.....And that's why you don't shoot ammo you find at the range

I shoot @ several different gun clubs in Mass & I pick up brass all the time. I really can't remember ever seeing loaded ammo laying on the ground. I think Calvin or Hobbs might have had a hand in that.
I've always heard to be weary of shooting someone else's reloads. Seems that would be an even more cautionary tale.

I have OFTEN found loaded ammo at places I shoot. I have dropped ammo both shooting and hunting so it's easy to see it happening. I would not at gun point put ammo I found in a gun though. Even if I was to inspect it and was sure it was factory I just would never do it for piece of mind. Pull it for the components sure, but no way in hell I would fire it.

I usually look picked up loads over really well to see if I can tell if they are reloads. If they look at all like reloads I'll pull them apart. Most of the time I find a lot of 22lr rounds.

Learned my lesson years ago.
I picked up a 38 Spl - when I fired it, it gave a LOUD BOOM!
I didn't grow up with guns so its been a little bit steeper learning curve.

At a private range I attend it is common for folks to pitch any live unwanted ammo onto the berms.

Since the berms are grass and other vegetation covered, they need to be burned off sometimes.

I was told it sounds like a war zone when this takes place.

I take my grandson to a couple of gravel pit so he can shoot. I pick up brass while he shoot and saved all of the loaded range brass.
Two things in the gun world I would never do is,
1. NEVER SHOT ANYBODIES RELOADS.
2. NEVER SHOOT RANGE FIND AMMO.

i use to buy reloaded handgun ammo from the gun shows and from the local gun forums to shoot.
I bought a bunch of various caliber pistol ammo fron an estate sale.
One of the 357mag cartridges was over charged. I'm surprised it didn't blow that revolver apart.

On a local gun forum a guy was giving reloaded ammo away that was given to him when his father inlaw died at the age of 92.
He has two hundred pieces of 222 Remington with a set of 222 Remington dies. The old guy loaded these up when he was 87 years old. The stiulation was you need to tear these a part for componets.

He kept the 45acp ammo and went about shooting it. After the 2nd double charged round he gave all of that away too.
He doesn't reload so none of that ammo was any good to him.

Friend of mine used to work at a gun range here locally, in a fairly affluent section of north Dallas. Here people have more money than they know what to do with, and will buy and sell firearms on a whim... whatever the flavor of the day is. They also buy factory ammunition that sometimes doesn't go bang, for whatever reason... light strikes, slide jam, drops... they will even walk away and leave full boxes of factory on the bench when they leave. As a range rat, he scoops up all this and divvies it up between the other rats. At one time, he had 8 ammo cans full of recovered ammos in his room. He's given me some of it... mostly for stuff he doesn't have... like .45 Colt. I'm pretty careful about it... I'll only shoot it if I believe it's factory... which is usually pretty obvious. I pull any that I don't think are factory, however... I don't shoot Mystery Meat reloads...

Also, do not eat candy found in the ground.

Demi-human said:

Also, do not eat candy found in the ground.

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Let alone yellow snow...

My British GF, clueless about any sort of arms in general or particular, but a first rate property manager, often "cleans out" a dwelling where someone has passed on, sorting things for charity and discard, has furniture removed, etc. You know the drill. She does this for several local realtors who rely on her services and need to get a place ready for the bequeathed to sell or rent.

Well one day she comes home with two big boxes of ammo. All sorts of ammo from 32 Auto... 38sp, 357, some 45acp and 12g loads. It all went in our industrial/hazmat dumpster at work. I just told her I had no use, but someone at work could use it.

If I don't make it or buy it--- I don't shoot it !

I find loaded ammo all the time. I shoot the .22 LR (or try to) , but I pull down centerfires.

I often find the occasional loaded round laying on the ground at the local shooting spots. Many of them have a very light firing pin strike, probably from a dirty firearm. I have never even been tempted to shoot any of these. They get pulled down, the bullet goes into my lead stash, the brass into my brass stash, the powder goes into a jar of mixed powder that I take to deer camp and the primer goes into the trash can.

I remember reading years ago about the CIA of some other agency injecting overloaded ammo into the enemy supply chain in Vietnam and that has just stuck in my head.

lightman said:

mixed powder that I take to deer camp

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You're the camp cook, I take it?

I find quite a few 9mm, likely the result of "rack the slide show clear." Usually adds up to about 5-10 lbs of range scrap in a year and most are PC so they melt easy enough.

nofendertom said:

If I don't make it or buy it--- I don't shoot it !

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Best way to explain my feelings on the subject. Whenever I find a "live" round of any kind, even rimfire, it might come home with me but it goes into the "To be dealt with later" box. If I have nothing else to do, I'll pull bullets and toss them into the OK to use box or the melt down box, or the trash. Dump the powder and if it's one of the cartridges I reload process the brass. But none ever go in a gun of mine...

Good post. I'll learn from your lesson too.

I have often thought when seeing ammo laying around on ranges, would it not be something for some one to load say a 44 mag case full of bullseye pistol powder and abondon it in a box with like 12 good ones just just to make it look like a happy accident for someone.

Wicked thinking, but if I think it some one has had to done it at some point in the history of man.

Just be careful

There’s only 1 scenario where I have, and would continue to shoot found ammo. As a kid we would ride dirt bikes and ATVs over the unsecured area of the local military base. The aircraft firing range was not in a secure area, and it was not at all to find chunks of belts that had been torn off and thrown out due to jams or whatever. For a while a friend had a 5 gallon bucket of military 7.62 NATO mainly fmj, but some tracers. We weren’t the only ones to ride that area so if it was there it was fresh. I never had a .308 rifle so I spent more time checking out the equipment being used as targets, but I shot a lot of .308 at my buddies place.

lightman said:

I often find the occasional loaded round laying on the ground at the local shooting spots. Many of them have a very light firing pin strike, probably from a dirty firearm. I have never even been tempted to shoot any of these. They get pulled down, the bullet goes into my lead stash, the brass into my brass stash, the powder goes into a jar of mixed powder that I take to deer camp and the primer goes into the trash can.

I remember reading years ago about the CIA of some other agency injecting overloaded ammo into the enemy supply chain in Vietnam and that has just stuck in my head.

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We had guys who would put Mortar rounds in the supply for them that were made to blow up in the launcher rather than launch. Pretty slick little idea they came up with there. Of course the guys we paid to do it when caught paid a very high price for it.

guzzi said:

At a private range I attend it is common for folks to pitch any live unwanted ammo onto the berms.

Since the berms are grass and other vegetation covered, they need to be burned off sometimes.

I was told it sounds like a war zone when this takes place.

Click to expand...

The cartridges dont exactly go off though... The lead and usually the brass partially melts first. Then the primers may go. I had a few hundred rounds go through a 2000° fire. There were exactly zero bullet holes in the metal cans they were stored in.

I would be more concerned with hitting one with a mower.

I got a batch of once fired LC 5.56 brass from midway once with a live M855 green tip round thrown in. Crimped primer was a pretty clear sign it was still a factory round. As was the un-perfect green paint on the tip.

Demi-human said:

Also, do not eat candy found in the ground.

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also see, “don’t stick your (appendage) in a light socket”

I, on the other hand, would willingly fire any fresh- & decent-looking loaded ammo that I find on the ground at the range ... because my range is located in my back yard. <ducking!>

My situation/Range is similar to Charlie98's in post 8.
Lotsa folks there who are unfamiliar with firearms,,,
I'm a bit of a Rat myself, and about the only thing I'm willing to mention is the 'Hunter' who left the (8) factory-loaded 6.5CM Winchester soft points behind at the bench will probably go hungry this season.
All (8) were light strikes,,,