Common Problems with Range Brass?

[RogerDat]

Nice if one can get a big batch and sort by head stamp. Length can matter for crimping with longer brass getting a different crimp than short brass. A one time trim on straight walled brass isn't necessary but can help get more consistent crimps. 9mm tends to be one of the cheaper brass, sometimes selling for just a touch more than the scrap yard will buy it for as scrap brass.

[Ateam]

I would not sort range brass for practice in a handgun cal. Just look at head stamp, tumble, load, shoot, repeat. You will find a few makers of brass that just suck, I immediately throw away any A-MERC I find. You will develop your own "prejudices".

[rondog]

Watch out for Berdan primed 9mm Luger brass. Not terribly common, but I find them often enough to make me wary. When I'm sorting out my brass pickups after a range trip, I stand the auto pistol brass upright on a flat surface, usually an old cookie/baking sheet. It's a PITA, but I can quickly identify and pluck out .45acp, .40S&W, .380acp, and 9mmMak. I use some large tweezers and pluck out everything non-9mmLuger.

Then I herd all the 9mmLuger brass together, and look in them with a flashlight. This way I can find the Berdan cases, and any pebbles/dirt/critters in them.

But I'm known to be OCD, and usually bring home at least a 2 gallon bucketful of range pickins. Have about 10 gallons each of 9mm and .223, getting to be a nuisance.

[texasnative46]

Personally, I can hardly wait for the "sighting in days" at our local military post club range, as FEW people there "police their brass" & it's "free for the taking" at day's end.

I picked up LOTS of .30-06, .308, .270 & .243 cases last year.

yours, tex

[Mr_Sheesh]

Agreed on pistols eating most anything; Especially if you use a progressive press. (I do tend to remove the primers on "new to me" brass, and before I got a steel pin tumbler I would use a nut pick that I'd filed a tiny chisel tip onto the end of, to remove grunge from primer pockets for rifle brass at least; Have to see how the new tumbler works, getting close to the first run here.) If you crimp at all you WILL want to trim to the same length (or verify length using a quick & dirty gauge) for consistency; 9MM a little bit of a roll crimp maybe iirc? I'm far more OCD on varminting rifle rounds tho An LED light is a nice thing to use to inspect the inside of cartridges, I like warm white ones more than cool white (More sunlight-colored.) And I save my neck cracked rifle cases to make shotshells for the 45ACP out of, I need to get more of those together. On new military cases, remove the crimp in some sane way o'course.

[rondog]

Never ceases to amaze me what I find at my club range. I've picked up more .270 Win, .300 Win Mag and 7mm Rem Mag than I can even count, tons of .30-06 and .308, truckloads of .223/5.56, and recently found an unreal amount of new 10mm brass, which is unheard of.

Also found a pile of enbloc clips for M1 Garands, and one day found 60 live .44 Special and .44 Mag rounds! Brand new factory ammo, just dumped. Must have been harsher than he thought.

They run tactical pistol and carbine classes there fairly often, and if I'm the lucky brass monkey that finds it I usually score big time. Thousands of .223, 9mm, .40S&W, and .45acp. I really do have buckets and buckets all over the place, my wife thinks I'm a lunatic. But that brass is going to help fund my next rifle!

[Mr_Sheesh]

Rethought this. I think the real problem is that I don't have anywhere near enough!