Public Range Rant

[chuckbuster]

Went to the public range today, Shot the .480 Ruger SRH. Had a nice afternoon. When we got done, closing time, the guy that was about 5 bays to my left (he and his buddy to the left of him only others there) did a cursory sweep of his bay for brass then brought the broom and dustpan to me and basically said here you go...

Problem is I started at a clean bay, shooting a revolver and being a reloader everything I brought in was packed and ready to be carried out (even the wrapper off my "disposable" earplugs). The ground around me WAS LITTERED with his throwaway .380 ACP brass that had started 20 feet away or more. I did sweep up what had HIT me and was therefore under my feet, left the rest. He did not pickup 10% of what he actually shot.

My question after all this;
Should I be as TORQUED as I am right now. Held my tongue at the range, maybe I shouldn't have.

Thanx for listening.
Rant off
KDK

[spqrzilla]

Nope. You should have brought home all his brass.

Profit.

[462]

"Oh, you don't want it? Okay, I'll take it."

Some people are just too stupid to reason with, and life is too short to try.

[chuckbuster]

I looked at a round after it bounced off me, looked like steel case or maybe CCI Blaser. Not sure he was smart enough to know the difference. I heard him complaining to his buddy how he "never had a problem sighting in".

Shooting a 3 inch barrel, fixed sight semi auto at 25 yards with no rest.....

[Armorer]

It sounds like he was one of the "oblivions" that I seem to run into frequently. Mostly on their cell phones in traffic,...but I digress. I would have swept up every piece of brass I could get my hands on. The range I shoot at is dirt/gravel so sweeping is out of the question, but I still try and pick up as much brass as I can. Even the stuff I don't shoot, because someone just might be wiling to trade for it. I generally am not happy unless I leave with more than I came with.

my ¢2
Armorer

[WILCO]

Some people are just too stupid to reason with, and life is too short to try.

Yep. [smilie=s:

[mold maker]

I stopped using the range nearest me because they decided not to let us keep our brass. They sell it at $35. a five gal bucket, but not mine, or to me.

[Ole]

I stopped using the range nearest me because they decided not to let us keep our brass. They sell it at $35. a five gal bucket, but not mine, or to me.

No way in heck I would ever shoot at a range where I couldn't pick up my own brass.

[Buckshot]

mold maker
I stopped using the range nearest me because they decided not to let us keep our brass. They sell it at $35. a five gal bucket, but not mine, or to me.


No way in heck I would ever shoot at a range where I couldn't pick up my own brass.

...........You bet! If I couldn't recover my own brass I wouldn't shoot there either. Of course that might not be the owner's rule but the RSO or rangemaster who was on duty. Our old range changed the "Brass Rule" a couple times. For quite a few years the rule was that if it wasn't yours, it belongd to the range. I can certainly understand that. Plus the rangemaster was paid a mere pittance, so he sold sodas and brass to suppliment his income.

After he passed away the new rangemaster (who was paid an actual liveable wage) didn't give a rip so it was a free for all. Then another rangemaster who also didn't reload and didn't want to bother sorting brass realized it was quite valuable as scrap so we were back to the "If it ain't yours you can't pick it up" rule. He actually installed 5 gallon plastic buckets behind each bench and brooms with dust pans interspersed every 5 benches or so down the line. I always shot on Tuesdays and sometimes he wouldn't get around to emptying them after the weekend and seeing all those buckets half, or close to half full of brass going for scrap would make me crazy:shock:

I even said I'd pay him the scrap price plus some if I could pick it out. He said no as he didn't want a bunch of people doing the same thing. I can also understand that too, but DANG!

.................Buckshot

[FISH4BUGS]

When I go shooting at our range, I usually give msyelf about 15-30 minutes extra to go through the 10 5 gallon buckets for any useable brass. I even scrounge for calibers I don't own guns for - save it for trade material later. For instance I have some 400 30-06, 200 30-30, and the like that I have picked up over the years.
I LOVE people that don't keep their brass. It saves me money and feeds my lead and brass scrounging habit.

[Trey45]

I'd like to see a range officer try to stop me from picking up my own brass. I OWN THAT BRASS, I bought it! Just because it cycled through my gun and landed on the deck doesn't mean my ownership of that brass has ended, it ends when I SAY IT ENDS! Anything less is theft. Take it to the bank bucko, anyone who stands between me and my property and tells me it's not my property anymore because of some arbitrary "rule" they just made up is going to have more problems than they bargained for. I'd say it's the same as your truck running out of gas, and you leaving it parked along the side of the road while you go buy more gas, HEY! your truck is empty and just sitting there, it must be up for grabs now right?

[Geraldo]

I shoot on a state range and can pick up my brass, but they frown on people going through the brass buckets although I do have some .30-30 that came from them.

What I always do on the rifle range is talk to the rifle shooters around me. Many of them come in with boxes of store bought ammo that they have no intention of reloading, and I can often get a box or boxes of once fired brass. :happy dance:

As for cleaning up after slobs, I've done it before and I'll do it again. Just because they are willing to leave a range trashed doesn't mean I should be.

[klcarroll]

If I read the O.P. correctly, "chuckbuster" was handed a broom and dustpan to clean up his Lane; .....along with the implied permission to keep the brass.

I would be a lifetime customer of that range! .....I'm WAY too cheap to EVER pass up free brass, regardless of caliber!

(Heck; ....I'd even clean up the adjacent vacant lanes for free!)


Kent

[fatnhappy]

I would be a lifetime customer of that range! .....I'm WAY too cheap to EVER pass up free brass, regardless of caliber!

(Heck; ....I'd even clean up the adjacent vacant lanes for free!)


Kent

I'm certain a fair amount of brass I've bought on this board originated in exactly that manner.

[tackstrp]

i set a bucket behind me . with a pooper scooper and small broom. amazing how many will clean their area and put in my bucket not the range bucket. What is the range master going to do . tell me what is his brass?

[gray wolf]

The problem isn't with shooting ranges, it's with stupid people !
The same stupid people that used to be ushers in movie house's
Give them a silly jacket to wear and a flashlight and they thought they were God.
The problem with many folks is they think when they meet a jerk, that person is just a jerk in that one particular incidence, WRONG. These people are the same idiots when they pump gas, shop at the 7-11, go to wall mart, try to create a sentence, or put two words together.
There just jerks, stay away from them, there a problem every place they go.
Try to make sense out of it and they will suck the energy right out of your soul.
So yes there are idiots with guns at shooting ranges, But they are idiots every place they go. Like Gear always say's " You can't fix stupid "
Can you tell I'm in a good mood today ?