Picking up brass.....am I the ONLY one?

[Slamfire]

Thing is, every time I've gone to my local indoor range, nobody....and I mean nobody ever picks up brass.

If I find out where this range is located, they are going to have very clean floors after I visit!.

My Club range is frequented by very experienced shooters. The only brass you see on the ground is rimfire and steel cases. Boxer primed brass cases are hard to find.

The Bullseye shooter cartoon is only a little exaggerated. Competitive shooters are brass fiends. A bud of mine was shooting service rifle back when they issued you ammunition. The stuff back then was 308 LC match, the good stuff. He told me of his frustration of finishing his string, and in that period when the range is cleared and before he could get his equipment off the line, people would run out ahead of his position and scarf up his brass.

Go the CMP Garand match at Camp Perry where you fire issue ammo, and you will see those brass fiends in action. It is like a feeding frenzy for sharks.

 

[Blakenzy]

Even as a kid I would pick up an collect different brass even before I ever shot a gun... rifle brass was the coolest. So now that I actually do shoot and reload you bet I scrounge the floor like an undignified brass rat.

I never get more than a 80% recovery rate of my own spent brass. Usually it is between 60-70%. Outdoors, 40% or so depending on vegetation... Never, ever 100%. Brass has a very elusive property to it.

 

[rondog]

These are 2 gallon buckets from Home Depot, and each one is FULL to the top of cleaned and polished brass of different calibers, and this is about half of my stash. Hundreds are already primed too. I doubt I'll ever get them all filled up, yet I still pick up all I run across. Once you start, it becomes an addiction, I swear.

 

[GLOOB]

With the price of used brass around here, I could never pick up brass for 9mm/40/45 and I'd still save money. But every time I buy used "once-fired" brass, it's mostly tired old brass that's been reloaded dozens of times. It's funny how that happens. I'd never find that many old cases, randomly. At least it's good enough to get started in a caliber. If I could purchase used brass as nice as my own pickups, I wouldn't be nearly as diligent about scavenging.

Sorting your pickups and finding a high percentage of perfect "Win" brass with the factory primers is like finding itty bitty gold nuggets.

 

[nojoke]

Good news, not great news.
I can pick up my own brass....and did so today. It really wasn't that big of a deal....

I can't pick up others' brass.

 

[gathert]

I'm about to go scavenge at the range since its a Thursday and there wont be anyone around to say no

 

[capreppy]

I'm about to go scavenge at the range since its a Thursday and there wont be anyone around to say no

The day that you go definitely does affect how much brass you might come home with. Thu thru Sun definitely are "busier" days and will have lots of brass to pick up. I went yesterday, but still scored a couple dozen Winchester h/s 44 Mag in addition to the usual 9/40/45.

 

[HOWARD J]

I pick up my own brass.
My age is starting to limit how much brass I pick up--the pistol range has a broom & a
pan to get your brass -- so does the rifle range.
My summer rifle shooting will decrease with a 140 mile round trip & $4+ gas.
Pistol range about 14 mile round trip.
I could get a lot of brass as they throw it in buckets at the ranges--but--I have too much already.
Have fun

 

[Siggie]

When practicing IPSC, we all collect the brass, filter out the nickel .40 and .357 and the brass .45 and then divide the remaining 9mm amongst ourselves. We practice indoor, so it is easy collect at the end of the session.

.308.. I do not pick up as I use only Lapua brass and no one throws that away without a reason ;-). .223 In brass is scarce as most people now shoot the steel surplus cr4p I would not cycle through my gun. But as a RO, I have the privilege to see if there is anything useful left.
All the brass I pick up ends up in the brass-bin of the range, that I pick it up from, anyway.

But, I always ask.

 

[mcofboise]

That is Awesome!!

Indoor use a broom and dust pan. Outdoor I use four different methods. Two hands, Bag a nut, Nut wizard or my homemade brassvac.

I wonder if my buddy will let me borrow his portable gold dredge on my next trip afield? Question: Does the Nut Wizard pick up .22 rimfire? I'd scrounge it from the desert floor for salvage/recycle if it wasn't so danged tedious to pick up. If I'm already on my hands and knees picking up reloadables I'll grab the RF as well, but I don't make the effort for it on its own unless there's a real pile of it. Been making a trip a week to the shot-spots for the past couple months, giving me and my dog a bit of fresh air and exercise and adding to my ammo hoard. The brass I don't reload pays for the gas. I also bring back all the aluminum cans, plastic bottles and large hunks of broken glass that the folks-that-just-don't-get-it leave behind. When the ground dries out and firms up, I'll start backing my pickup in and bringing out the dead TV carcasses, furniture, washing machines, car parts and other debris that these cretins tarnish my beloved and diminishing public lands with.
This thread was both comforting and worrying. I'm glad I'm not the only one in need of a 12-step program. But, shhh, be vewwy, vewwy quiet. Claimjumpers may be reading...

mike

 

[GLOOB]

Met a guy picking up brass at an informal outdoor "range" in the mountains. He wasn't even a shooter. He said he's picked up as much as $100.00 worth in a single day... at scrap prices!

 

[gathert]

I picked up bout 1200 brass this past saturday and we have a small range. Mostly .40 S&W and 9mm which made up about 700 of the ones I picked up. Seems 9 and .40 is really popular around me.

 

[nosmr2]

I pick up brass, but leave 9mm (too cheap to buy) and 40 (don't shoot it). I shoot at a private range and if its left on the ground its yours for the picking up. That being said, my range has some serious brass hounds. There is never much laying around to be had. Out in Midland at my dad's range there is brass everywhere. I guess there aren't many reloaders at his private range. Kinda weird, how its so night and day different.

 

[dirtykid]

I thought this post was about slobs not picking up after themselves, Yes i do pick -up brass,, EVERY time i go to the range,, people around here must have too much money or something because i have a BUNCH of stuff that i may never re-load but i thought if i get desperate i could always turn it in for cash,,,, now that i think bout it it's almost ALL .223,.308 and 9MM shells,, one day iwatched a guy with his girlfriend pouring brass unto the ground out of a brand new black-gun (I refuse to call them assault rifles) I asked him as he left "Dont you want your brass?" he said no and kept walking so i picked it up and sarcasticly said to him as I left for that day "I cleaned up your mess over there" just so you know . He just kept on shooting away and ignored me,,, God arent public-ranges fun ??

 

[coloradokevin]

Met a guy picking up brass at an informal outdoor "range" in the mountains. He wasn't even a shooter. He said he's picked up as much as $100.00 worth in a single day... at scrap prices!

Yeah, it seems like junkies have taken to this habit in many areas. In some well-known informal shooting areas it sounds like the non-shooting crowd spends quite a bit of time collecting brass.

In some ways I wish they'd leave it for shooters who want it, while on the other hand I'm just happy that someone is cleaning up the mess that others have left in our national forests!

These days I mostly shoot at the club I belong to, and the dedicated group of shooters at that place make sure that no piece of brass gets left behind!

 

[gathert]

$100 dollars worth of brass is about 75 pounds, so that guy picking up the stuff must be out there all day.

 

[Pacsd]

I just cashed in 116 pounds of "shell brass" yesterday @ 1.60 a pound. I pick it all up including .17, .204, .22's. I only live 5 miles from a public range. It didn't take long to accumulate it either. They do record the transaction. I'll hit the range 3-4 times a week in the late afternoon.

 

[gathert]

Rifle brass can get heavy quick, Thats what I like to clean up after lots of people are on the rifle range.

 

[Clark]

I got 7 gallons of mixed 223 brass for $62 at a gun show ~ 3 years ago.

That took a long time of having a single stage press and a primer pocket de swager mounted on the coffee table in front of the TV set in the living room.

 

[CHALK22]

I drove up to the range monday afternoon, as sunday had been beautiful here, and I knew there had been people shooting(not me unfourtunately) and the range is closed tues-wed. Drove all the way up in the hills and all the brass bins were empty! SOmeone had beat me to them! Dang!

Still a good trip up into the hills, though!

 

[milefile]

At my range you can keep brass unless it goes beyond a certain point, in front of the rest. I'd been keeping brass for a while and had more than I thought. I took my first 100 hand loads to the range earlier this week and, obviously, now that I am finally reloading, am more sensitive to keeping my brass. I was shocked how much I lost. Only came home with about 60. And I even did a quick look over the shoulder before taking a big sweep with the pushbroom from in front of the rest, the off-limits area

So now I stand back from the table a little more to keep more of my brass on "my" side.