or plan to shoot) They're pretty relaxed* about my picking during the cease fires.

* RO saw me picking, told him I was 'recycling'. He said that's just less he'd have to sweep up at the end of the day.
* I found a box of brass in the trash, told the RO 'stuff like that' makes me mad. He said it makes him mad too as brass makes the trash a lot heavier,,,

Life is good!

Another kind of trash brass.
Years ago when I got into reloading I bought a bunch of stuff from a guy. It was at a good price but it also included stuff i didn’t need. But it was all or nothing so I took it. Amongst it was some .223 brass with mixed head stamps, mostly stuff from the late 80’s early 90’s. While most of it looked fine, I tossed it in my discard pile because I had no way knowing anything about it.

I've been reading for almost a year now. I decided a few years ago I wanted to reload but kept putting it off. I started saving my brass well before I started reloading. Now the hard part seems to be finding primers and powder especially locally.

Highland Lofts said:

Does any one load 5.7X28?

Is that caliber only available in pistol?

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I just recently started loading for it. 5.7x28 is fired out of the FN PS90 carbine, and the FiveSeven pistol. And Ruger just recently came out with their pistol chambered in it.

I missed out on the 5.7 AR uppers when they were available. They are hard to find these days, but if I found one at a decent price, I would pick it up.
Walkalong has mentioned that he had one for a short time.

As to trash brass, I've dug into the trash for good brass. A couple of times I found full factory boxes of empty brass. Score! All in one place! At the indoor range where I normally shoot, there are not many reloaders. The range does clean up, but lets us reloaders pick up our brass and any other we may need. Some of the guys will save brass in a caliber they know I load aside for me. Every once in a while a shooter will bring over their brass and give it to us when they find out we reload.
Speaking of 5.7, the range rents the pistol there and sometimes there are a bunch of cases on the ground. Of course they come home with me.

There's a couple of other members here that reload 5.7, Rodentman is one IIRC.

I took three years worth of scrap brass from my reloading press and had enough to buy a very nice meal for two at a fancy Japanese restaurant. I look forward to doing that again in another year.