spent brass

[pcw]

Most spent brass is not picked up at my local range. With people tearing plumbing out of houses for cash it makes me wonder if it is really of so little value. My military background makes me cringe at all that brass lying around.

[BenEnglishTX]

Most spent brass is not picked up at my local range. With people tearing plumbing out of houses for cash it makes me wonder if it is really of so little value. My military background makes me cringe at all that brass lying around.

I don't know of any range that doesn't have a program to pick up spent brass. Commercial indoor ranges have even installed grates for floors so that your brass falls through and you can't retrieve it. (To be fair, the one place that I know that did this will, upon request, haul out a fairly large square of mat material and put it in your firing position so you can pick up your own brass.)

If you're talking about a public or commercial range, I'd suggest that the brass must get picked up eventually or it would someday be higher than the berms. For most outdoor ranges, they'll clean it all out once a week or so. If they don't, people will show up with whole extended families and send the kids around to pick up the brass and put it in buckets to haul away. Try that, get caught, and I know ranges that will call the police.

If, however, you're talking about a private range/club where members are expected to police their own brass, then you've just got some rude, lazy club members who are probably shooting mostly steel and aluminum cases, anyway.

If you know of a public range where actual brass cases are never removed from the ground, then the operators are simply not very skilled businesspeople. Recycling that brass is a substantial revenue stream for ranges that are well managed. Such has been the case for quite a while; it's been at least a decade since I've seen a large, public, outdoor range that completely ignored brass on the ground.

[Rover]

You can pick it up and sort it, then sell it for a good price. The leftovers go for salvage and still get a good price.

Go for it! Then you can buy us all a round.

[pcw]

I think I'll bring it up as a 4h project.

[Misny]

Our indoor range collects and sells .22 brass. Not all scrap yards will take it though.

[Guest]

Be careful reselling range brass. In this litigation-happy society, you might get sued for something that really isn't your fault.

The RSO's at our local range are allowed to pick up brass for their personal use, but they are not allowed to sell it. The range does recycle a lot of brass to fund small projects.