Bought Brass Question?

[2wheelDuke]

I'm looking for some input here.

Once upon a time it seemed unheard of to pay for brass. Some of the ranges here have really clamped down, I got yelled at for picking up brass last time I went to an indoor range. I haven't been back there since.

So I bought 1,000 .45 once fired a few weeks ago on the internet. Now I've got them all tumbled up, sorted, and accounted for.

Counting the 22 small primer Speer and 7 rejects, I've got a total of 968. I paid $85 plus shipping for them. Since then I've realized I can find better deals if I look in the right places, but I was running pretty short on .45 brass.

Is it worth sending an e-mail to the company I bought them from? I hate to whine about something kinda petty, but then again, I did pay for something I didn't quite get.

[gray wolf]

You might just try a phone call and explain that you have about 30 cases that you can't use
and tell them why. I would not go into the price thing, if they send you some brass--great,
if they don't so be it. live and learn.
We had some once fired 45 brass selling for about 60 bucks for 1,200 on the S&S forum.
$20.00 for 400.
Load what you have and enjoy the shooting, we all take a hit once in a while.

Sam

[376Steyr]

In my experience, buying "once-fired" brass is a crapshoot situation. I've come to expect a few crushed cases, wrong caliber cases, loaded rounds, etc. I lump the lost cases against the huge discount that buying used gets me. Worst case I've had was from a large mail-order outfit that sent me a load of "once fired" .38 Special cases that had about 15% belled, or deprimed, or primed (!) cases, some of which may have been older than I am. Obviously their source had cleaned out their cartridge reloading service at the range. I weighed this against the fact I had paid something like 25% of what new brass would have cost, shrugged, and made sure I had my safety glasses on while I sized and deprimed.

[MtGun44]

"Unheard of to pay for brass" HUH?????????????

Brass is a commodity like any other. Sometimes you may find it left on the ground like
I used to collect pop bottles for the deposit as a kid. Other times, not. If the range
wants to keep YOUR brass, do as you have, find a new range. If their deal on reloaded
ammo sold by the range is that they get the brass back and you are picking up THEIR
brass, shame on you once you understand the deal.

97% sounds OK to me. If you want 100% perfect hand picked brass, expect to pay
even more. You paid 8.5 cents per case. Might find cheaper, new is more.

Bill

[mike in co]

on selling once fired brass:
first: one must have a reliable source.....a place where only new ammo is fired. police/agency ranges are excellent..if you ask first what they shoot. some agencies use commercial reloads for practice. my ranges do not use commercial reloads. having said that commercial sellers of brass, often have fine print in thier ad's. disclaimers on content....some as little a 1%, some as high as 10%.

second: it is too labor intesive for a BUSINESS to sort by primer size...you could not afford the brass. in my case i over fill my retail containers to compensate for the potential of small primer cases.

three: cases hide inside other cases..its a fact of life. in my business we go thru the brass at least three times to get to a single caliber...and even then things get through. again i compenste buy over filling.

on buying once fired brass...specifically 45acp.

who the heck cares ???....gentlemen the 45 acp case is one of the least stress cases in use. while the limit is 21kpsi, most loads with 230 rn are down around 18kpsi. these cases,(with proper care) will out last you and your gun!
so buy from someone you trust. read thier disclaimers. sample thier product. you have choices....buy form them again, find another source and try again, or buy new.
if you have some specific NEED for once fired...consider buying new and then you will know its all once fired when you shoot it the first time.

your price for 1000 pcs is very high. i sell the same for about 72 shipped...DO NOT ASK..I DO NOT DO INTERNET SALES.

YOUR count is wrong, you got 990 45acp cases that are reloadable...your choice to pass on the small primers, and 7 rejects by you.....your standards for rejects an his/mine may differ....so back up to 997 cases....in my opinion unacceptable when he sold 1000.....in my opinion the count should be 1000..or more,but never less.
did his listing in any way say there would be no small primer cases ?

now for the part that sucks....
educations cost money, you just got some more education.

mike in co
THE COLORADO BRASS COMPANY

[XWrench3]

well, i got into this reloading thing after the "good old days" were gone. but, if somebody yelled at me for picking up my own brass, i would tell them straight out where to put their range. picking up brass left by someone else is an iffy thing i guess. but still, i.m.o. you are doing them a favor, unless they pick up all the brass at the end of the day and sell it. and if they are doing that, they should let you in for free.

[mike in co]

well, i got into this reloading thing after the "good old days" were gone. but, if somebody yelled at me for picking up my own brass, i would tell them straight out where to put their range. picking up brass left by someone else is an iffy thing i guess. but still, i.m.o. you are doing them a favor, unless they pick up all the brass at the end of the day and sell it. and if they are doing that, they should let you in for free.

YOU ARE FUNNY........

and who pays thier taxes, thier staff, thier mortage/rent ? the electric bill ? the insurance ?

its so nice when people( without a clue) are so generous with other peoples money.

on an open public range you should leave it cleaner than when you got there.

on a club range, do what they say

on a private/pay for use range....you just better ask before pulling the trigger....the income from the brass is part of thier budget.

mike in co
THE COLORADO BRASS COMPANY

[runfiverun]

i guess thats why they make brass catchers eh.
i'd let it go for a few cases, the ones you got will last a long time and you'll find a few more as time goes by.
you'll lose some too.
if it's an issue shoot a revolver indoors, and expect to find/lose some outdoors.

[2wheelDuke]

on selling once fired brass:
first: one must have a reliable source.....a place where only new ammo is fired. police/agency ranges are excellent..if you ask first what they shoot. some agencies use commercial reloads for practice. my ranges do not use commercial reloads. having said that commercial sellers of brass, often have fine print in thier ad's. disclaimers on content....some as little a 1%, some as high as 10%.

second: it is too labor intesive for a BUSINESS to sort by primer size...you could not afford the brass. in my case i over fill my retail containers to compensate for the potential of small primer cases.

three: cases hide inside other cases..its a fact of life. in my business we go thru the brass at least three times to get to a single caliber...and even then things get through. again i compenste buy over filling.

on buying once fired brass...specifically 45acp.

who the heck cares ???....gentlemen the 45 acp case is one of the least stress cases in use. while the limit is 21kpsi, most loads with 230 rn are down around 18kpsi. these cases,(with proper care) will out last you and your gun!
so buy from someone you trust. read thier disclaimers. sample thier product. you have choices....buy form them again, find another source and try again, or buy new.
if you have some specific NEED for once fired...consider buying new and then you will know its all once fired when you shoot it the first time.

your price for 1000 pcs is very high. i sell the same for about 72 shipped...DO NOT ASK..I DO NOT DO INTERNET SALES.

YOUR count is wrong, you got 990 45acp cases that are reloadable...your choice to pass on the small primers, and 7 rejects by you.....your standards for rejects an his/mine may differ....so back up to 997 cases....in my opinion unacceptable when he sold 1000.....in my opinion the count should be 1000..or more,but never less.
did his listing in any way say there would be no small primer cases ?

now for the part that sucks....
educations cost money, you just got some more education.

mike in co
THE COLORADO BRASS COMPANY

You're mis-interpreting my math. My TOTAL is 968, counting every single one that came out of the box. I'm really not that terribly concerned with the small primer cases since it's a relatively small number. If I were to count things on the anal side, I'd leave them out. I'm going to set those aside, I may have enough someday to start working up a load for them. Looking around the internet, it looks like some people are already.

There's no small print about their source, but the condition they came out of the box in leaves no doubt that the brass was from an outdoor range. They cleaned up quite nicely, so I don't care about that. Actually once of the "rejects" has a .40 case inside and is caked with mud so that it's just cemented in. 7 bad ones out of 1,000 is pretty damn good, that's satisfactory to me. Again, they're not counted against the 968

The listing just said they inspect them to try to get the crushed ones out, but they throw extra in to compensate. There was no mention of primer size at all. I don't see any mention anywhere on their site about how close they come to the number they sell, but the talk about "extras" basically implies that there should be no less than what you paid for.

Since I re-discovered this site and got around to joining, I've seen better prices in the classified section. Back when I ordered the brass, they were about the only site I saw at all that even said "in stock."

At any rate, I've got a whole hell of a lot more .45 than I had before, and the quality is pretty damn good on it. It should last me quite some time. I'm tempted to just let it go and call close good enough, I was just curious to see if there was any consensus one way or the other.

As far as the indoor range that wouldn't let me pick up brass goes, I don't have many plans of going back. It's probably the closest one to home, and is inside of a large outdoor store. There's nothing in their posted rules about picking up brass. The range master that told me that was a guy I've never seen there before. I actually worked in a different department back in the late 90's, and since they opened there was never any rule about not picking up your brass.

They did recently change their rules to say that they don't allow reloads of any kind. Ironically, they just started to carry reloading gear in the retail part of the store.

[jcwit]

Regarding brass at different ranges be they club,or hourly or what ever. Its my brass going into the magazine or cylinder, its my brass going out. Paid my dues joining or paying by the hour, never signed over my property to anyone else. In short it belongs to me and no one else.

[geargnasher]

My local range gives concealed-carry classes, among other shooting classes quite frequently. My FIL went for his renewal las year, and the instructor not only told them up front that any brass fired belonged to the range after that, but they had to pick it up themselves and turn it in. I was appalled. I will not ever take one of their classes. Oh, and he paid a hundred bucks for the four-hour recert on top of that, and was/is a lifetime member of the range!

I told him I would have asked for a refund and told them where to stick it if it was me. MY gun, MY reloads, MY money, MY freakin' brass, comprende?

Gear

[Dannix]

The only indoor range I've been to lets you keep the brass from ammo you bring in with you (but not the stuff you buy there)....but it's impossible recover it all, at least for me with a handgun that really sends the brass flying (will have to look into a brass catcher. The kicker is that if you do bring in your own ammo, they charge a 'lead disposal fee'. I almost laughed out loud. They're making money from 'lead disposal', not losing it.


2wheelDuke, I'd just live an learn. 96.8% from an unknown vendor, well, it could be much worse. I get all my brass from the classifieds here nowadays...which I think has worked well; I've never bothered to count the pieces, just bathroom scale weight estimation.

[qajaq59]

I got a lot of my rifle brass from Blue Star and I always gotten enough. But even he never guarantees that every piece is going to be Remington. To do that his labor costs would go thru the roof. Plus the poor guy checking them would be totally insane in a week. LOL

[Down South]

Many times you can find good deals here for once fired brass. You just have to keep an eye on the Swappin and Sellin section.
The indoor range that I was a member of and I did actually frequent the place a few times let me keep my brass plus a few more that may be laying around my stall. I won't be a member of a range that will not at least let me keep my own brass.
I can understand the principle of the range selling their used brass and I have no problem with that as long as I leave with what I brought.
Most shooters I saw in the range could care less about their brass. I would think most of them do not reload. That in itself should be enough to keep the range happy.

BTW, I did ask up front before I paid my dues if I could keep my brass. I did that because this is not the first time I've heard of ranges collecting all brass.

[sirgknight]

I guess most of us have learned from "ignorance" or "lack of knowledge" on a lot of things when it comes to reloading. That's where these forums come to be very handy indeed. This and other forums have a lot of good members and I purchase most of my brass through them. There's always the chance that you won't get exactly what you expect, but the cost is most always very reasonable. In fact, it's been a long time since I received items that I was totally dissatisfied with. The last .45 brass that I purchased cost me 5 cents each including shipping. There are a lot of good guys lurking on the forums who offer great buys on reloading items, knowing that they are helping out a fellow reloader. Just remember where you have been and return the favor to someone.

[Heavy lead]

When I need brass, I buy new, don't have to worry about it then. If a guy sorts the whole thing he'll have to charge you double, for that, you can buy new. I just don't have time to sort the stuff, so new it is.

[qajaq59]

When we started looking for a retirement home the first question I asked the real estate agents was, " Does your town have an outdoor rifle range?" Now I remember why.

[Down South]

When I need brass, I buy new, don't have to worry about it then. If a guy sorts the whole thing he'll have to charge you double, for that, you can buy new. I just don't have time to sort the stuff, so new it is.
I usually buy new brass (Starline) for my revolvers and hunting rifles. But for the semi auto's, I buy once fired. I loose too much brass out of the semi's. I also buy once fired brass for my AR-15. Buying as much new brass as I can run through that thing can cost a pretty penny.

[mpmarty]

I used to compete at GSSF (Glock) matches. At those you are required to leave your brass where it falls. Club sells it later. In each and every GSSF match I shot I brought Blazer aluminum cased ammo. Let them sort that!