Was there a sign or posted rules stating to not take brass out of the trash?
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Oh yeah.
They sweep fairly often and there are signs on all the ranges that say 'all brass on the ground belongs to the range'.
I was on good terms with the range masters and they'd let me sweep & take what I wanted if it wasn't busy.
They said it saved them the trouble of doing it themselves.
That's why I never learned to anele rifle brass. With a few thousand each of the common calibers I load,
.30-06, .308, .30-30, and plenty Magnums in .300 & 7Mag, I've never fired any of them enough to worry about it.
Other than that, they were pretty strict about brass. You were welcome to take your own, but that was all.
They sorted and sold once fired rifle brass at the time for $5.oo per 100 common stuff and 50 of belted Magnums.
And sorted pistol brass sold by the pound for about double what the scrap yard would pay.
2-3 times a year they fill what didn't sell into 5 gallon buckets in one layer of a pick up bed, and it went to the scrap yard.
I have seen some things, There was a guy trying to sight in his shotgun for deer season. From his viewpoint he could see his slugs hitting high on the bank. So he adjusted his scope down to get on the target. Next string hit higher. He became angry and would not listen to me telling him he was hitting the ground about half way to the target and his slugs were skipping to a high impact on the bank. He needed to come up, not down but could not accept that I might be right. Then there was the guy loading bird shot in his Muzzle loading pistol and shooting at a piece of plywood about 10 yards out. First shot produced some ricochet and he got hit hard enough to make little red marks on his exposed flesh. Oddly , he thought , second shot same result . And there was the guy trying to shoot a 9mm parabellum pistol using 9mm Makarov ammo. The guy at the gun store said it would work. It didn't.
There actually is a round frequently called 45 Short Colt... 45 Cowboy Special. You can buy it retail through Starline. Used for a few odd guns and probably mostly a handful of cowboy action shooters to reduce case volume.
https://www.starlinebrass.com/45-cowboy-special
But I doubt that guy knew it. :)
We call those sideways bullet holes "line cutters" or "cheater loads". We had an experienced hand loader show up with a new cast boolit load to try at our local military rifle match. He had 20 out of 20 hit the paper side ways and almost won the match. It was amazing how well they actually grouped.
Next time I see him, I'll ask him what caliber it was, it may have been a 7.5x55.
He decided he needed a little more load development before the next match. Half a dozen years later he's still getting razzed about the "line cutters".
When I was qualifying for my cpl, I asked the instructors if it was OK for me to pick up my brass, as I was reloaded my ammo. They had no problem with that. Matter of fact, one of them mentioned they liked to see those 45 holes I was putting on the target, everyone else were shooting 9's. When the shooting was over, I started picking up my brass, and to my surprise, a bunch of other students started picking up brass and dropping it into my bucket. I think I ended up with 4 lbs of brass.
I was in a pistol match a few years ago. A bullet out of my 1911 came back and struck the bottom of my glasses lifting them up a 1/2" which really scared me. I said the steel plate had to be adjusted. They ignored me. The next guy had much heavier load in his 1911. The first round came back hitting him in the chest hitting him hard enough he bent way over clutching himself with both hands. I complained to the range employee. He said he wasn't going to do it. He said we all signed waivers so suck it up. I didn't go back
Ted
Even with waiver signed having a complaint and doing nothing about it is probably forcing on negligence.
Also, I was at a gun show in the early 1990s. Usually at opening on a Sunday the dealers are talking to each other having a good time. That morning it was as silent as a tomb. I asked what happened. I was told one of the guys was at a bowling pin match in Iowa and a .45 ball bullet came back hitting him in the forehead killing him. The guys were thinking about how it could have been them. .45 ball is notorious for rebounding.
I shoot a lot of Makarov (9x18). You would be amazed how many people think it’s perfectly fine to shoot 380 (9x17)out of a gun chambered for 9x18! I even saw someone try 9x19 out of a Makarov! Thankfully the chamber was not deep enough and the gun wouldn’t go into battery! Considering how much higher pressure 9x19 is!
7 MM mag will chamber in 300 Win mag. Cases come out with really short neck and group looks like a shotgun pattern.
Another occasion, two show up to sight in for hunting season. The “expert” had done all the reloading. First guy says “is this normal?”. “Sure, that’s the way it’s supposed to be”.
They had to beat the bolt open on every round. I left. They didn’t want my opinion.
Like the guy at Maybee walking around with a loaded AK, one in the chamber and a full magazine sweeping the line with the muzzle. I asked him politely to clear the action and remove the magazine until I instructed him to load for the stage at a military shoot.
He told me that he was perfectly safe, he had been in the army and knew how to handle firearms.
It took about 3 seconds for it to get a little testy. He did clear the rifle, but I made it abundantly clear he did not need to come back.
He was offended.
Didn't bother me a whole lot.
But I'm a jerk.
My rule is that if I need to act stern in order to make a situation right, the other guy is the jerk for putting me in that position. Walking around with a loaded gun like that ought to get you booted from any range where there’s more than one person to a berm.