Do You Shoot Tarnished Range Brass?

[justindad]

I’ve been picking up only shiny brass from the range and haven’t had any issues. Last time I picked up four pieces of .45 ACP that stayed brown after soaking in a citric acid brew for a while. I have a few thousand pieces of .45 ACP brass, so scraping these is meaningless to me. Nevertheless, does anybody reload heavily tarnished, brown brass?

[justindad]

I called Starline once about black spots on brass. The tech said that as long as there wasn’t any blue in the tarnish, it was ok. He and I did not talk about very brown brass.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

I shoot a lot of tarnished bras, not range pickups but brass I have had for years, tarnished but clean, inside and out. Unless it gets dirty by landing in the dirt, I see little need for 'mirror' finish brass, clean brass yes, shiny not so much. All the stuff to make brass shiny - walnut hulls, stainless pins et al. are ways to spend time and money but don't really affect accuracy and functionality. Dry wet brass or getting ground walnut hull/corn cob out of cleaned cases is a step I do not need.

[Winger Ed.]

It's some chemical action going on in the dirt that does that. Acidic, alkali--- something.
But its a stain like gun bluing chemicals do to steel. It's not corrosion.

Years ago, I had a source for range brass that sold me the ugly black ones for about 1/3 the price of shiny stuff.
I was getting once fired .45ACPs for $20. per thousand--- shipped.
I'm a dry media guy and the black stains never came off.
It doesn't hurt the brass any more than a tattoo hurts your skin or ink stains 'ruin' your clothes.

As far as tarnished, I had been reloading for a few years before I got a tumbler.
I'd wash the brass in soap & water, dry, size, de-prime, etc. then rinse in Lacquer thinner before loading.

[Arkansas Paul]

I generally don't anymore.
There's no logic to it. I've just got a thing for shiny brass, and I have a lot of brass stocked up for most calibers I load.
Obviously if I'm not well stocked in a certain caliber and have some brass that's turning colors, I load and shoot it.

Most of my rifle brass has the dark spots on the neck. Not sure what causes that.

[Czech_too]

I will use tarnished, but clean, range brass. I'll be the one that determines if it's clean.

Off topic, but I pick up all but .22 rimfire brass. To much bending for this older body. Any brass I can't use, or don't know of someone else who can use, goes into the brass bucket, which in turn goes to the metal recycler, which turns into cash.

[Tall]

I have bought and picked up range brass. I generally clean any brass until it is shiny, then reload it.

[georgerkahn]

Qualification: Common, popular calibres -- e.g., .38 S&W Special, .45acp. .380acp. .30 Win., etc -- I only use non-tarnished brass. However -- for some of the obsolete, old ones (e.g., .30-30 Remington) my choice is to reload and shoot brass with tarnish and spots -- OR -- not shoot at all. For hunting and real target shooting I load shiny brass to published loads. BUT, for the old-timers with the cruddy brass -- I hedge my bets by loading cast-only bullets with published powder quantities at the every lowest charge. Re "range pick-up"? I don't pick up other people's garbage -- including that left at range. I'm pretty OCD re picking up MY brass, and after "x" loadings I do not bother. Hence, anyone picking it up is picking up brass at its end of usable reloading life. I mark my primers with different coloured Sharpies to note loading numbers, and a few years back saw a bag or two of .38 S&W Special brass being offered at a Gun Show, which surely -- from coloured primers -- had been mine. And someone is going to buy/load this???
geo

[2TM101]

Sometimes I shoot on an unattended short range steel plate range where the gutter in front of me is filled with brass. I leave with three kroeger cottage cheese tubs full of it. Anything I pick up that is berdan primed, damaged, or a caliber I do not have, goes back to that same range and is dumped into their brass tub at the office.

If I pick up stuff that is steel, aluminum, or as you put it unusually heavily tarnished, I will still load and fire it somewhere where picking up brass is impossible. Twice a year I have to fire 100 rounds on an indoor range that never stops and most of the brass goes in front of the firing position where I can't get it back, and that stuff gets left there.

[dverna]

I had a couple of thousand tarnished 5.56 brass that took a long time to clean…days. I will not do that again as it is cheap.

My other brass is good enough to shoot after going through a tumbler or vibratory cleaner for a couple of hours.

I am not anal about shinny brass like some folks.

[sukivel]

I shoot it all, no matter the color.

However, I wet tumble mine to clean before it hits any of my equipment…so 30 minutes in the wet tumbler cleans it good, but 2 hours makes it sparkling shiny. I usually just start it when I’m going in for the evening and set the timer to 2 hours. Rinse and toss in the dehydrator the next day on a 2 hour timer.


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[Bazoo]

I have reloaded some that was pretty dark, but I don't normally as it's harder to inspect like that. I do save it though; The day I get a wet tumbling system I'll polish it and inspect it.

[slim1836]

I have to admit I shoot range pickup; I treat them just as would the others. Bottleneck cartridges get annealed before reloading. I only shoot cast now-a-days and loads are minimal.

Slim

[405grain]

Never in my life have I spent so much as a penny on 223 brass, and yet I have thousands of rounds of it. That stuff literally litters the Earth. I especially like to find military brass with the crimped in primers because then you know that it was only fired once. Yes, I have to do some cleaning up and case prep on brass like this, but the price is right.

[bimus]

Yes I will pick up all I find

[rbuck351]

Yeah, I collect and reload heavily tarnished brass but I clean it first.

[35 Rem]

I never go to ranges so don't get much opportunity to have "range brass" but have bought some from other people on this site. In handgun cartridges I have zero problem with used brass. I will buy used low pressure rifle brass SOMETIMES when it's in short enough supply. Although the only example I can think of was when I needed some 35 Remington brass during the early years of the Great Obama Ammo Famine and got 380 pieces that were in rough shape and was glad to get it. They gave me something to shoot until I was able to round up 400 or so new pieces a few years later. Out of that batch of used brass I had several case necks separate in the chamber. For all the high-pressure bottle neck rifle cartridges, I want new brass, or I will do without. Whether or not brass in any of these categories is tarnished or not matters not at all to me. Shiny adds nothing to accuracy or function. I run brass in a vibratory cleaner with walnut media for about 30 minutes and that's as clean as it gets.

[cwtebay]

Sometimes I shoot on an unattended short range steel plate range where the gutter in front of me is filled with brass. I leave with three kroeger cottage cheese tubs full of it. Anything I pick up that is berdan primed, damaged, or a caliber I do not have, goes back to that same range and is dumped into their brass tub at the office.

If I pick up stuff that is steel, aluminum, or as you put it unusually heavily tarnished, I will still load and fire it somewhere where picking up brass is impossible. Twice a year I have to fire 100 rounds on an indoor range that never stops and most of the brass goes in front of the firing position where I can't get it back, and that stuff gets left there.

You are reloading steel and aluminum cases?

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[libertyman777]

Policing up brass is a hard habit to break. I’m not even reloading much now and I still pick up brass. I’ve got so much 30/30 brass that I’ve seriously considered buying a rifle chambered to shoot it ����

[cwtebay]

I guess that depends on what it is. 9mm, 5.56, etc? Nope. I have though!!!
Much of the more unusual stuff I keep and use.
In college and grad school? I would load 'em if I found 'em

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