Range Brass?!?!?

I never bought or will be selling brass (need it myself) and may be in a sorta unique situation here, but the range I go to and pick brass from is small and pretty much everyone knows everyone.

We have 2 kinds of shooters:

1) reloaders who mark their brass and pick up after themselves. If they don't get their brass - it's garbage.
2) those who shoot new factory ammo and neither reload nor pickup after themselves.

I either ask or get permission from non-reloaders to keep their brass, thus I know it's good :)
 
The majority of brass I dig out of the garbage can has the original primer, so it's once fired. Some folks just like to shoot off a box and dump the brass or leave it laying on the floor(more common!)
When I bought "once fired" at a show for maybe 1/3 of the retail of new brass I won't be shocked if it's been fired more than once.
If it's a concern, then go buy new brass. My range brass is all inspected and FL sized. I'm trying to get 1000 .308 for my m14, and I don't care to pay a buck apeice for it.
I watched 2 guys with garands shoot off some federal premium about a year ago. I bought a p17 a couple of weeks ago. Guess where my brass came from.
I just filled a pail with .40 and .9mm thanks to the local cops!
 
"I have been doing this for close to 30 years now. I have only bought new brass once. Nov for my Wife's new 243 when I bought it for her. everything else has been *GASP* range brass *oh the horror*. I always just picked it up, tumbled it at home, inspected it, separated it, bagged it and whn I had a bag of 50, I'd use it. Man, have I been wrong! Oh BTW, I hunt. That's it. No squeezing out the last ft/s and loading up to the max. And I can still drop a moose at 600 yds if I had to with "range brass". Sorry. I have been in error all these years and still have all my parts."


I have been driving like a mad man for forty years.
I have drank a bottle every day for thirty six years.
I have smoked 23 cigarettes daily for forty three years.
I have consumed a burger and coca-cola every day for thirty one years.

"oh, the horror"
 
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Don Doucette said:
Well since some of you decided NOT to read what I wrote I'll get out the crayons and draw you a picture...

OK simply put...

Guy advertises brass 1F, how does he know????
It's F'n range brass it could be 200F?!?!?!
Yeah yeah blah blah blah, I should know this and a reloader should know that... hey dim wit, you don't have the brass in your hand yet do you??? So you can't look at or measure SQUAT!!!! :jerkit:

So you buy the range brass advertised at 1F, find most of it is useless, now what? you may have got a good deal but... You can polish a turd...
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There is such a thing as 1F range brass, it is usually collected after a LE or security training session. Also, many commercial ranges have requirements that reloads can't be fired in them, and therefore the brass that started there is 1F.

If someone advertises 1F brass, and you buy it and it isn't - well then, you got ripped off and like if you bought a new handgun that turned out to be in fair-used shape, there are routes to complain and chase the con artist that hooped you.

One other thing... apparently some of you don't shoot a semi auto handgun like a glock do you... I wouldn't touch 9x19 range brass with a 10 foot pole for fear it came from a glock with a stock barrel... I reload my 9mm but then my glock has an aftermarket barrel now that is a lot kinder to the brass.
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9mm Glock barrels support the casing just fine and reloading brass shot out of a 9mm glock is not an issue. The issue is with 40 cal which is unsupported and runs hotter; there is a solution for that brass - it just requires additional equipment over the basic resizing die.
 
I have still had no problems with my .40 Glock brass. FL resize and it drops into the chamber with no problems. Even after a couple reloads. I think the glocked brass issue is overkilled.

Errr I mean, never buy any 9mm or 40 range brass that you don't know what it was fired in. It'll keep the price down that way for the rest of us.
 
Don Doucette said:
It's F'n range brass it could be 200F?!?!?!
Don Doucette said:
Bet i've got 45 that's that old, keeps on trucking.

So you buy the range brass advertised at 1F, find most of it is useless, now what? you may have got a good deal but... You can polish a turd...
Hmmm, unless its squashed or shot, how is it useless? Other then berdan primers (which i'm not gonna deal with, ) or military 9mm, (which i'm too lazy to deal with) i've never found range brass thats a turd. I bet i've not tossed out a dozen cracked handgun cases in 6 years.

One other thing... apparently some of you don't shoot a semi auto handgun like a glock do you... I wouldn't touch 9x19 range brass with a 10 foot pole for fear it came from a glock with a stock barrel... I reload my 9mm but then my glock has an aftermarket barrel now that is a lot kinder to the brass.
Also for accuracy sake, and I'm not in the .25MOA group, I like to fire form my rifle brass.
Yep, i fireform my range brass if i'm using it in a bolt gun. Most of my range stuff is handgun, and i don't care what you shot it out of. If its' 40 it gets a careful check, but G17's are way kinder to hot 9mm then a 1911 in 9mm is. Not that it matters, they both size back fine, and keep on shooting just fine. If i need super reliability for hot defensive type loads, i'll get factory brass or once fired, but for everything else, whatever i get free or cheap works perfectly. For what it's worth, other then fluted chamber P7's, 9mm lasts a lifetime if every load isn't +P+

I wouldn't have a problem using range brass but only if I collect it and inspect it myself, buying someones interpretation of 1F brass does not seem wise to me.
well, if your inspecting it anyways, who cares what they're selling it as if the price is good!

Thanks for your time.

Don
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:DYour Welcome!
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I reload my 45acp brass about a dozen times (soft load) then resize it to 400corbon and shoot em through my racegun, and then leave the brass.

But no one ever picks it up :(
 
Once I have enough of a particular calibre, the I buy a gun for it![/QUOTE]
I got about 400 pieces of .223 rem so I guess that I should soon look in to getting myself a rifle.and yes its once fired as it has red sealer on the primer.:D
 
Generally you can tell by the colour of the primer and the sealant around the primer if 1x or not. If not then could be 2x, 3x... really not matter as load and amount of sizing then determines wear - which is the reason for inspecting brass before reloading (including the paper clip head separation test - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE0A5IsR1dA a really good clip).

Do sort brass though as the Lake City (and some others) tends to be thicker / smaller volume / hotter load and dont bother with the two hole berdan primed brass.

Just bought brass for the first time ever (and only because not see any on the EE or the range bucket for over a year).
 
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