Indoor range sells spent brass to recycler

[Silver Eagle]

I recently took my Son to a local indoor range for some target shooting and noticed all the brass on the floor. I asked an employee what they did with it and he said, "We sell it to a local recycler, it helps pay for the range." I asked him about selling it as once fired and he said that they make more off of the recycler than they would reselling it. Went as far as saying that the sold brass pays for the cost of keeping the range open.
Fortunately they do allow shooters to collect their own brass.
My question is: Is the money made from the recycler more than can be made than for selling once fired? Seems like a tremendous waste of good brass to me.

Silver Eagle

[oneokie]

By selling to the recycler, they avoid having to sort and count or weigh the brass.

[Recluse]

When you factor in the cost of labor to sort it and count it, yep, MUCH more profitable to call in the local recycler and tell them to sweep it up, write you a check and haul it off.

Also factor in how much JUNK brass are in those piles--22LR, oddball brands that are barely worth loading one time let alone multiple times, cracked and split brass, etc etc. Then there are the shotgun hulls, gunpowder, trash, etc found on the floor which ultimately ends up in the brass barrels.

My LE partner had an indoor range and gun store and we paid his kids to sort the brass, then we sent it off to be reloaded--some company in Denver, I think, who gave us a decent price break for supplying our own brass.

But keep in mind, this was twenty/twenty-five years ago. Price of brass has skyrocketed.

[Jim]

By selling to the recycler, they avoid having to sort and count or weigh the brass.

.....and advertize, keep track of orders, package it, haul it to the post office, pay the shipping, deal with late/nonpayment.....

Been there and done that. Sweep it up, load it in buckets, haul it to the recycler, get the check and you're done. Much easier, quicker and more profitable.

[44fanatic]

If its worth your time and money, you may be able to offer them the recyclers price for what you want...of course you will have to sort your own.

[Jim]

Right now, in the area where I'm working, I'm getting a buck to a buck, twenty a lb. for what they classify as 'dirty brass'. The market price fluctuates, so there's no tellin' from one week to the next what it will be.

My buyer told me that if his buyer (commercial smelter) has an 'explosion' in his smelter from a live round, he would be fined $500. If that happens, I'm out of a buyer and would have to start all over.

Buyers communicate and keep track of sellers with bad reputations. I and my crew have to hand sort all the brass we separate out of the soil or rake up behind matches. There's enough work involved in just that. If what I'm getting paid for dirty brass were under a buck a pound, I wouldn't mess with it. I've got way too much to worry about trying to produce a ton of ingots a month.

[Freightman]

I was offered the brass from an indoor range at scrap prices and I would have done it but about that time I had a spell of medical issues, replaced a knee, ripped all the mussels loose from my right arm, cut the main tendon in my left hand ect. Never got back to him and I do not shoot at a indoor range it chokes me up.
Yes I am a accident waiting to happen, but I am tough.

[winchester85]

scrap brass at $2 per pound is ok, but if it is rifle brass, it is worth far more a cartridge brass than scrap. right now 7mm rem mag brass is going for over 30 cents a piece, in scrap it is worth about 6 or 7 cents. is it worth it to sort it for 24 cents a piece? hell yes, even including your time there is money there. if it is mostly handgun brass that is a different story. but the labor can be greatly reduced by some simple screens to filter out all the dirt and ****.

[StratsMan]

When a new range opened in our area a couple of years ago, they tried sorting/boxing/selling brass at $30/k for awhile... It didn't move... (45 was $50/K)...

I think the problem is that there are relatively few reloaders in any given community compared to the total volume of rounds being shot... Most folks buy/shoot 9mm, and there were boxes and boxes of 9mm sitting on the shelf with no demand. Luckily, when I asked about 38 and 357, they said that their sorting machine couldn't tell the difference so they didn't bother to box them. They let me sort through a couple of buckets of those and take all the 357 I wanted for $30/K.... At that price, I took them all.... Wish there had been more, but most 357 shooters must keep their brass... Only found a few hundred cases....

That only lasted for 3-4 months.... Now, they too just sweep and recycle....

[mold maker]

I've recently been to several ranges and was given the same old song and dance. It's a hazardpus material and has to be sent to a licenced recycler.
BS.
Someone has poisened the pot, for profit.

[rmatchell]

Our local range sells it unsorted buy the pound. Though they don't have a scale, I picked up two Five gallon buckets for a hundred buck. It was a pain to sort by hand but well worth it.

[btroj]

If I owned an indoor range I would sell it to a recycler too.
Recycler doesn't need it sorted or cleaned. Recycler will never complain that they were shorted or got a bad case. Recycler is a single customer, not many. Recycler allows me to move all of it at once.

The range is in business to make money. They want to do it easily. They are not in the business of providing cheap brass to reloaders.

It was a business decision, a sound one most likely. Get over it.

[frkelly74]

Seems traitorous to an old scrounger from way back. But then I am not making any money to speak of at present. It did probably hurt them to sell out at first perhaps but business is business, they must have gotten used to it. And it is probably more profitable to sell new ammo than to encourage people to save by reloading.

[Wayne Smith]

I haven't heard anyone say you can't buy it from them unsorted for the scrap price and sort it yourself. You would save them the delivery costs, as I doubt the scrap dealer picks up!

[km101]

My local range will not sell to an individual at any price, much less "scrap price." They cite liability issues, and dealing with small quantities as the problem. But I find it hard to belive that the will not promote reloading and/or selling brass to customers who will then patronize their business! Again, it's just easier and more cost effective to recycle it, but it hurts me to see good reusable brass melted.

[TCLouis]

I wonder what current scrap price is?

I have 3, 5 gallon buckets and a couple of sacks that would likely fill 4 - 5 more.

Need to convert it into wheel weights.

[9.3X62AL]

Someone has poisened the pot, for profit.

NO--say it ain't so!

That sure as h-ee-twice toothpicks happened with lead and alloys of same. It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see how running such a scam involving cartridge brass (haz mat......C'MON, MANG!) could corner a market niche.

Thankfully, range sites and their brass policies run from the sublime to the ridiculous. If one place gets surreal, another will likely be more accomodating. Just like lead, it's where you find it, and sometimes a bit of Kabuki Theater is involved in acquiring it.

[troy_mclure]

My local shooting club/range sells their brass to a recycler. It pays the gas bills for the mower and tractors for the year.

[GL49]

Last time I sold 40 S&W brass, I was asking $40 for two thousand, delivered, and didn't think it would ever get sold. At that time, I could have gotten $2.12 per pound at the recyclers, that's $42.40 for the same box of 2000. That's why they recycle the brass. I would rather sell it at a loss than take it to the recycler.

[Adam10mm]

My question is: Is the money made from the recycler more than can be made than for selling once fired? Seems like a tremendous waste of good brass to me.

Depends on the price of scrap paid. Here its $1.30-1.50 per pound.

9mm is 8lbs per K
.40 is 9lbs per K
10mm is 10lbs per K
.45 ACP is 13lbs per K

9mm can be sold for $20-30 per K
.40 can be sold for $20-35 per K
.45 ACP can be sold for $50-70 per K

@ $1.40 average for 1,000pcs (K)

9mm $11.20 vs $20-30
.40 $12.60 vs $20-35
.45 ACP $18.20 vs $50-70

You will get more money with selling the brass as reloadable brass, but you'll need to factor labor in sorting the brass.

Scharch makes automated machinery that does this. It sorts the brass by caliber, but it costs $11,000 or so. Worth it if you're in it for the long haul. How many people does it take to sort that much brass at what price, payroll taxes, worker's comp insurance, etc versus a machine with one person running it? If the range gets a lot of brass it can be worth it. Scrap is a last resort. It's always worth more as brass than as scrap, but it's the labor involved in sorting that eats at the bottom line.

Scrapping brass is a fast check with low labor, but the smart ones that can make it work realize it's a slow check, low labor, small investment. A respectable range can make the investment back in 2 years or less. Looking at an average difference of $22 per K in brass versus scrap: 200,000 pieces a month is $4,400; nearly half the cost of the sorting machine. Difference in a year is $52,800 in revenue. How many range rat salaries is that?