What is it like looking for certain pistol brass on the ground at a busy range? Let me tell ya...

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Shivahasagun

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And please, add your own experiences!

.25 acp: EASY! Is it tiny? Kinda short? No big rim? Bend over and see if it's center fire. If it is, it's not .22 LR, that's your .25!

.32 acp, .380 acp, 9x18, 9x19: Hard. They all look alike from above. Not fun at all. Luckily .380 and 9x19 are among the most affordable cartridges so you may not be reloading them anyway. And you don't want random 9x19 cases anyway. Stepped brass, staked primers, steel that looks like brass, garbage brass, yuck. Just buy it. Sad about .32. It's expensive to buy, hard to find the cases on the ground, and ya gotta know what you're doing to reload it.

.40 S&W: Hard. Looks like 9x19.

10mm. Easy. The closest thing is .357 magnum. But that is commonly emptied into a container, not left on the ground. If it looks like 10mm and has no big rim, there ya go! Pick it up!

.38 spl, .357 magnum: Pretty easy, but again, not much left on the ground. They look like eachother. But most people who load .38 spl load .357 mag and vice-versa so that's ok!

.45 acp: Easy! Short, fat...that's .45 acp! But is it small or large primer? Better mark your own with a marker on the back, because that's an issue!

Anything you fire from your own revolver is easy! Dump it in a container. Unless you use moon clips. Dump it wherever and find them easily! It's all contained!
 
I mainly have issues with 40 getting mixed with my 9mm scavenging. I just toss them after the range trip. Now the 380's are really annoying and they only get caught when I go to decap. No resistance at all as they are straight wall. I have two whole bags of the suckers now.

On occasion a 300 Blackout fools me when searching for x39 but I'm pretty good at spotting those.

I do sort my SP/LP 45's as I can't get LPP right now so I have been using the small version a lot. It's frustrating at indoor ranges trying to recover those.
 
Yeah, and why I usually shot my revolvers SO much through the years. When I got my first 10mm I went through a ton of brass. I cobbled up several types of brass catcher/deflection devices to try and mitigate my losses. It worked to some extent but I still usually chunked several into the netherworld.

When I got my 9 and 45, I developed loads which dumped the cases in a neat pile a couple of feet over and by laying out a cheap moving blanket I could usually keep them all sorta in the middle.

I rarely shoot the 380, and over the years I have built up a decent stockpile of random range brass to use as needed.

Anymore if it doesn't land on the blanket or can be found laying around the edge, I just walk away.
 
The 5.7x 28 pistol slings the case so far in a random direction they're almost impossible to find. They also have the strange ability to blend into whatever surface they land on. Usually way off in the weeds to one side of the lane.

380/9mm - I think my range should ban 380! J/k

7.62x39 (brass case) - when I shoot 7.62 x 39 I watch where the case goes instead of where the bullet goes, so I am sure I can retrieve that brass!
 
armoredman said:
I load the snot out of 9mm, never run put of brass. 40 goes in the scrap bag. 380 and 45 ACP go to a buddy, and I WISH I could find 38 Special and 357 mag laying about, nobody shoots wheelguns out here anymore.
Click to expand...

Most people still shooting wheel guns (like me) reload, so we get 100% of our brass back because we dump the empties in our hand and they go straight to the range bag.
I too wish I could find people that don't reload, that shoot .38-.357.
 
I've relagated my scrounging to just picking up everyting in my area. I bring it all home and eventually put it through my sorting pans and sort it out. I get mostly 9mm which is what I shoot and want. About 1-3% .380 with a few .40 and.45 mixed in. I give away the /40 to a friend, typically do a PIF of .380, and save the .45 for when I get a .45 :)

For my revolver loads I do not scrounge around on the floor/ground.

-Jeff
 
They need to ban those .38 super and super comp people….. mix those in with lots more 9mm and it’s a pain to separate. .380’s too.
When there’s limited time to pick up brass you just have to grab anything brass or silver colored and separate it later.
Us chickens don’t care what kind of seed is on the ground!
 
Kids today!

Okay, to explain that, when I shoot revolver obviously the ejected shells go in my pocket. No brainer. But semiauto’s I leave lay. At the indoor range I consider them my donation to the range. I’ve known the current owners since they were buns in the oven. I knew the original owner for a couple of decades.

The problem is when we all go shooting on our properties around the area. It used to be the kids would wait for the shooting to stop then rush in to hunt brass. The one who found the most got bragging rights. That bunch of kids now have kids of their own. Those kids had to be told to put down the gaming thing and get outside. I used to offer them a penny a case. Too much effort. Then a dollar a baggie. Nope. The smart phone is too big a lure. Now that so few of the folks reload the kids don’t even come out of the house to go shooting.

I shoot by my berm and collect everything as it hits the ground or at the outdoor range in Gatorville.
 
Why scrap any brass? When I was shooting lots of USPSA I would stay, help tear down, and then when all the equipment was put away go back and scavenge the bays for brass. If it was brass of any size or shape it went into my bag. I kept the 40S&W and 45 ACP to feed my habit. I gave all the 9mm and 38 Super/Super-Comp to my Open friends. Any of the other odd balls got sorted out and saved if I reloaded it or cached until I had enough to give to a friend that did reload it. No sense scraping useable brass.
 
Walkalong said:
Everything is easy except for.32 ACP, which disappears into a time warp when it leaves the gun. 🙂
Click to expand...

Truth being stranger than fiction, I found 2 .32ACP cases in my recovered brass from the desert. I told the other guys to pick up anything that was brass and shiny... as opposed to steel, or looks like it's been there for 40 years... and when I sorted it, there they were. They must have borrowed the DeLorean...
 
Guess it depends on how busy it is, and whether you're just scrounging brass or trying to retrieve your own brass. If the range is just littered with brass all over and not many (or any) shooters there currently, put out a tarp to keep your brass separate. If all the shooting spots are filled and the ground is already littered, good luck. Most of the time our range is sparsely populated during the work week and you can clear an area of brass, or lay out a tarp for your own brass.
If i am just scrounging brass, it all gets picked up then sorted later. The sifter plates they sell work pretty good over a 5 gal bucket.
 
My ranges have always been state ranges, where apparently only the rich people shoot and leave brass everywhere. Mississippi was way more productive than here in Georgia but I pick up everything except 22lr and 9mm and sort it out at home. This bounty allows me to be a brass snob and only shoot the headstamps I want.... I've never bought a box of Winchester 45acp but I've got thousands.
 
I only shoot two autoloaders at a public range, 9mm and 45 ACP. I have no problem finding them, but I also scoop up a few 380 and 40 S&W which is annoying. My buddies know I reload and also give me their fired brass and they aren't as careful and I get a lot of different brass from them.
 
twarr1 said:
The 5.7x 28 pistol slings the case so far in a random direction they're almost impossible to find. They also have the strange ability to blend into whatever surface they land on. Usually way off in the weeds to one side of the lane.

380/9mm - I think my range should ban 380! J/k

7.62x39 (brass case) - when I shoot 7.62 x 39 I watch where the case goes instead of where the bullet goes, so I am sure I can retrieve that brass!
Click to expand...
5.7x28 should be easy to find among the others!
 
I don't do indoor ranges, never have, never will.
The two semi local gun ranges have gun shops.
Buy a gun get a free range pass, I've gotten atleast a dozen range passes and gave them all away.

All my shooting consists of out door shooting at the DNR gravel pits in the western Cascade mountains.
I always pick up our barss as well as other brass left by other shooters and then I buy range brass no matter where it came from.
It is a extra hobby of mine to accumulate brass, seperate it, wet tumble it, keep what I will use and sell the rest.
With the low price on 9mm and 223 brass I will sit on it until it starts to bring five to six cents a case again.

Unless I get another caliber to reload for I'm set for life on brass.
 
Highland Lofts said:
I don't do indoor ranges, never have, never will.
The two semi local gun ranges have gun shops.
Buy a gun get a free range pass, I've gotten atleast a dozen range passes and gave them all away.

All my shooting consists of out door shooting at the DNR gravel pits in the western Cascade mountains.
I always pick up our barss as well as other brass left by other shooters and then I buy range brass no matter where it came from.
It is a extra hobby of mine to accumulate brass, seperate it, wet tumble it, keep what I will use and sell the rest.
With the low price on 9mm and 223 brass I will sit on it until it starts to bring five to six cents a case again.

Unless I get another caliber to reload for I'm set for life on brass.
Click to expand...
Wish we had more public land in Texas, but most of it is privately owned and what is public normally doesn't allow shooting unless its hunting season.
 
I pick up everything and sort it when I get home. First thing, I dump it in a tub and save it for something to do this time of year and hunting season is over and I need something to do.

I first sort it by the types that will tumble together. Such as 380, 9mm, 38/357, ect. After it comes out of the tumbler and gets dry I sort it by caliber and headstamp. I sort by using loading trays. When they are standing up in a loading tray its easy to tell the 380's from the 9mm's. Even the 9X18's stand out.
 
I bought the plastic sorting trays with the metal 380 plate that I bolted in the bottom of a three gallon bucket after I cut the bottom out.
I enjoy separating the brass. Right now I have forty pounds of range brass to seperate. I'll have a few beers white separating it.
When I get a tumbler full of calibers that can be wet tumbled together it gets done then put on my drying racks. It gives me a chance to inspect the cases and gives me an accurate count of each caliber.
I pick up a lit of brass plus I buy range brass from the brass hounds. They generally bring fifty to a hundred pounds at a time.
What is damaged or unusable I take to the recycling center.
Mixed range brass generally will way about ten pounds per gallon.
If you get all small caliber pistol brass it will go upwards to eleven pounds a gallon.

But for the most part a give gallon bucket will generally be about fifty pounds.
Scrap price here is $1.50 a pound so a five galllng bucket will fetch about $75.
 
I have an awful time identifying handgun brass. It all pretty much looks the same to me! Most of my autopistol shooting is done with a 10mm, and I plan on losing most of my brass at the range.

Oddly enough, I do see quite a bit of .357 brass at our local ranges. I already have so much that I rarely scrounge any of it, but it's not unusual to find full boxes of empties in the trash. On one of my recent trips, I watched a fellow shoot hundreds of factory rounds and carefully place the empties back into their foam trays and then back into the boxes. I assumed he was a handloader, so my eyes nearly bulged out of my head when he piled up five boxes of empties and made to dump them into the trash. When I asked if I could have them he looked at me like I was some kind of weirdo, so I assume he wasn't aware of the existence of handloading. I may not be willing to bend over to pick up someone else's empties out of the dirt, but sometimes the gods smile on you and you'd be a fool not to act on it...
 
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