How to find brass in the grass?

Luckily for me, the range I belong to has a "You find it, its your's", policy on brass. One of the main reasons I pay $100/year for unlimited access. I have been know to show up and spend 3-4 hours picking up brass and going home without firing a shot. :shock: I don't shoot a ton of 9mm, 40 or 45 ACP but I have not bought any brass in 2+ years and I have sold around $200 worth. The afternoon after a concealed carry class is the best. All the newbies leave their brass, even the 38/357 shooters.

As to how to find "brass in the grass", mowing short is the place to start, if it is your place you are shooting at. If not, it gets tough to find. I have to agree with the previous post about your feet. Once I find a piece in an area, I scoot my feet along the ground and I find almost all that is there. I have developed a pretty good eye also- I found a 4-leaf clover the other day in a friend's back yard. The toughest shells to see are the ones that land open end up.

I also suggest a "Gopher" that you can pick up in the checkout aisle at Wal-Mart for about $10. It's a grabbing device with little plastic cups on the end of it. Definitely saves the old back. :wink:

My dad uses the tarp method. His problem comes from the various semi-autos throwing brass at different angles so he has to change shooting positions to consistently hit the tarp with the brass. :?

Happy shooting and reloading!

32Magfan

The range I shoot at, www.advancedbullets.com, is a business hours only gunshop/ammo shop (new and reloaded) full service range/trap/sporting clays. They have had a reloading business for many years, and they use the dropped brass as part of their operation. I probably should have explained that better.
Pic:

Well,
I never heard of a range saying if it hits the ground it is theirs.
That doesn't happen at the ranges in Texas
When I do go to a public big name range YOU PICK UP YOUR BRASS. So take me off of your kind of range. Most guns that I shoot spit that stuff on the ground. All my stuff is old stuff. Leaver guns SxS shotguns and even a bottom feeder now and again.

Jim

Hi,

When I ran a trap & skeet range, the rule was what hit the ground was ours. We were somewhat lenient w/ folks shooting autoloaders: they generally used shell catchers for singles on the trap fields, but they don't work when shooting doubles, whether on trap or skeet fields. So...

We picked up and sorted the empties: "once fired" hulls were counted and sold "by the bag" while junkie stuff was sold "by the box" for those who weren't picky. There's a lot of money in empties, 'specially after big tournaments! Our policy and practice were in line w/ most of the clay target ranges I shot at across the country.

My former home rifle/pistol range had a policy that everybody policed their area when finished shooting, so picking up brass was ok for years. That policy changed as the price of brass started going up, and they needed every penny they could get to fight the lawsuit that eventually shut 'em down. We still policed our own areas, but were 'sposed to dump all the brass in the buckets. It got sold to a scrap dealer.

The range I use now is operated by a concessionaire on USFS land. The rangemaster generally allows us to pick up what we want, but we don't police our area. He does that at the end of the day and scrounges the "good stuff" for his own use. I dunno if he sells the rest as scrap or what.

It seems the policies are pretty variable. You just have to ask where you shoot...

Rick C

If it was on your property, I would Kill all the grass around the area you shoot and put in pea gravel. That will certainly help.

I used to shoot on the beach in Nome, because finding my brass in the sand was much easier than in the grass. Don't think I ever lost a piece of brass that way.

Greebe

I used to shoot skeet with an 1100 Remington in .410. I was constantly amazed at how easily bright red .410 hulls vanished in bright green grass. They almost always seemed to land brass end down in the grass, so I was looking into the open end of the shell.

Having had the same problem many of you have, I came up with this. I made it up and had the wife sew the 'basket'. Originally made it of a plastic bag, but the hot brass.....

;

I saw an ad for one and originally ignored it, thinking that it attached to the pistol, which is not acceptable to me. Went back and took another look, and realized it was on the ARM, not the gun, so I built up some prototypes until I got one that worked.

The 'frame' is just a piece of coathanger; the wrist band is some scrap leather with some strong "Velcro" sewed/glued onto it.
Works pretty good with my 40, but the 10 MM throws the brass so hard I haven't even tried it yet. Maybe next time out...

Shoot44, that's very cool.

And before anyone says it looks funny, think about how you'll look spreading out a tarp in your shooting area, assuming your range allows you to do that kind of thing.

I think I'll make one of these. Thanks for the idea!

-- Sam

I saw a guy clamp a fish net to the beam next to him at the range. It catches his shells pretty well.

I like the idea of the coat hanger bag. Seems like an innovative solution that won't break anybody's budget.

Yosemite Sam":39le17we said:

And before anyone says it looks funny, think about how you'll look spreading out a tarp in your shooting area,

-- Sam

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...or crawling around on all fours scrounging for those little golden nuggets... :lol:

Almost all of my .45ACP brass was bought used or scrounged at the range.

Just a little "P.S." to my post about the brass catcher: I tried it Saturday with the 10 mm. Had to push it way down my arm onto my wrist to get the bag lined up with the ejection port, and rotate it CCW to get it over the top of the port but when I did this it caught ALL OF THE BRASS!!

It actually works better with this pistol than with the 40 or the 9 mm. I think it is because the 10 throws it so hard that the stiffness of that 'canvass-like' bag doesn't affect it. The pistols that toss them 'softer' often hit the bag edge and bounce out, whereas the 10 hits it so hard that they push it aside and go in. Every single one was down in the bottom of the bag. Color me happy!!! (I don't have much 10 mm brass, so I really don't want to lose any of it!)

(I'm glad that they didn't pop out and come to rest between my wrist and the bag as the 9 does sometimes. Those 10 mm puppies are HOT!!!)

If you have access to the range after dark go back out with an LED flashlight. The brass will shine quite well and allow you to recover most of it.

I used to have a home range and offered my kids a $0.01 bounty on each piece of brass they picked up for me until I realized they were raiding the bucket in the reloading room!

Tslepebull":po8c13px said:

If you have access to the range after dark go back out with an LED flashlight. The brass will shine quite well and allow you to recover most of it.

Click to expand...

Well, that depends on where you shoot, I think. Our pistol range is used heavily by rimfire folks, and so it is absolutely LITTERED with 22LR brass. And all of it 'shines well' when illumintated by a light. So the problem is not finding the brass in the light of the flashlight, it is trying to differentiate a 40 or 10mm case from all that 22 brass!

I live in the country and can shoot in my back yard. I have tried the tarp method and found it to be a pain. One day I was at Cabela's in the camping department. I bought a cheap camping shower they had on sale. It is 5 1/2 ft square and 90 inches tall. I stand in that and do my shooting. When I am done with it I just put it back in the garage until the next time. I leave it assembled and it is light enough for one person to move it. Since I started using this, I have not lost one brass case. Plus it allows me shot even if it is raining out.