free brass

[Puukko56]

I don't want to get anyone excited but this is how I get free once fired brass. My local sportsman's club runs a range. We are very rural and your 15 dollars gets you a years membership. You get the combo to the gate and can go whenever you want. Every month or so I go and police up the range.  Over the last year or so I've picked up 1300 .223 brass, close to 1000 30.06 brass (alot of people shoot it but no one seems to reload it),and hundreds of .45, .40, .357, and 30.30. Anything I don't personally shoot gos into a 5 gal bucket. I figure even if I don't shoot it it might be used for barter someday. If there is a range near you that operates this way it's one way to get cheap brass to reload.

[cohutt]

I've been doing it for years successfully.    Look at it as a pre-session stretching excercise.

I spend the first 20-30 minutes of each range trip whoring up whatever brass is there.  Unfortunately with ammo prices and availability, fewer shooters are shooting less rounds per trip and more people are picking up brass that should be mine these days.

[Texasbound]

I've done the same for a while now.  With the crazy lack of ammo this last year, I sold ALL of the brass that I don't load for.  I think I sold almost 8000 rounds of 45 ACP alone.  Used the money to buy powder for myself. 

[Heavy G]

I have noticed a pretty steep decline in the brass lying around my range.  I'd say that any brass I find is the one or two that someone else missed.  No big piles of dozens lying there anymore.  

Lots of unreloadable casings though.  I think a lot of people are firing Wolf now and just leaving the casings.

But I agree that if you're at a place where there is tons of brass that collecting it for barter makes a ton of sense.

[cohutt]

Heavy G,

If you load 45 pick up the Wolf- it is soft steel and boxer primed.  I did a test one one afternoon and loaded, fired, loaded, etc etc a total of 12 times before i got bored. (I fired into the ground in the back of my shop through a can, wiped down, loaded and repeated) The stuff was still good to go-

I know of some who load the 223 as well-

[Puukko56]

Cool, I've got a big ass magnet that I use to pick up nails and debris around my shop. I can pick up the steel cases and if nothing else put them in a can for use at a later date.

[Heavy G]

Heavy G,

If you load 45 pick up the Wolf- it is soft steel and boxer primed. 

Thanks.  Good to know.  This forum has so much good info on it.

[cohutt]

I forgot to mention the gun I used for this experiment was a sloppy "ho" chambered MAC10, not a tight chamber Kimber or even a Glock. 

The wear marks on the cases are the only damage I noticed after the session.   

[OJ]

Are my eyes messing with me, or do those all look a little bulged right in the middle, especially the one on the right?

[cohutt]

I think it is the reflection mainly but they are unsized at this point.  Note in this shot the middle one looks bulged and the one on the right looks fine



The MAC10 is an open bolt blow back action that is hard on cases even when in semi-auto.  I mentioned the sloppy chamber- ie generous sized to aid in function- so I have no doubt that these wouldn't come close to fitting a case gauge before sizing.   (But then again, cases fired from my Kimber won't either. )