Brass recovery at PRS match?

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Maple57

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The last couple years I attended the Meaford PRS match and did not recover a disappointing portion of my brass. I would say largely because some person self appoints himself to control the brass at the end of the stage without any agreed upon format. If shooters aren't watching like a hawk the brass finds its way lost quickly.

I go through a lot of trouble prepping brass and would like to see improvements that better respect the property of shooters while maintaining expedient timing.

I'd personally like to see a dedicated labelled bucket follow each team from stage to stage for their brass. At the end of each stage all the brass goes into the teams bucket and the shooters could pick through it from there. At least this would be a consistent system that I think would work better than a pile of brass in the grass somewhere.

15 teams = 15 buckets each labelled "TEAM XX"

Any thoughts or better ideas?
 
Down at RLRR the shooters who were not shooting in the next couple of minutes or the ones who had already shot policed the brass.

This is how it is done at SAPRL/CDTSA/WRAS matches as well, it seems to work fairly well.

I know Meaford is very popular and can get crowded so maybe Kris & Ryan have a specific reason as to why they do it a certain way. It would probably be best to ask them.
 
Just shoot Lake City brass like me, other shooters fall over themselves getting it back to you in case it contaminates their lapua or alpha brass.

Seriously though, every match I’ve shot including Meaford, if you have completed a stage, you should be policing brass and helping the current shooter clear off the line to keep things moving. It’s pretty simple really.

Why didn’t you un-appoint the self-appointed guy who was stealing your property?
 
What's been said above. Police up the brass for the guy who's shooting. I've never lost more than 10 or so pieces of brass at a 2 day match (Meaford included) and I shoot ####ty brass so I don't really peck around like a hen looking for it too hard, haha.
 
Hornady brass.. shoots great, dirt cheap... if I have fired a piece several times and loose a few.. oh well.

No big deal.

For my mental focus, I don't want to be worrying about my brass to the point where it is THE focus of a stage/after a stage. Ideally, someone is helping you police your brass and you end up with pretty much all your stuff. If not, I will call it a cost of the match and leave it be.

The cost of gas and hotel/food is many times more then a hundred pieces of used brass... at least that is how I think of it and how I choose my gear.

Jerry
 
Maple57 said:
The last couple years I attended the Meaford PRS match and did not recover a disappointing portion of my brass. I would say largely because some person self appoints himself to control the brass at the end of the stage without any agreed upon format. If shooters aren't watching like a hawk the brass finds its way lost quickly.
Click to expand...

Must have been your squad, I shot Meaford last year and doubt I lost 5 pieces all weekend.
 
Work with your squad to police your brass. I usually expect to loose 10 pieces of brass per match. They are usually lost off the side of a hill, long grass, between rocks etc. Luckly at Meaford we are on a pad. If you mark your brass you should loose nothing. It is up to the squad to sort out how to do this, just make sure you do not hold anyone else up. Be smart about it. Let a few shooter complete the stage then gather it up. We have a 120 shooters and 30 staff to worry about, you can take care of your own brass. Or just factor it into the cost of the match.
We shot the Gap Grind last year and lost 30% of your brass.

Cheers
Ryan
 
Rather than defend the status quo, why not consider the possibility that there might be a better way than piling our brass in the grass?

I can hear the RO now...

If you are finished shooting your stage... move on to the next stage!!! Cmon guys keep it moving... We are running behind.

Oh crap... I didn't get my brass yet...

Screw it... I'll just shoot the next stage and go back and get it

Where is my brass guys?

I don't know... We left it over there somewhere,

Or....

Here's the white pail labeled squad 5 all brass goes in it for squad 5,,, one place to look... one place to find it.

Sure the odd case will get lost in the rocks or in the grass somewhere, that's not what I'm talking about.

You know what... screw it... I'm bringing my own darn pail to Meaford.
 
I was there last year, shooting on a concrete pad, there is no grass to pile the brass in. After each stage our squad tried to grab as much brass as we could, we'd grab it, move off behind the shooting line, drop it in a pile and sort it out. At the end of the weekend there was a big pail of brass that lots of people dug through, including myself trying to find it. I did lose more brass last year than I did they year before, however I blame that on myself as well as the squad dynamic. The squad didn't really communicate well about certain things and that was one of those things. Also the AR15 guys don't seem to care if they get their brass back or not, and our squad had a few of AR15's.

Or perhaps bring your own pail and ask the people in your squad if they would like to toss their brass in it and go through it when the opportunity arises. I think it's a good idea, just shouldn't be up to the match directors/ RO's.
 
If other people are taking your brass, I'm guessing that you aren't making it. Meaford is the easiest match in the series to recover brass at. Everything will be shot on a concrete pad as it was last year. It doesn't get any easier than that. If you mark your brass it should be very easy to recover. That is what people do at every other match if they want to recover their brass. Everyone tries to mark it in a way that will be different than everyone else so that they can identify it quickly when it's in a pile with everyone else's brass (at some matches ALL of the brass gets dropped in a big pile at the end). They use different colors, different patterns, different marking locations. Between that, the head stamp and the primer color, you should be able to identify your brass.


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A batch of brass ready to be loaded for a match:
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In dry dusty climates, marking the sides can cause issues, but it has never caused me an issue in temperate climates like Ontario. In dusty places, I will only mark in the extractor grove.
 

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Brass from the MPA match I shot last weekend. Used a purple Sharpie in the extractor grove because Georgia is hot and dusty. Only lost 9 pieces...

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I do get it kombayotch... I did the same in both past events at Meaford... I even painted my primer pockets pink of all colors. (because I know nobody else would use such a color) It just doesn't help quite as much as you'd think when there's piles here and piles there that become a mix from multiple squads among the fog of competition.

And I know there's that pile at the end of the day... I dug around in it as well.

It looks like your brass pictured has been neck turned, and you put a lot of time into brass prep just as I do and you'd prefer not to loose it, partially for the cost but more so for the time invested.

I buy brass in lots of 2,000 and weigh every single one... I write the weight of each case right on it and then sort them out to within 0.1 grains. I then group them in lots of 100 with as many as possible being the exact same weight. I put them in an MTM ammo box and that family live together for the life of the brass. Never mind the time spent neck turning and annealing. Yes I am quite anal about my hand loads, 20 years of F Class tends to cause that.

I'm not trying to be critical here, I hope you appreciate that. I know it's just "how things have always been done."

I'm just hoping to inspire a slight tweak to help both the match directors priorities to keep the competitor moving along and relieve that little distraction in the competitors mind regarding the collection of his brass.

A simple 5 gallon bucket for each team resolves all this. It would also make it faster at the end of the stage where guys collecting the brass just throw it right into their team bucket instead of walking away with only whatever they can hold in their hands, making multiple trips to the stage pile.
 
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We can do the bucket for each Squad. That's simple enough. But, it's going to be up to the squads to move their bucket.
 
The cost of gas and hotel/food is many times more then a hundred pieces of used brass... at least that is how I think of it and how I choose my gear.

I here this a lot. Also why cheap out on a barrel? I don't consider my self cheap but try to be thrifty with my change. A few bucks here and there allow me to go to that one more match.
 
I don't think it's about the "cost" of the brass.

In this gentleman's case it's about the hours and hours he spends matching cases to each other for uniformity.
And he knows exactly which ones he brought with him and he wants to take them home.

I don't see providing a bucket per squad as a big deal, and obviously the match provider doesn't either.
 
I marked my brass last year and again this year.
I shot my relay and got the hell out of the way for the next shooter.
When the next shooter (s) finished their relay, I picked up everyone's brass that I could.
I pilled it up on the ground just back of the range officers.
Picked out mine and left the rest.
Others around me did the same as I saw lots of piles at each stage and one big pile at the end of the last day.
If there was a pail, I would have dumped it out as it would be easier to find mine spread out on the ground.
I lost 6 pieces.
SRSA311
 
I asked around at the match and got a mix of opinions... Some guys were kind of indifferent and other guys were quite pleased with the change.

For me at least... it removed any hesitation to hang around the stage I just fired so I could get my brass. Instead when I was early in the rotation I just moved onto the next stage and got focused.... the brass pail found its way over.

I thought it worked great.
 
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