Great Find at the Range

[COSteve]

Yesterday afternoon I had a couple of errands the wife sent me on and one took me right past our range so I stopped in to see what was what. It was quiet and I looked around the different ranges for any brass that might catch my eye. (We handloaders have been accused of looking down at the ground more often than out at the targets at times.)

I didn't find anything interesting until the last stop at the pistol house. Even though it's set up for up to 50yds, the 700 ft high hill that forms the 'berm' behind it is some 200 yds away so sometimes the guys take their ARs and practice short and long range drills there. So, you might find some decent AR brass.

A quick look around and low and behold, I spy some really shiny large rifle brass just out past the shooting stations where many practice 'shoot and move'. Anyway, I walked over and there, laying on the ground were 80 pieces of Winchester 30-30 brass scattered around that still looked new!

Before scooping them up, I went over the the trash bin looking for something to put them in and I'll be darned if I didn't find 4 empty boxes that recently held Winchester Deer Season XP .30-30 150grn Poly Tip Ammo. So, I grabbed them up and put the brass back in the boxes they came in and headed home.

After tumbling them for only 15 minutes, they looked like new brass so I put them in my bullet bin on my 750 and decided that I'd load up some 30-30 real soon. Even though I've got some 300 rds already loaded, I've also got over 150 pieces of Winchester 30-30 brass that's also true 'once fired' as I got it from a friend who doesn't handload even though I've tried to convenience him to.

Well, the weatherman predicted rain on and off today and surprisingly at 4:15am we got a huge dose of lightening and a downpour that lasted about 1/2 hr! Very unusual for that strong of a thunderstorm at that early in the morning but I guess the weatherman was right 'cause it's raining again as I type.

I've already got a number of loads worked out for the collection of X-Treme plated 150 grn FP, Winchester 150grn SP, and Hornady Interlock 170grn bullets I have so I'm ready to go. Plus, I have plenty of Winchester LR primers and three different powders that might just be calling me to load them up.

Inside chores are done, lawn won't be dry till the weekend and any other outside chores will wait till the weekend when it drys out too. I've got the whole day to relax and enjoy. So, it looks like it will be a great day to go to the basement and load up some thudy - thudy.

[Bill in Oregon]

That's a nice find, Steve. That would make my day. Lucky you for having T-storms and showers!

[Tycer]

Excellent!

[COSteve]

Taking a bit of a break as I'm hungry for a snack but it's going very well. I've case prep'd all 257 pieces of .30-30 brass and I'm now tumbling them to get the lube off. I'm surprised that only a few needed trimming so cranking them through my 750 with the casefeeder and trimmer on my case prep toolhead went very fast.

My next task is deciding how many of each bullet weight I want to load up and if I want to load up all of them or save some empty brass for the future. I've got a bunch loaded up with the X-Treme plated for plinking as my wife likes to shoot loads in the just under 2,000 fps range so I'm thinking that I might pass on more of those.

The other 2 bullet weights I don't really 'need' but I just want them as the Winchester 150grn SP bullets shoot really accurately in my Mossy 464 and it's fun to try to smack those bowling pins at 200 yds with them. The Hornady Interlock 170grn bullets I got for wild boar shooting as a friend of my daughter's dad has some land west of Austin, TX, and has talked about getting up a wild boar eradication effort.

I'll just have to go with how the mood strikes me I guess. Well, the timer on my phone says the tumblers should be done so I'll go back downstairs and see what I'm going to do.

[ollogger]

Nice find Steve! I would have locked onto them also
Rained a inch total last nite & this morning, more on the way today


Brad

[Nath]

Good for you.

[COSteve]

So, I finished up loading only a few, 50 ea of the Winchester 150grn SP bullets, as I couldn't decide what I wanted to load with the others. I'll use those I loaded to try and keep sharp with my bowling pins.

So, I have 207 pieces of fully prep'd Win .30-30 brass all ready to load when I decide what I want to load in them. I'm not disappointed by not loading the rest, I like to load for a purpose, not just load to load so I'll save them for when I decide.

BTW, it's been on and off raining heavily here with lots of lightening and spits of driving rain followed by sunny skies and then more clouds and another downpour.

[marlinman93]

Once fired brass, with original boxes too! Always a great find in almost any cartridge!

[Griff]

A number of years ago I had a group of guys shooting a couple .30-30 next to me at the public range in CA. They were just leaving the brass on the ground as they each shot up a box or two of ammo. I eventually asked is they were going to keep their brass. Not only did they say "no", but they then picked up all of their used brass and put it back in the boxes they brought with them! I ended up with 200 rounds of once fired, mostly Federal but a box of Winchester & one Remington. Shortly after moving to TX I found a place online that advertised once fired brass in bulk. I bought 2,000 rounds. It came from a testing lab in NY, @ less than 2¢/ea including freight, it's been a wonderful stock to have. Which is important when my favorite rifle only allows 3 reloadings per case due to a rough chamber. I load 90% of my .30-30 cases with a cast GC bullet from a Seaco 316 mold in front of 27.5 grains of Reloader 7 and WLR primers... the other 10% are split between Sierra 150 JFP and Sierra 125 JHPs. The jacketed 150s use the same 27.5 grains of RE7, while the 125s get 28.5 grains of RE7.

[COSteve]

200 rds! And I thought I got a big score. Congrats!

[stretch]

Law enforcement rents our local range for their training.

They are usually very good about policing things up - (unintentional
pun - sorry! ), and on this occasion they put all of their 45ACP
brass in two cardboard cases that the original cartridges came in.
And then forgot to take them with.
There must have been 3,000+ once-fired cases in those boxes. I was
the first one at the range that morning - no one else was around.

45 ACP brass never seems to wear out. My late friend Joe had some that
he'd loaded so many times that the headstamps were getting dim.

I now have a lifetime supply of 45 ACP brass.

-Stretch

[Scott Tschirhart]

A fresh find of brass is a very good thing! Particularly these days!!!

[COSteve]

Law enforcement rents our local range for their training.

They are usually very good about policing things up - (unintentional
pun - sorry! ), and on this occasion they put all of their 45ACP
brass in two cardboard cases that the original cartridges came in.
And then forgot to take them with.
There must have been 3,000+ once-fired cases in those boxes. I was
the first one at the range that morning - no one else was around.

45 ACP brass never seems to wear out. My late friend Joe had some that
he'd loaded so many times that the headstamps were getting dim.

I now have a lifetime supply of 45 ACP brass.

-Stretch

Great score Stretch!

We also invite LEOs to use our range for free (pays to keep the cops happy) but a part of the agreement is that they must clean up the range and leave their brass. They're happy and we're happy so many local LEOs use our range as it's more private than theirs and much larger so they can practice maneuvering drills.

During the 2008 Election cycle, YOmama was going to get nominated at the Democratic convention in Denver and so before it, Denver SWAT and other LEO agencies practiced at our range. They use it as it's protected by armed guards as it's on company property, it's in the hills away from prying eyes, and as we're in the defense industry, they feel comfortable.

While their practices were private, I showed up right after they were supposed to be done, but they were just finishing cleaning up so I mentioned to the OIC that I'd be policing up their brass after they left. He said, "No, it's already done. Where do you want us to put it?" So, I said I'd take it but he said he'd get two SWAT officers to carry it over.

I ended up with 13,000 pieces of 5.56 brass, 7,000 of which were LC 5.56 NATO and 6,000 which were FC and all of it definitely 'once fired' plus a ton of 9mm and .45acp, again all 'once fired'. I got home and separated the 5.56 brass types, kept all of the LC NATO and took the FC and put them into 1 gal ZipLock bags; 750 pieces per bag by weight.

The 9mm I scrapped as I don't shoot 9mm and the 2,200 pieces of .45acp I kept. Then I took the 6K pieces of FC brass to the Dad's Wholesale table at the Tanner gun show that weekend and asked if he needed any brass. He told me he was short on an order and would gladly take my brass for 15,000 Win SR primers which were going for $28.99/K + tax at the time.

I about fell over and said, "SOLD!!" Primers were a bit scarce and had recently risen in price so getting $465.29 (incl. tax) worth of primers for FREE (all I did was sort the brass) was like hitting the lottery to me. BTW, he said he was getting a good deal as he was giving me less than 7.8¢ per case retail and excellent, once fired brass was going for about 9¢ per case at the time.

[stretch]

Once-fired LEO brass - your tax dollars at work!

[COSteve]

You bet, however, I'll never find another deal like that, ever! I keep my eyes open for those uninformed or rich shooters who still leave their brass on the ground but a good find is harder and harder to come across anymore.

[Ysabel Kid]

Great find!

I am an unrepentant brass scrounger and proud of it! I don't ever recall such a great find myself!!!