Scrap Range Brass

[COSteve]

With our range still closed due to the county wide Stage 2 Fire Ban, I thought I'd drive out to it yesterday and walked the different firing lines to see what was in the 55 gal brass bins. In all, I picked up a couple of 5 gal buckets of scrap brass.

I looked for good reloadable brass but found only 20 pieces of Winchester 30-30 and 19 pieces of Remington 30-06 that were clearly first fired. I could tell they were as I also found the boxes they bought them in. Then I culled out the minimal steel and aluminum cases I'd failed to screen out at the range and shook out the dirt.

Then I weighed my haul and was surprised to find that I had collected 57 lbs of brass. Adding that to the 61 lbs I'd collected since fall of last year, I had a total of 118 lbs. So, this morning I took a ride to our scrap brass place and was pleased to find that they were paying $2.15 per lb for yellow scrap brass.

I walked out with a check for $253.70 plus a few more 30-30 and 30-06 brass for my stash. All for just helping to keep our range clean and tidy. Handloading is definitely enjoyable!

[ywaltzucanrknrl]

Quick trip to the desert last night so my wife could try some 30-30 hunting loads and we came back with about five pounds of good brass. Some 7x57, 06 with the rest being 223, 9mm, 45 and 40, all reloadable. Looking at the $2.15 it would be enough to pay for the gas if I sold it.

[COSteve]

Paying for gas is the good part. My range is only 10 miles south from my house and the recycler is only 14 miles north as well so it doesn't cost much to get to either place.

[earlmck]

Real fine haul there Steve. 30 years ago I lived in Carson City NV and could stop by the public range on my way home from work. I have a lifetime supply of 30/30, 30/06, 357, 44 mag, 45 auto. Never even thought of picking up other brass for the resale. I coulda' retired a year sooner on the 9mm and 223 I left behind! That was a wonderful place in those days.

[Bill in Oregon]

When I was a range officer for Otero County, New Mexico, one of my jobs was sorting the brass we picked up and raked up at the public range in La Luz. Others hated it but I enjoyed it. (In fact, a former range employee who had come to Alamogordo and Holloman AFB as an officer in the German Luftwaffe and liked it so much that he stayed told me in his thick accent, "Bill, ziss iss a job for rapists und murderers." )
Once the steel had been puled out with a magnet and the clean and once-fired commercial "good stuff" had been sorted for resale, we stored the remaining brass -- mostly 9mm, .223/5.56 and other milsurp -- in five-gallon buckets, and when we had a full load for the range pickup, I would drive it down to a scrap dealer south of I-10 in El Paso that paid the best prices. I think our best haul was about 1,400 pounds worth, a full load for that half-ton. It's been a few years but I think our best price was something like $1.80 per pound. We had to work for that price. The buyer would pay us less if there were nickel cases mixed with the brass and we had to sort the rimfire out separately as well. That was the worst part.

[Streetstar]

They take ‘‘em with the primers in ?

Wish I had known this when I started reloading. I would go to my range (outdoor public forestry service managed range) Saturday early evening when everyone packed up, and either the same time Sunday or first light Monday morning and raked the brass up - placed in buckets then sorted back at the house

It was a bit of an endeavor as the range is 30 miles one way. I was mainly just looking for .357 and .45 - both ACP and Colt

I just gave away 2 full containers as big as Steve’s UTZ cheese puff jugs full of 5.56 that I had scavenged from those days. Always amused at the folks who would go there to sight in something like a 270 or a 300wm and leave me a full box of brass

[COSteve]

Bill,
I've become friends with the people at the recycling place and I make sure to separate the nickel plated brass as a matter of course. For the first 10 years or so I'd pick up the .40s&w from our plant protection guys practicing because it was always Speer and always true once fired. Now with 14,000 pieces of Speer nickel plated .40s&w I figure that I've got enough to last a lifetime.

They pay me for the nickel plated as well but they just want it separated. As to the rimfire, they've never indicated that they want that separated as well so it's mixed in. I even dump my spent primers in my scrap brass buckets after I checked with them, brass and nickel plated.

Many of your know that I keep records of everything I do. That includes the sold and scrapped brass I've gotten money for (trade material is separate). So far I've collected a net (price less any shipping) of $2,026.40 in brass sales since I started handloading some 25 years ago. I consider it all 'found money' as the minimal work I do to 'process' it for sale is measured in minutes not hours.

Further, I usually sell the scrap brass when I'm on an errand that has me driving by the recycler and I pick up the brass when I'm out shooting at the range or being Range Officer so it doesn't cost me anything there either. It's a relaxing, semi mindless operation that punches my 'cheap button' as my whole life I've looked for ways to make or save a nickel here and there so it's in my blood.

Streetstar,
Yep, primers in or out doesn't matter as long as they're spent and not live.

[Bill in Oregon]

Steve, tending to the brass was much more satisfying than "mowing" the range bays with a 2-wheeled industrial magnet for 9mm, 5.56, 7.62X39, .308 and 7.62X54 Russian steel cases in all stages of deterioration.

[JRD]

I went through a big brass sorting exercise last winter. I sorted out about 15 five gallon buckets worth of brass, sorting by caliber and what was good to reload versus scrap. I also culled lots of staples, sticks, dead bugs, cigarette butts, dead grass, rocks, and dirt out of the brass.
What wasn't worth keeping, I had my dad take to the scrap yard. It was several five gallon buckets worth of brass with no steel or aluminum cases mixed in. I don't recall the exact price per pound, but it was worthwhile versus throwing it away.
Since then I've started saving all the scrap brass I can, even picking up 22's for the scrap. It may be pennies at a time, but it adds up over time. Steve, as you said, it punches your "cheap button" and that is a satisfying feeling. Some of my shooting acquaintances of the younger generation who buy ammo and don't reload are amused by my picking up brass. I don't see myself picking up brass. I see coins (or fractions of coins) as I'm picking up.

On the other side, when I need to pull bills out of my wallet, I find myself visualizing how many pieces of brass the bills represent...