Author Topic: It pays to check public ranges for brass  (Read 1043 times)

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Offline Jal5

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It pays to check public ranges for brass
« on: March 26, 2009, 05:49:25 AM »
I cannot believe how many folks, maybe all new gun owners, shoot several boxes of ammo and leave the brass!  Over the past several months I have been fortunate to pick up hundreds of spent brass, some I use like the almost full box of 38 spl I picked up the other day and some I just clean up and when I get enough trade or sell off.  Those of us who reload are lucky all the new folks since Obama took office are practicing with their new guns I guess  ;D I probably pick up 100 minimum on every trip to the range.

Joe
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Offline fastbike

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2009, 10:58:53 AM »
In the last month, the public ranges I shoot at banned picking up any brass but your own. Like you, I have been amazed at the brass folks leave. About three months ago, the guy next to me left 5 boxes worth of Hornady 30-30 brass on the ground. Loved that!

I cannot believe how many folks, maybe all new gun owners, shoot several boxes of ammo and leave the brass!  Over the past several months I have been fortunate to pick up hundreds of spent brass, some I use like the almost full box of 38 spl I picked up the other day and some I just clean up and when I get enough trade or sell off.  Those of us who reload are lucky all the new folks since Obama took office are practicing with their new guns I guess  ;D I probably pick up 100 minimum on every trip to the range.

Joe

Offline Jal5

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2009, 11:04:38 AM »
So who is getting the brass????
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Offline fastbike

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2009, 11:15:59 AM »
The ranges are collecting the brass and selling it for scrap (my presumption). I just know that this policy was posted in the last few weeks. No posted policy before that.

Offline troy_mclure

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2009, 02:05:22 PM »
my range keeps it, and sells it to pay for mowing, and berm maintnance.

Offline kitchawan kid

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2009, 02:32:11 PM »
Same here, our club sells the brass for expences,you can pick-up your own.We also recycle lead from the backstop.I did pick-up  bunch of 300 weatherbe mag. at an outdoor range one nice day.
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Offline KAYR1

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2009, 02:42:26 PM »
We dont have a policy like that at my range, but you gotta get there at the right time!  Lots of scroungers like us around here.  I've found the best time is a few weeks or days prior to the opening day of deer season. Too many guys wait until the last minute. Especially nice if you reload common deer rounds like .243, 30-30, 270, 30-06, 308 etc. in two visits last year I picked up over 500 once fired cases!  Timing is everything.

Offline troy_mclure

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2009, 02:45:16 PM »
i was digging thru the brass buckets, hoping to sneak out some 45/70 or 7mm mag, in one bucket was about 200 Norma .303 Brit. man i wanted to snag that stuff, it would be great trade fodder!

Offline Ladobe

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2009, 01:20:43 PM »
I step over (on) range brass all of the time, but don't pick it up.   It won't work in any of my firearms.
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Offline bilmac

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2009, 08:04:47 PM »
If I was shooting at the ranges that wouldn't let you clean up the brass, I would make lots of mistakes like getting 38s mixed up with the 270s I was shooting.

 Yup the month before hunting season is the brass scrounger's harvest season. I have almost quit going to the range then though, because the range  is occupied full time by idiots.

Offline Sweetwater

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2009, 08:08:34 PM »
bilmac +1

Regards,
Sweetwater
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Offline troy_mclure

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2009, 11:02:36 PM »
i wish i could accidentaly pick up some left brass, but everybody is real good at putting it in the buckets.

Offline Glanceblamm

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2009, 04:06:41 AM »
Once while returning from a private range that is shared by a very few of us and well off even the frontage road, I noticed a (flash) out of my drivers window and then another one.
I had placed the ammo box on top of the truck and it fell on it's side and I ended up stopping and walking back 150yds or so picking up brass every five or ten feet. Does This Count ;D

Offline bilmac

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2009, 05:59:08 AM »
Boy what a find, a string of brass 150 yards long. Are there lots of them like that where you live, I may have to move and become a brass scrounger.

Offline hobbles

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2009, 06:07:55 AM »
Mornin Boys,
The only bad thing bout pickin up brass at the shootin range is ya don't know how many times it's been reloaded already or how HOT of a load it had. I'll reload mine bout 10 times then let it go. Just a thought,
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Offline Sweetwater

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #15 on: March 28, 2009, 07:02:07 AM »
I've got some brass dated 1954. It still holds powder and sends bullets downrange. All the case really does is hold the powder and bullet in proximity to each other. When it splits is time enough for me to pitch it.

Works for me.

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Sweetwater
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Offline kernman

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #16 on: March 28, 2009, 07:49:04 AM »
How much is used brass worth? I don't reload so I would look to sell it.

I shoot in a canyon on National Forest Service property. It's an unofficial range; everyone in town goes there. There is a ton of spent brass, and shotgun shell hulls.

And from the looks of it, much of it is brand new. (Often, there is even the carelessly littered packaging box to prove it).

Any slob target shooters who are reading this: shame on you (yes that's what you are; you are probably a slob hunter too; l hope I never meet you during hunting season; that's why I wear orange).

Is this brass worth picking this stuff up, and selling it to a gunshop? With the ammo shortage lately I'm thinking maybe it is. I see lots of common calibers, 30 06, 45 cal. 357 mag. etc.

I used to collect aluminum mcans until the price plummeted. (I still do a little; someday the price will rise, and I'm keeping my favorite woods litter free).

If you are shooting on public land, keep clean up after yourselves, brothers and sisters - the future of shooting/hunting sports depends on it. (now i'll get off my soap box).

Offline Sweetwater

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #17 on: March 28, 2009, 08:18:26 AM »
Sounds like the open shooting ranges above Ramona, California. We used to (5 Years ago) spend one day a week there and the first few hours were spent picking up brass, sometimes up to 3 5-gal buckets full. My Dad's shooting buddy (now deceased) would recycle it. Tumble clean, sort, and take to the local recycling center. After a while, they wouldn't take 22brass, and some of the more popular sizes and brands he would package and use for swapping. We carried a magnet to glean the steel cases. After a while, they all look alike! LOL!

All the open shooting ranges were the same - unorganized dump sites. Some unsupervised adults can be just like children. They do it because there is no one there to see that they don't - disgusting.
AND I wear ORANGE, also, regardless of the law - it's just plain smart.

Regards,
Sweetwater
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Sweetwater

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Offline Sourdough

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #18 on: March 28, 2009, 10:26:05 AM »
When i see people open boxes of new cartridges and then leave them on the ground after shooting I definitely pick them up.  Once fired brass is just fine with me.  Many people do not reload and have no use for their spent brass.  I have thousands of once fired .223 brass, just sitting to be reloaded, that I have picked up at the range.  Also a lot of 45-70, 30-06, 300, .338, and 7MM.  The rest I leave for someone else.  There is two elderly gentlemen that come to the range daily and pick up anything on the ground.
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Offline Jal5

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #19 on: March 28, 2009, 03:13:36 PM »
That's exactly what I mean. Plenty of guys shoot their store bought ammo, leaving the brass behind and often even the boxes. I just clean up after them, keep what I need and trade the rest.

Some guys leave all the targets and garbage out there too...they should at least pick up after themselves, nobody gets paid to clean up the public range and the signs are all there reminding people to pack out their trash.

Joe
S. G. G. = Sons of the Greatest Generation. Too old to run, too proud to hide; we will stand our ground and take as many as we can with us

Offline mechanic

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #20 on: March 28, 2009, 04:44:07 PM »
We have an unmonitored public range near us.  I routinely stop every time I pass by and pick up brass.  I have a close budget, and I trade what I don't need for what I do often.  Usually reloaders will pick up their brass.  You can almost bet if its on the ground its once fired factory.

The problem now is there are so many of the steel case and aluminum case rounds mixed it you have to pick carefully.

Somehow I can always find lots of what I don't shoot, and little of what I do........ >:(
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Offline LaOtto222

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #21 on: March 29, 2009, 01:15:00 AM »
I have only shot at a range once (this coming April 25th will be twice). I did not see any brass worth picking up and the fellows I shot with were all hand loaders and picked up their brass. I do just about all my shooting in my back yard and my brass does not hit the ground. I think if I had the opportunity; I would pick it up.
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Offline Ladobe

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #22 on: March 29, 2009, 08:09:32 PM »
I think if I had the opportunity; I would pick it up.

To each his own but opinions do vary...
Brass from multiple MFG's from an untold number of different lot numbers that I don't know the history of shot in who knows what chamber how many times.   Nope, no range brass for my firearms.   ;)
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Offline Darrell Davis

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #23 on: March 29, 2009, 08:51:47 PM »
Even'in reloaders,

Yep, it pays to keep your eyes open anytime your out.

A few years back, I was down an abandoned railroad grade below the town where I lived, making the trip a few miles down the canyon for the first morning of turkey season.

As some folk took their rigs down the RR grade, there was some shooting done in the area.

So, I had planned to stop at one location on the way home to check for brass.

Well, nothing much showed up, so saddled up the 4 wheeler and had gone just a short distance when I spotted some brass scattered along side the RR grade.

Got off Molly and started scrounging, headed home again and had gone just a short distance and found another batch.

After that, I began to find new and fired brass, loaded ammo, shotgun ammo and bullets scattered at about equal distances.

This continued for quite a ways, the "finds" always being of mixed components and or ammo. I finally started to check the other side of the RR grade and sure enough more of the same.

Before I found the brass, I found where someone had tourched a good sized plastic fishing tackle box which had contained lures and a bore sighter.

It appeared that someone had dumped all the components and ammo into a common box and tossed out handfulls of the stuff as they slowly drove down the canyon.

Sometime later, at the location of the tackle box tourching, I spotted a small pile of black material, which upon closer look, proved to be extruded powder.

Someone must have been very, VERY!!!!!!!! mad at someone else to go to all the effort of distroying their loading supplies.

I looked a number of time at locations like bridges for some fire arms, but not that lucky.

I still have some of the components, for example a nice bag full of 30 cal, 220gr Nosler partitions, still around.  Could do with another find like that and maybe this time they'd leave some hardware scattered about with the rest of the stuff.  Can always hope.

It was suggested the stuff might have been stolen, but if it was going to be gotten rid of, there are much better and quicker ways then taking the time to drive down a narrow and bumpy RR grade while throwing the stuff out the window one handfull at a time.

A quick stop at a bridge, in the RR canyon or else where would have been much quicker, but wouldn't have vented near as much steam as this effort did.

Stolen, Nope someone was just very mad!

As far as using range brass, it depends on what the use is and what the firearm is.

For hunting, probably not, but for just banger brass especially with "reduced loads" not a problem

Keep em coming!

CDOC
300 Winmag

Offline res45

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Re: It pays to check public ranges for brass
« Reply #24 on: March 30, 2009, 08:18:16 AM »
My public range is over an hour away so when I go I make a day of it,we have volunteers that keep the range clean but in between we the shooters police it ourself. They have lock container to throw your unused brass in most don't use it so when I'm there I keep what I can use while cleaning up.  Last week I got 100/9 mm 100/357 mags and 50/38 special case and the boxes to go with them.  I shoot several rifles to but most of the left overs are steel case or berdan primed stuff so not much there but I did manage to get 80 rds of 30-30 brass right before deer season came in from guys setting up there 30-30's.   243 and 270 are always on the list to I pickup for my friends.
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