Range Pickups

CrustyFN · July 20, 2007, 08:36 PM

OK how many of you enjoy picking up brass at the range. Here is what I have picked up in the last 7 or 8 months.
9mm clean and ready to load.

This is 45 Auto. Do you think I have enough yet to buy a gun that it will shoot in.

This is all 223.

Rusty

clayking · July 20, 2007, 09:26 PM

I use those pretzel cans also. I shoot at a county gun range where they sweep up the brass as it is fired. They will leave your brass alone, but I manage to get a bit extra most of the time. They sell it to the highest bidder ever so often, but way too much for one person to buy, like 8-10 55 gallon drums, each about 400 pounds.........................ck

Shoney · July 20, 2007, 09:34 PM

Quote:

buy a gut that it will shoot in

Oh! MY!!!

And what do you call the shooting stance you take to fire those baby's off. Bet it will be wildly different depending on which orifice your shot exits.

DennisD · July 20, 2007, 09:55 PM

Quote:

buy a gut that it will shoot in

Oh! MY!!! And what do you call the shooting stance you take to fire those baby's off. Bet it will be wildly different depending on which orifice your shot exits.

Laughed my ass off at that one Shoney.

The only public range I ever go to (set up my own handgun range on my place in the woods) has signs everywhere "no brass picking". Otherwise I would love to get some extra myself.

Crosshair · July 20, 2007, 11:41 PM

That's all you have gotten from the last 7-8 months? You must belong to a range that isn't very busy.

Yea, I'm a Brass Monkey, arched over looking for all the brass I can find.

Johnny Guest · July 21, 2007, 07:38 AM

Well, I use a Ford F150 4x4 short bed, and I'm very satisfied with it. It burns a lot of gas, but . . .

Oh. Never mind.

Seriously, though,

- - I pick up BRASS at the range mainly as an economy measure, not because I particularly enjoy doing so. And, it's really not as rewarding as it used to be. I swapped off my only .40 S&W a while back, so I don't bother with that or with 9mm - - I have so muchof the latter on hand, I'll never be able to afford to load it all.

I shoot a lot of .45 ACP in submachine gun matches on pretty rough ranges, so I lose a LOT of it. I pick up .45 whenever I can find it. Trouble is, there's so much steel case ammo and the less-toxic stuff with the small primers, I have to cull carefully. The sorting-out is a lot more time consuming than it used to be. Still worthwhile, though.

Elder Son's been shooting a Glock in .357 SiG for the past few months, and I picked up a set of dies for that caliber. Looks as if we'll be scrounging the lil' bottleneck cases. And .223/5.56 prices have gone up so much, looks like I'll be gathering THAT now.

There was a time when I could pay my sons a penny apiece for .45 brass, and it was a good deal for all of us. Now they'd much rather MAKE empties than pick 'em up.

Best
Johnny

Mach II Sailor · July 21, 2007, 08:51 AM

in the three years shooting at a local range, i collected 7, 5 Gal. bucketts of .223/5.56mm brass, i am guessing somewhere around 100,000 cases, after seperating "good" brass from "unacceptable", i.e., S&B i have about 300 lbs. of scrap brass for the recycling bin, here it is going for $1.00 lb.

CrustyFN · July 21, 2007, 09:03 AM

Quote:

That's all you have gotten from the last 7-8 months? You must belong to a range that isn't very busy. Yea, I'm a Brass Monkey, arched over looking for all the brass I can find.

That's 7 trips to the range. I am only able to make it once a month to shoot IDPA.
Rusty

shooter_john · July 22, 2007, 04:44 PM

I use public range for 1x brass for me, ebay, recycling, and most recently brasstrader.com or whatever it is. Nothing like trading 1,000 5.56 brass that I didn't pay a dime for to get 300 pcs .308 Hornady 168's!

45Marlin carbine · July 22, 2007, 08:08 PM

I go to a public range on Natl Forest in upstate SC, it's closed Mondays for clean-up, I imagine there is some brass picked up then. I ususally go on Thu. or Fri. and have found some good cases, I keep an eye open for .380, 9MM, .45, and '06. once fired is good as new and I have hundreds of cases I've picked up. some brands aren't very good quality mainly cheap Euro stuff and of course the steel cases.

gandog56 · July 22, 2007, 09:50 PM

Take a look at www.ammobrasstrader.com and trade the ones you don't need for ones you do

crowbeaner · July 22, 2007, 10:13 PM

Most everybody at our gun club reloads so I don't get very much usable brass. I have on occasion picked up a few cases here and there on public land. I always look though. What ever I find I use or give to a friend if he has a gun in that caliber if I don't. Just don't tell anybody though! A lot of us are more than happy to take 2 Excedrin for the backache we got scrounging brass. CB

Crosshair · July 23, 2007, 12:11 AM

Thanks gandog56 I had never heard of that site. I have a ton of .223 brass that I do not use as well as other calibers. I hope I can put that to good use.

subierex · July 23, 2007, 10:11 AM

The range I go to is state-run (Ohio) and they allow you to pick up anything on the ground. Once it makes it into the brass bin, it's theirs.

If I go to shoot, I'll sometimes ask a group next to me if I can clean up their brass. I haven't found many at the 25 yd line that have said "no". Mostly getting 9mm and .40SW, with some 45ACP mixed in. Very rarely get revolver cartridges. Nobody leaves 45 Colt brass

If I'm off work on a rainy day, I can go and pick the stuff up by the bucket loads and do it at my leisure. They don't police brass that goes forward of the shooting platform. Used to sort thru and only pick up what I wanted, but now just go wholesale and sort it at home.

Chief-7700 · July 23, 2007, 09:11 PM

I must be very lucky since I know a member of the local SWAT team. After a shoot I get buckets of once fired .45 WW, 9mm,.40S&W and some 10mm in there but it is all once fired soon should be gettings some 5.56 and 7.62

Chief

roy reali · July 23, 2007, 09:25 PM

It all depends what she looks like!

Linear Thinker · July 24, 2007, 08:11 AM

I'm proud to be a Brass Rat, and have a full 55Gal drum to prove my honorable standing. Relatively easy for me, being a RO at a public range. Every fall, I get bucketfuls of 30-30, 270, 308, 243 and other deer hunting cartridge brass - the hunters buy a box of ammo a year, use 10 for sighting in, keep the other 10 for hunting. They seldom pick up brass - my public thanks to them.

Range brass needs to have the dirt and the grime cleaned off - ultrasonic cleaning works well.
Once the brass is clean, it needs to be sorted - check the necks for cracks, the body for shiny rings (impending separation), the primers for Boxer type.
I also sort by brand, and keep my favorite makes (Norma, Lapua, RWS) for reloading.
LT

Ruger4570 · July 24, 2007, 08:55 AM

The way the price of lead is shooting skyward, you might be "Bucks up" scrounging the LEAD out of the backstop and selling it so you can by new brass.

layusn1 · July 24, 2007, 09:50 PM

"in the three years shooting at a local range, i collected 7, 5 Gal. bucketts of .223/5.56mm brass, i am guessing somewhere around 100,000 cases,"

I've been processing some 223 brass for a 3-gun shooter...a 5gal bucket hold 3,500 cases fully packed...if that helps you guestimate

Gandog56:
"Take a look at www.ammobrasstrader.com and trade the ones you don't need for ones you do"
Thanks for the plug...always nice to see people enjoy my site enough to spread the word.

Ruger4570
"The way the price of lead is shooting skyward, you might be "Bucks up" scrounging the LEAD out of the backstop and selling it so you can by new brass."
Ummm...that wasn't me behind the berm last weekend collecting all of the bullets that surfaced thanks to the tons of rain brining them to the surface. I didn't gladly bring them home and throw them in the pile to melt with the wheel weights...nope...wasn't me...really.

I recently got lucky at my range. The owner has set up some IDPA ranges and wants them to stay nice and clean so he has asked me if I would be willing to take all the cases off his range every other week to help him keep it that way. I suppose I could make that sacrifice...lol. I have always gone up there an hour or two before he opened and hauled off tons off brass but now I guess I'll just have to take more.

Wildalaska · July 24, 2007, 10:21 PM

Quote:

There was a time when I could pay my sons a penny apiece for .45 brass, and it was a good deal for all of us. Now they'd much rather MAKE empties than pick 'em up

Dang Johnny that brought a tear to my eye, I remember my Dad doing that to me way back in the 60s....

Ya know, I used to shoot in a basement unventilated range (Centaur Firearms, Lodi.....NEW JERSEY for pete's sake) every weekend, shooting 38s with wadcutters and 45 ball and 22. I'd be there prone, a 5 year old kid with a Marlin 39A on rolled up jacket while wadcutters popped everywhere and the floors were all lead dusty ...

I always wondered if lead poisoning is my excuse

WildmadasahatterAlaska

Sevens · July 28, 2007, 10:43 AM

Makes me cry with jealousy when I see how good some of you guys are doing!

I stopped by the state range just a couple of days ago to do a little scrounging and I did great by my standards... but a total waste of time compared to how you guys do. But here's the story anyhow...

There was lots of junk 7.62x39 steel stuff, as expected, and of course, the complete and total nemesis of everyone in our hobby: that awful CCI Blazer aluminum crap. But I found about 100 good piece of .45 auto and the usual scattering of 9mm and 40S&W but here was the kicker -- I found one piece of my holy grail, the 10mm. And you know what finding ONE PIECE does to you, right? It extends your bent-over search for more of it. I was there an extra 20 minutes and never found another piece of 10mm. Not surprised... who on earth shoots this stuff and leaves it behind? Or, if they do, the range master is smart enought to swoop in and collect it. This must have been that one piece that some poor fellow has missing from his box... in fact, it has to be -- Starline brass. Damn 10's kick out a country mile from my pistol... this guy probably has the same problem.

red-rider · July 29, 2007, 11:35 PM

I wish someone would leave 223 brass laying around my range. They only leave the military stuff.

CrustyFN · July 30, 2007, 05:37 AM

Nothing wrong with that, pick it up. It's a little more work but not that bad. I worked a GSSF match Sat and Sun and there were too many people shooting aluminum cased ammo. I didn't come home with as much brass as I would have liked to.

gandog56 · January 8, 2008, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Nobody leaves 45 Colt brass

Not to mention .454 Casull!

The Lovemaster · January 9, 2008, 01:07 AM

Yup, I'm a brass whore. Go to the range once a week and come home with a fifty cal can full of empties, mostly 9, 40, and 45 in an hour and a half or two hours.

July 20, 2007, 08:36 PM	#1
CrustyFN Senior Member Join Date: June 4, 2006 Location: West Virginia Posts: 2,258	Range Pickups OK how many of you enjoy picking up brass at the range. Here is what I have picked up in the last 7 or 8 months. 9mm clean and ready to load. This is 45 Auto. Do you think I have enough yet to buy a gun that it will shoot in. This is all 223. Rusty __________________ I don't ever remember being absent minded. Last edited by CrustyFN; July 21, 2007 at 05:15 AM.

July 20, 2007, 09:26 PM	#2
clayking Senior Member Join Date: January 29, 2006 Location: Florida Posts: 796	I use those pretzel cans also. I shoot at a county gun range where they sweep up the brass as it is fired. They will leave your brass alone, but I manage to get a bit extra most of the time. They sell it to the highest bidder ever so often, but way too much for one person to buy, like 8-10 55 gallon drums, each about 400 pounds.........................ck __________________ Never argue with an idiot, they will just drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

July 20, 2007, 11:41 PM	#5
Crosshair Senior Member Join Date: December 16, 2004 Location: Grand Forks, ND Posts: 5,333	That's all you have gotten from the last 7-8 months? You must belong to a range that isn't very busy. Yea, I'm a Brass Monkey, arched over looking for all the brass I can find. __________________ I don't carry a gun to go looking for trouble, I carry a gun in case trouble finds me.

July 21, 2007, 07:38 AM	#6
Johnny Guest Moderator in Memoriam Join Date: August 28, 1999 Location: North Texas Posts: 4,123	Range Pickups? Well, I use a Ford F150 4x4 short bed, and I'm very satisfied with it. It burns a lot of gas, but . . . Oh. Never mind. Seriously, though, - - I pick up *BRASS* at the range mainly as an economy measure, not because I particularly enjoy doing so. And, it's really not as rewarding as it used to be. I swapped off my only .40 S&W a while back, so I don't bother with that or with 9mm - - I have so muchof the latter on hand, I'll never be able to afford to load it all. I shoot a lot of .45 ACP in submachine gun matches on pretty rough ranges, so I lose a LOT of it. I pick up .45 whenever I can find it. Trouble is, there's so much steel case ammo and the less-toxic stuff with the small primers, I have to cull carefully. The sorting-out is a lot more time consuming than it used to be. Still worthwhile, though. Elder Son's been shooting a Glock in .357 SiG for the past few months, and I picked up a set of dies for that caliber. Looks as if we'll be scrounging the lil' bottleneck cases. And .223/5.56 prices have gone up so much, looks like I'll be gathering THAT now. There was a time when I could pay my sons a penny apiece for .45 brass, and it was a good deal for all of us. Now they'd much rather MAKE empties than pick 'em up. Best Johnny

July 22, 2007, 04:44 PM	#9
shooter_john Senior Member Join Date: December 11, 2002 Location: ALABAMA Posts: 1,472	Love it... I use public range for 1x brass for me, ebay, recycling, and most recently brasstrader.com or whatever it is. Nothing like trading 1,000 5.56 brass that I didn't pay a dime for to get 300 pcs .308 Hornady 168's! __________________ TROTAC.com

July 21, 2007, 08:51 AM	#7
Mach II Sailor Junior member Join Date: March 22, 2007 Posts: 480	in the three years shooting at a local range, i collected 7, 5 Gal. bucketts of .223/5.56mm brass, i am guessing somewhere around 100,000 cases, after seperating "good" brass from "unacceptable", i.e., S&B i have about 300 lbs. of scrap brass for the recycling bin, here it is going for $1.00 lb.

July 22, 2007, 08:08 PM	#10
45Marlin carbine Junior member Join Date: January 26, 2007 Location: South-Western North Carolina Posts: 1,124	I go to a public range on Natl Forest in upstate SC, it's closed Mondays for clean-up, I imagine there is some brass picked up then. I ususally go on Thu. or Fri. and have found some good cases, I keep an eye open for .380, 9MM, .45, and '06. once fired is good as new and I have hundreds of cases I've picked up. some brands aren't very good quality mainly cheap Euro stuff and of course the steel cases.

July 22, 2007, 09:50 PM	#11
gandog56 Senior Member Join Date: May 31, 2006 Location: Mobile, Alabama Posts: 979	Take a look at www.ammobrasstrader.com and trade the ones you don't need for ones you do __________________ Some people think I'm paranoid because I have guns. If I have guns, what do I have to be paranoid about?

July 22, 2007, 10:13 PM	#12
crowbeaner Senior Member Join Date: June 4, 2007 Location: Upstate SC Posts: 1,943	Most everybody at our gun club reloads so I don't get very much usable brass. I have on occasion picked up a few cases here and there on public land. I always look though. What ever I find I use or give to a friend if he has a gun in that caliber if I don't. Just don't tell anybody though! A lot of us are more than happy to take 2 Excedrin for the backache we got scrounging brass. CB

July 23, 2007, 12:11 AM	#13
Crosshair Senior Member Join Date: December 16, 2004 Location: Grand Forks, ND Posts: 5,333	Thanks gandog56 I had never heard of that site. I have a ton of .223 brass that I do not use as well as other calibers. I hope I can put that to good use. __________________ I don't carry a gun to go looking for trouble, I carry a gun in case trouble finds me.

July 23, 2007, 10:11 AM	#14
subierex Member Join Date: March 26, 2007 Location: SW Ohio Posts: 38	The range I go to is state-run (Ohio) and they allow you to pick up anything on the ground. Once it makes it into the brass bin, it's theirs. If I go to shoot, I'll sometimes ask a group next to me if I can clean up their brass. I haven't found many at the 25 yd line that have said "no". Mostly getting 9mm and .40SW, with some 45ACP mixed in. Very rarely get revolver cartridges. Nobody leaves 45 Colt brass If I'm off work on a rainy day, I can go and pick the stuff up by the bucket loads and do it at my leisure. They don't police brass that goes forward of the shooting platform. Used to sort thru and only pick up what I wanted, but now just go wholesale and sort it at home.

July 23, 2007, 09:11 PM	#15
Chief-7700 Senior Member Join Date: May 27, 2007 Location: Carmel Valley, CA Posts: 112	I must be very lucky since I know a member of the local SWAT team. After a shoot I get buckets of once fired .45 WW, 9mm,.40S&W and some 10mm in there but it is all once fired soon should be gettings some 5.56 and 7.62 Chief __________________ COLT M-1911 DOB 1918 and more a XL-650 to feed them

July 23, 2007, 09:25 PM	#16
roy reali Senior Member Join Date: August 23, 2005 Posts: 3,248	Range Pick Ups? It all depends what she looks like!

July 24, 2007, 08:11 AM	#17
Linear Thinker Senior Member Join Date: February 10, 2007 Location: Blue State, NE US Posts: 202	I'm proud to be a Brass Rat, and have a full 55Gal drum to prove my honorable standing. Relatively easy for me, being a RO at a public range. Every fall, I get bucketfuls of 30-30, 270, 308, 243 and other deer hunting cartridge brass - the hunters buy a box of ammo a year, use 10 for sighting in, keep the other 10 for hunting. They seldom pick up brass - my public thanks to them. Range brass needs to have the dirt and the grime cleaned off - ultrasonic cleaning works well. Once the brass is clean, it needs to be sorted - check the necks for cracks, the body for shiny rings (impending separation), the primers for Boxer type. I also sort by brand, and keep my favorite makes (Norma, Lapua, RWS) for reloading. LT

July 24, 2007, 08:55 AM	#18
Ruger4570 Senior Member Join Date: April 3, 2005 Location: Rochester, New York Posts: 2,136	The way the price of lead is shooting skyward, you might be "Bucks up" scrounging the LEAD out of the backstop and selling it so you can by new brass.

July 24, 2007, 09:50 PM	#19
layusn1 Member Join Date: October 7, 2006 Posts: 54	"in the three years shooting at a local range, i collected 7, 5 Gal. bucketts of .223/5.56mm brass, i am guessing somewhere around 100,000 cases," I've been processing some 223 brass for a 3-gun shooter...a 5gal bucket hold 3,500 cases fully packed...if that helps you guestimate Gandog56: "Take a look at www.ammobrasstrader.com and trade the ones you don't need for ones you do" Thanks for the plug...always nice to see people enjoy my site enough to spread the word. Ruger4570 "The way the price of lead is shooting skyward, you might be "Bucks up" scrounging the LEAD out of the backstop and selling it so you can by new brass." Ummm...that wasn't me behind the berm last weekend collecting all of the bullets that surfaced thanks to the tons of rain brining them to the surface. I didn't gladly bring them home and throw them in the pile to melt with the wheel weights...nope...wasn't me...really. I recently got lucky at my range. The owner has set up some IDPA ranges and wants them to stay nice and clean so he has asked me if I would be willing to take all the cases off his range every other week to help him keep it that way. I suppose I could make that sacrifice...lol. I have always gone up there an hour or two before he opened and hauled off tons off brass but now I guess I'll just have to take more. __________________ www.ammobrasstrader.com

July 28, 2007, 10:43 AM	#21
Sevens Senior Member Join Date: July 28, 2007 Location: Ohio Posts: 11,756	Makes me cry with jealousy when I see how good some of you guys are doing! I stopped by the state range just a couple of days ago to do a little scrounging and I did great by my standards... but a total waste of time compared to how you guys do. But here's the story anyhow... There was lots of junk 7.62x39 steel stuff, as expected, and of course, the complete and total nemesis of everyone in our hobby: that awful CCI Blazer aluminum crap. But I found about 100 good piece of .45 auto and the usual scattering of 9mm and 40S&W but here was the kicker -- I found one piece of my holy grail, the 10mm. And you know what finding ONE PIECE does to you, right? It extends your bent-over search for more of it. I was there an extra 20 minutes and never found another piece of 10mm. Not surprised... who on earth shoots this stuff and leaves it behind? Or, if they do, the range master is smart enought to swoop in and collect it. This must have been that one piece that some poor fellow has missing from his box... in fact, it has to be -- Starline brass. Damn 10's kick out a country mile from my pistol... this guy probably has the same problem. __________________ *Attention Brass rats and other reloaders:* I really need .327 Federal Magnum brass, no lot size too small. Tell me what caliber you need and I'll see what I have to swap. PM me and we'll discuss.

July 29, 2007, 11:35 PM	#22
red-rider Member Join Date: June 11, 2007 Location: Jonesboro, Arkansas Posts: 40	I wish someone would leave 223 brass laying around my range. They only leave the military stuff. __________________ www.nationalgunforum.com

July 30, 2007, 05:37 AM	#23
CrustyFN Senior Member Join Date: June 4, 2006 Location: West Virginia Posts: 2,258	Nothing wrong with that, pick it up. It's a little more work but not that bad. I worked a GSSF match Sat and Sun and there were too many people shooting aluminum cased ammo. I didn't come home with as much brass as I would have liked to. __________________ I don't ever remember being absent minded.

January 9, 2008, 01:07 AM	#25
The Lovemaster Senior Member Join Date: December 29, 2007 Location: Arizona Posts: 416	Count me in Yup, I'm a brass whore. Go to the range once a week and come home with a fifty cal can full of empties, mostly 9, 40, and 45 in an hour and a half or two hours.