Where would you buy military once-fired brass from?

[OnceFired]

Hi all

Thought I should post this question here - seems like the best place for it.

Been talking with friends I've known for the past 25+ years for the past several days. We are strongly considering jumping into the military surplus brass business. I'm posting to all the communities I am a part of, to do a bit of research.

We have already done extensive investigation into the costs associated with buying up on of those epic-sized auctions. I'm not talking about 10,000 cases - I'm talking about 5,000 pounds of brass, or significantly more (@223 that'd be approx 370,000 pieces as a ballpark)

What I'd like to learn is which vendors do you trust if/when you choose to buy military surplus once-fired brass? We'd like to look at the competitors whom you trust the most, and who have the best reputation among the reloading community.

All feedback is welcome. I am cross-posting in a number of places, so you have my apologies if I gotcha more than once.

ZAG

p.s. I finally got around to a re-run round of casting, with my mould after it was returned from Lee customer service. I'll post about that tomorrow - it's a bit late here in TX. :)

[dbosman]

For that quantity, you purchase from the government.
You need to have equipment to handle open top tips, tubs, and luggers. Any trucking company can pickup tri-walls and gaylords. Good luck.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Look at Top Brass. They are one of the biggest surplus sellers out there and that is evidenced by their consistant stock on hand.

You also need to look at methods of processing the product. Nobody is going to pay you what you need to make for unprocessed "Range Brass" put into plastic bags.

I just bought 1000 rounds of once fired Lake City(federal) 5.56 brass that was cleaned, sized, trimmed, and primed for .23 ea!. This was a very good deal as it was ready to load.

You'll have to have several Cement mixers running full time 24hrs a day to keep up with demand. And that's just for cleaning. If you really want to keep up you'll need several people running those machines full time.

IF you want to offer fully processed ready to load brass then you'll need a few loading machines set up to run automatically. You will also need ways to count the product and make sure everyone is getting what they pay for. My bag from Top Brass had exactly 1000 cases in it, normally there is a few extras just to make sure.

Your new business will be all about coping with the vast numbers of the pieces that you'll be dealing with, and number of operations necessary to handle them all. Procurring, cleaning, processing, counting, packaging, storing, taking orders, filling orders, shipping, collecting the money, maintaining $accounts, creditcards, paypal, and probably a few I haven't thought of.

Those 370,000 pieces you spoke of above would yeild 370ea. 1000 round bags. As soon as you have a presence on the internet you will sell all of that every week. Planning ahead so you don't run out of product is of paramount importance.

Nobody likes to see "OUT OF STOCK" When they need a product.

There's a lot to doing this and if it was that easy everyone would be doing it.

Randy

[Guardian]

Everglades Ammo has done well by my father and I.

[Love Life]

Amen on what Buchanan said. It all depends on the scale you want to sell at. By Sunday I will have just washed, dried, cleaned, boxed, and shipped 15,000 pieces of Milsurp 308 brass in a week. I do eveything my self, part time after work, with my wife just doing the post office runs. I only offer certain amounts at a time so I don't get back logged, but then again I do it as a hobby so I can buy cool stuff.

A cement mixer works well and allows you to tumble close to 60 lbs of brass at a time. I am currently switching to stainless media because it provides a better product, with less steps, and the time to clean remains the same if not faster than the cement mixer. With my stainless tumbler I can clean 1,000 pieces of 308 at a time. It was not cheap, but to me it was a justifiable and worthwhile investment. It also cuts out the washing and sundrying part of just the cement mixer set up. Dry the brass in a food dehydrator while the next batch cleans. Dump and repeat.

Price is important as well. Price to low and you lose out. Price to high and you lose out.

I feel safe buying from any of the major vendors. Provide a quality product for a decent price and your reputation will get customers.

Hit a price bracket that is sustainable in the highs and lows of the market.

[perotter]

http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/endecaSearch?Ns=P_Lot_Number|0&cmd=keyword&N=0&words=brass&Nty=1&Ntt=brass&No=0&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchall&Ntk=P_Lot_Title

If you're serious, this is where it's at. Anywhere from 500# to 62,000#. Sometimes it's mixed and sometimes not. And it never goes for scrap price that I've seen.

[kbstenberg]

Do you have a website for your brass yet?
I would personalley prefer the brass as you get it. Kevin

[OnceFired]

Hey all

I did end up getting brass from GovLiquidation. I forgot to add this thread to my sub list, and just had Duke Nukem point it out that I missed replying to it. :)

My site is www.oncefiredlakecitybrass.com

I put the store together using Wordpress, and it communicates the inventory right there. I started with 1,000lb lot that actually only had about 700lbs of brass when you take out the pallet & the ammo can weight. So, it was a bit higher price per 1,000 pieces than we wanted, especially during May when we acquired it & prices were nutty. And we had to pay sales tax on it and learn the ropes on shipping etc.

But, we are now dollar-cost averaging our inventory, and doing things super efficiently so we were able to reduce our price.

The big thing positive is that we have inventory and are now competitively priced. :)

Once Fired

[Artful]

Good for you! I'll keep you in mind when I next need 223 - post back if you get some other calibers - you might also look into shooting range pickup's some of the ranges I infrequently go too won't let you pickup brass then they sell it all mixed to someone - might as well be you.

[r6487]

i saw a discussion concerning this a short while back--most of the responders were like me, they may buy 1k-5k 308 or 223 at a time, and the top issue was price, most don't want somebody else depriming and polishing to a mirror finish. if it ain't resized i am going to lube it up and full length resize so that high luster finish it came with don't mean a lot and is certainly something i don't want to pay extra for. most guys that buy in that bracket (1k-5k)have all the stuff to clean and polish their brass after it is FL sized and before it gets fed into a dillon or other progressive and can also swage any military primer pockets too. gb is full of $180.00--$215.00 per k mil 308 batches. i scrounge thru there looking for the occassion $120-$150 per K batch. No1 son bought 2500 223 military local $125.00, we seem to find it local cheaper than on-line. I personally like wcc 9mm military(cause of the thicker walls) for use in open bolt SMGs. Buy that in 5K increments from pat's reloading. no real demand for 9mm mil brass cause of swaging. i am definitely in a minority with that. seems like her lately since everybody likes the appearance of brass wet tumbled with lemi-shine & steel pins the price has gone up relative to their labor to make it super shiney.

[Love Life]

Price has gone up relative to the cost of auction prices going up.

Most auctions are usually up over $7.00 a lb. That is before the tax and 10% auction fee. Then there is the picking up or shipping the brass. Cleaning it allows you to ask the price you have to get to break even and add a little jingle to your pocket.

I really doubt you are running straight from the barrel brass into your full length sizing dies. You get a box of straight from the barrel brass and then you have to clean it. More than enough people are willing to pay a little extra to have the brass already cleaned so they can get straight to full length sizing.

Some like the primer pockets swaged. They pay extra for that because it takes more time and effort to do it.

Wet tumbling, for me, is not to get max value. It is to allow for quality control when sending out brass. You can spot defects much easier in it. It makes it much easier to control weight (no dirt, spider webs, rocks in the brass) on a counting scale. It makes the hundreds to thousands of pounds of brass easier to work with all around once it is cleaned.

After watching the auctions (.Gov) in the last several months, the sellers CAN'T offer the old prices of $150.00 per 1,000 308 shipped and $75 per 1,000 5.56 shipped or they will lose their backside. You see it at the majority of the MilSurp suppliers in the pricing sheets.

I hate to break the news, but the prices have shot through the roof on the .Gov auctions. Not only that, but the auctions have been in smaller weights (60 lb to a couple thousand lbs) which allows more people to buy in, which increases buyers, which increases bids, which increases prices. Not many people can gobble up a 60,000lb auction, but a whole bunch of people can bid on a 1,500 lb auction.

Face it. Prices have gone up and will stay up for the foreseeable future.

Some may charge extra for wet tumbling. Some may do wet tumbling just to make their asking price more palatable. Just the way it is.

[OnceFired]

I'm right there with LoveLife on what's happening. I am analyzing ALL the fired brass auctions on a data level, so I can have pricing fluctuations at the top of my mind on every auction I am considering. It's high, and the price since last October went through the roof!

In may, my first auction came in at about $8.70 per pound (before premium, tax, and shipping) and frankly nearly 30% of that weight wasn't actually brass.

So I clean the brass to make it easier to sell. Besides, if I was selling brooms, or cars, or computers - would you generally want to buy a dirty one? :) It's Marketing 101. Does it need to be spit-shined showroom quality, no. But it needs to look good and make a solid positive impression.

OnceFired

[Love Life]

Prices have gone up significantly. Mid last year auctions were going for about $3-4$ per lb. This year they have doubled. Sometimes you get lucky on an auction, but for right now, the majority of auctions are STEEP.

I say this so people understand the cost in milsurp brass right now. People feel it should still be selling at $4-$6 per lb shipped, but it just is not feasible. Even if you got it for that much at the auction there is still the tax, 10% auction fee, and Picking up the brass from the auction or having it freighted to your location. Then comes the fun part of sorting out blanks and stuff.

Until the demand is filled, and people stop buying auctions, milsurp brass is going to stay a bit high.

[257]

another thing to look out for is if it went thru a popper (heater to set off live rounds) if the guy running it was haveing a bad day and ran it way hotter than nessary it will have been heated to the point that it is ruined for reloading we bought our first load in 09 12,000 lbs cost us around 1.18 lb had to pay for two open top dump trucks. now it sells for 7.00 lb or more the china guys are buying it about 75% of the gov auctions are going over seas

[Love Life]

Popper fired, any popper fired, brass is to be considered scrap brass. Anybody who cleans it to sell (either through ignorance or intentionally to hoodwink people) needs to be let known the ramifications of their actions.

[OnceFired]

If the brass is going overseas, those buyers must not have the same arrangement I am under or are completely breaking the terms of the auction. I cannot sell to anyone outside the USA, and went through a background check from the Department of Defense, and warrant that I will not sell outside our borders, or to clients I believe are reselling overseas. Perhaps 257 you are referring to the non-restricted auction lots? (i.e. not fired brass, etc)