Scrapping old/cracked/worn out brass?

Okay, I'm back.
The approximate weight on a cheap 25 pound kitchen scale sez 5 pounds 9 ounces for about 12,500 primers.

~2222 primers per pound...
Not very accurate with many variables.

Did I pass math?

Hey, Use care out there!

B.L.

Mark_Mark said:

I use to pick up can in CA for $.10 a pop!

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That's going to be $0.20 momentarily for CA and can collecting homeless could be making some serious money soon.

I looked in to it and they said 2,188 primers per pound.

I have a 25 pound electronic post office scale and a small kitchen scale. Tomorrow I'll weigh out a ounce of mixed small & large spent primers & count them out and times it by sixteen.

BL
You were real close. Close enough for me.

Back in New York they pay five cents a can, the drunks and druggies pick up and steel every can they can find to turn in.

Highland Lofts said:

Back in New York they pay five cents a can, the drunks and druggies pick up and steel every can they can find to turn in.

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Did that in the sixties, as a kid, picking up pop bottles with my cousin and turning them in for cash to buy candy. Real candy! The stuff made with sugar....

Today's candy comes out of the re-loading room.

Hey!,
Use care out there!

B.L.

I save all my scrap brass including the cases from .22lr ammo and spent primers. I collect it until I fill a bucket and then bring it to the recycling plant which is only 1/2 mile from my house.

Right now it will bring $3.66/lb.

I have a coffee can under the bench for bad brass. I have another coffee can for spent primers.

I have a three gallon plastic bucket for garbage brass out in my shed and a two big motor cases in my reloading room, one for spent primers and one for trash cases.

LiveLife said:

That's going to be $0.20 momentarily for CA and can collecting homeless could be making some serious money soon.

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$.20 a pop! I could make that a full time job NO problem

I use old cases for brazing. You can get a good idea of the zinc content that way.

Highland Lofts said:

How many primers do you guys think for a pound?

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My 1/2-full 1 gallon container had 11 lbs. of primers in it. (Small and Large)

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Yes, I scrap old brass. Have not for a long time, I have an old square Kitty Litter (35lb capacity with clay litter) bucket about 2/3 full of old cases and spent primers... it's darn heavy.

My local scrap yard is only 4 blocks away, not to worried about the amount of fuel burned getting there. I'll run the brass to the yard when I take the 2 or 3 (?) 33 gallon cans of copper wire and a couple 55 gallon trash bags of smashed aluminum cans for recycle. Should be a nifty little payday.

GeoDudeFlorida said:

If they’re scrap I leave them at the range for the brass chickens. If they’re just unsafe for reloading I make them into something else - 9mm Luger to 9mm Makarov, for example, or pens, darts, letter opener things like that. I buy kits for pens and make from scratch for simple things.
View attachment 1070246
This is made from a .30-06 case and a piece of bone. It comes as a kit with no body or ink cartridge. Pretty cool but I can’t take it to work. Somebody might be offended.

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If I took one of those pens to work, they'd call the police and have them walk me out the door.

I sell my scrap brass and primers, last trip was mostly primers, about 4" in a 5 gallon bucket, some smashed brass, and some copper fittings.
$95 bucks, its well worth it.

I sold 1,000 9mm, a 1,000 40caliber and 200 - 30/06 cases and he wants me to process all of it for him. So I'll have 2,200 primers to weigh. Most of them will be small pistol primers.
After i get all of these primers knocked out I'll weigh them.

Highland Lofts said:

Tomorrow I'll weigh out a ounce of mixed small & large spent primers & count them out and times it by sixteen.

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Waiting for your result..........

Oddly I collect a lot of brass at my ranges and when I wreck a case I just toss it for them to recycle.... I'm definitely getting the better deal so from where it came it returns....

I took cartridge brass to the recycler today, 19 pounds at $2.25/LB for $42.75, mileage was 9 miles and I get better than 24 mpg, so I came out ahead.

I often shoot in military and BP cartridge matches and plink with family at property on the mountain.. Sometimes it takes me months to accumulate enough non-reloadable brass of my own. 12 pounds or a gallon ziplock freezer bag is my trip point.

Lately I have found a lot of abandoned brass in 5.56mm, 9mm, 5.7 FN, .300 Blackout, none of which I reload.

The recycler around the corner said they pay $1.80 a pound for scrap cartridge brass...

AJC1 said:

Oddly I collect a lot of brass at my ranges and when I wreck a case I just toss it for them to recycle.... I'm definitely getting the better deal so from where it came it returns....

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I used to do the same,,, Told the RO I'd "bring 'em all back when they were wore out",,,

He asked me not to.

He said they sell all their brass to a Company who in turn sells it as once-fired, and they were complaining about all the junk cases they were receiving,,,

I too scrap brass. Not all of it is mine from shooting my own ammo tho. Folks that know I reload bring me used brass.....many times it's a caliber I do not load. This goes into the scrap can. When I'm someplace where there is brass on the ground, I pick it all up, regardless of caliber. Again, the calibers I do not load and those cases I do not want to waste time loading, goes in the scrap can. When I empty the primer catcher on my press, those too go into the scrap can. Takes a while to fill the can, but it's always been worthwhile when I take it the 10 blocks to the recycler.

The only scrap metal dealer in this area pays the same price for cases or primers so it all goes into the same two gallon container along with any range pickups. I only sell it when I have another reason to be in the town where the recycler is located. My last load was in still warm weather last year so I have no idea of what it is bringing now.

The price of scrap metal goes up & down all the time. A few years ago when chins was building up their military one of the junk yards was paying $450 a ton for any kind of steel, old refrigerators, stoves, rusted out culvert pipes, cars.
Anything steel.
The tweekers were stealing anything made out of metal. They were even taking in almost new chainsaws and lawn mowers.
I just took some copper wiring in and they were paying just under $3 a pound.

Highland Lofts said:

I sold 1,000 9mm, a 1,000 40caliber and 200 - 30/06 cases and he wants me to process all of it for him. So I'll have 2,200 primers to weigh. Most of them will be small pistol primers.
After i get all of these primers knocked out I'll weigh them.

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Interesting... if you have a precise scale for very small weights... Count out three groups of ten, weigh each group, take the average then divide by ten. Weigh the entire lot and divide by the number you calculated and you will have the number of primers involved + or - about .3%. Close enough for government work.

I took what I found on weight of one pound of spent primers, 2,188 primers.
Devided by 16 equals 136.75 per ounce.
I took some mixed spent primers and counted out 137 primers and then weighed them, a I had to add three more primers to get to an ounce on my scales. So for that time it took 141 primers for an ounce.
I counted out another 137 mixed spent primers and weighed them, it took five more primers to weigh a ounce on my scales.

So between the two weights it balanced out to 141 primers per ounce, themed the 141 by 16 ounces ant for my test it would take 2,256 primers to make a pound.

Only sixty-eight more primers in my test then what I found on my search.

I found 2,188 primers per pound
1976BLJohns came up with 2,222 primers per pound.
I came up with 2,256 primers per pound.
I am decapping 1,000 - 9mm and 1,000 - 40 caliber and 200 - 30/06.
When I get them all deprimed I will have an accurate count and will weigh them.
Them add more primers to make a accurate pound of primers.
These will be mostly small pistol primers. I'm sure if they were mostly large rifle primers it would take less to make a pound.
Fun little observation.

Some day I'll fill a gallon jar of primers and weigh the jar, then the jar with primers for the weight of a gallon of primers.