Tag: range pick-up

June 22, 2023 – Is It Really Worth It?

June 22, 2023 /

In today’s world, the cost of ammunition is astronomical compared to three years ago. I have mentioned this before, but I like to pick-up shell casings that people leave behind. Shell casings or brass is one of the four components of reloading and happens to be the single most expensive one.

The downside of range brass is that you really don’t know what you are getting. I have discovered that military brass has a primer crimp that removing adds an extra step. Imported ammunition also tends to have some variation as well. In this find, I have had at least three different casings that I have managed to pull the rim off of the shell holder causing a lot of extra work.

Once the case is stuck in the die, get ready because it is not coming out without some work. Step one is disassemble as much of the die as you can. Good luck because the parts are not separating without force. Then I have to drill out the base for a threaded tap. I tap a hole for a bolt. The bolt goes in against a stack of nuts and washers to eventually pull the stuck casing.

Even once the casing is out, there are still parts possibly stuck in the casing or the die. I have to split the casing to get those parts out or drive a punch through to get remaining parts out.

So much for free. I bent two decapping pins on trying to remove primers. Those are ten dollars a piece. You add all the extra effort for brass prep and it really seams like it is not worth the time and cost.

There may come a day when I do make that decision that it is not worth it. I am hoping that with enough experience that I can feel that something is going to happen before it actually does. Or maybe some day I will recognize headstamps that are more problematic than others. At this point, I recognize some of the ones that are working better and that is a start.

Fortunately, this is only a problem with one rifle caliber that I reload. Most hunting brass is shot on the rifle range and that is much tidier than the private bays of mostly pistol distances. Straight walled pistol cartridges are not a problem but the calibers that I shoot are no where near as common at this time.

End Your Programming Routine: I find reloading a really zen experience. It is part of the reason why I pick-up range brass because I hope that I can get enough to do another batch. That being said, I don’t like damaging or breaking parts and it certainly doesn’t help the bottom line argument. I will power through this batch and get better.

October 13, 2022 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

October 13, 2022 /

Have you ever heard the history of the metallurgy of the penny? I am not going to cover that specifically you can look it up but in 1982 the penny was changed from 95% copper to 5% zinc to 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper. The entire purpose was that the cost of copper was worth more than a penny. I will join this to the rest of the topic later.

One of the things I typically do at the range is pick-up what is called range brass. This is brass that other people have left of the ground. Technically, we are all supposed to do our best to clean-up after ourselves. Some people do not. I usually take a look around and if there is something useable, I pick it up. I always pick-up more than I take and the rest goes into the recycling bin. More on this later too.

A word of warning, ultra cautious shooters warn that this is a potentially dangerous activity. We do not know the history of the brass and it could be ‘wild catted’ or out of specification in some manner. My take on it is that these are shooters that are just lazy. They shoot and then they leave. If you are not willing to pick up your brass, I highly doubt that you are going to reload, let alone wildcat. I suppose that you can tell I feel like the risk is very minimal.

Some people take this pursuit to a different level. They pick up and take all brass, whereas I only take brass for calibers that I own. They will clean and resell brass at places like gun shows. Sometimes, they do some sort of hobby reloading business and reload the brass. The fact of the matter is that the gun club does the exact same thing. They sort through the recycling bin by caliber and resell in the pro-shop at a good rate.

For rimfire cartridges and damaged casings, these can be sold for scrap. The going rate is $1.75/lb. It doesn’t take long for this to really add up to some real money. The gun club donates all of that money to youth shooting sports that use the facility for practice and events. The truth is anyone can do this too.

This was my haul last trip. There are almost 400 rounds of .223 Remington/5.56 NATO in there. I am seeing $5/lb for straight off the ground brass to $50/250 for cleaned and prepped brass. I guess what I am saying is that it is worth the effort to pick it up. Within the mix I have crushed cases, crushed necks and some really difficult primers to remove. So not every case is usable, but that is OK because I don’t have anything invested into them anyway.

The US military picks up range brass too. Some of that is sold back into the marketplace as ‘once fired’ brass. This is a lot of what you find if you are looking for anything that is not new. People buy it off of surplus sites and then count it, rebrand it, etc. A lot of it is also shredded and sold for scrap. But you can see how much more valuable the cartridge cases are based on the paragraph above.

I think is worth mentioning that not all cartridge cases are brass. They can also be made of steel or aluminum and now plastic has just been introduced into the market. None of those can be reloaded, so I just throw those into the recycle bin. All metals have a scrap price, so they are still worth money.

End Your Programming Routine: I am waiting for my replacement rods to come from Lyman. I have bent several of them messing with .223. I also broke one pin and bent the heck out of another on my Lee Universal depriming die. I am hoping that this is just me learning to feel how to do it, but if I can get powder and primers, I can make ammunition much cheaper than I can purchase it retail. But, since I don’t have a load worked up yet, I will just do the case prep waiting for the consumer market to catch up with inventory.