Is it wrong to take 40 S&W & 9mm brass to a scrapyard?

[Gerry]

If you want to spend your time reloading, more power to you.

Well to be honest, I'm kinda with you on that. The hour it takes me to load 800 to 1,000 rounds on my Dillon XL 650 with case feeder is seriously interfering with my life. I've considered showing our maids how to load them instead. Interested in anyone's experience that have successfully done that with their own maids

[Amsdorf]

Whatever floats your boat. To each his own.

[dacaur]

I have been thinking about post this for a few days.....

If you bought and shot the rounds, then go ahead and scrap them.

But, if these are shot by others, and someone else would have gatherd them up if you had not, then taking them to the scrapyard would be wrong. Its better to let someone else use them if you arent going to.

Just my .02

[mrbatchelor]

Originally Posted by dacaur

I have been thinking about post this for a few days.....

If you bought and shot the rounds, then go ahead and scrap them.

But, if these are shot by others, and someone else would have gatherd them up if you had not, then taking them to the scrapyard would be wrong. Its better to let someone else use them if you arent going to.

Just my .02

This is a good analysis of the problem in my mind. It's a variation of the problems of the Commons, i.e. no one and everyone owns the chestnuts in the village commons. If you spend the effort to pick up a bucket of nuts your labor makes them yours, and I cannot take them from your front doorstep just because "the chestnuts belong to everyone." But if you hoard the chestnuts needlessly, denying the rest of the village what were once common property that now goes to waste, then the whole village suffers.

Now, I can't say if the OP is talking about his own brass or range brass. Doesn't matter; he knows that detail. I think it's pick up, though, reading it again.

But I do think there is merit in dacaur's thinking.

So, as an alternative to the labor issue in the original post, can you sell the 9mm and .40 without the cleanup, and expect the purchaser to do it themselves? Or is it just not a viable product? I see from the comments that other calibers are reasonable to clean and sell at a margin that's not a loss.

MB

[Gerry]

In all seriousness now, for most ranges I've shot at non-reloaders usually just have to leave their brass on the range floor where they fall if they want them reused. One of my favorite things is picking up after mall ninjas! Some clubs make their shooters pick up their own brass regardless and they may have a container set aside for it. Often these clubs sell the brass to support charity events or local youth shooting programs. If they don't, clubs are all too happy to have a volunteer help create such funding programs.

But it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me when someone would go to the trouble to pick up their brass at the range and bring it home for the sole purpose of throwing it in the trash.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by mrbatchelor

This is a good analysis of the problem in my mind. It's a variation of the problems of the Commons, i.e. no one and everyone owns the chestnuts in the village commons. If you spend the effort to pick up a bucket of nuts your labor makes them yours, and I cannot take them from your front doorstep just because "the chestnuts belong to everyone." But if you hoard the chestnuts needlessly, denying the rest of the village what were once common property that now goes to waste, then the whole village suffers.

Now, I can't say if the OP is talking about his own brass or range brass. Doesn't matter; he knows that detail. I think it's pick up, though, reading it again.

But I do think there is merit in dacaur's thinking.

So, as an alternative to the labor issue in the original post, can you sell the 9mm and .40 without the cleanup, and expect the purchaser to do it themselves? Or is it just not a viable product? I see from the comments that other calibers are reasonable to clean and sell at a margin that's not a loss.

A good solution, in a world of omniscient people. At the members-only range where I shoot, the brass rule is that anyone who wants the brass can pick it up and that which does not get picked up goes to the recyclers. It would great if Guy A could know that Guy B will be here tomorrow to pick up and reload the brass so he could leave it rather than take it. Guy A is taking it to the recyclers just like the range would do and there's no rule that says "Only take it if you're going to reload it". Guy A might leave the brass, hoping that Guy B will be along to get it but he never shows, so it goes to the recycler. Next week, Guy B gets there first and gets the brass before Guy A, now he's depriving Guy A of income from recycling.

The whole thing is a weird sort of circular argument based on arbitrary priorities that shift from one person to the next. It's not a matter of ethics. There's Right, there's Wrong and there's Opinion. This one is opinion. Don't assign "Right" and "Wrong" to arbitrary opinion.

[mrbatchelor]

Originally Posted by Brian Pfleuger

A good solution, in a world of omniscient people.

Well, all ethics is drawn from the "metaphysical omniscient" realm. We're just stuck trying to figure out how we are going to apply it (or whether it's even real) in this physical realm.

Originally Posted by Brian Pfleuger

At the members-only range where I shoot, the brass rule is that anyone who wants the brass can pick it up and that which does not get picked up goes to the recyclers.

Reasonable and practical.

Originally Posted by Brian Pfleuger

The whole thing is a weird sort of circular argument based on arbitrary priorities that shift from one person to the next. It's not a matter of ethics. There's Right, there's Wrong and there's Opinion. This one is opinion. Don't assign "Right" and "Wrong" to arbitrary opinion.

I certainly agree that getting into too much hair splitting is nuts. Frankly, as the very first responder to the original post, my opinion was that there's nothing immoral about simply selling it for scrap.

My last response was merely a commentary on the observations of the poster just prior to me, not a moral castigation on the evils of "robbing the community at large." I can leave that propaganda exercise to the Stalinist in the government.

And you are right; the whole thing can quickly degrade into a circular quagmire that becomes meaningless if you step back two paces. After all, once the brass is collected and brought home, it's private property. The owner can bury it in the back yard hoping it will sprout if he wants. None of us have any right to say a word about it so long as his actions aren't crossing the boundary of interfering with my rights or your rights or someone else's rights. (And I'm not willing to assert that collecting range brass steps on my rights if that brass didn't come out of my ejector.)

But the question was asked. Several answers given. And I pointed out a parallel to a historic precedence that forms a piece of the underpinning of common law that is our shared heritage. Nothing more and nothing less.