Raw material recycling: ranges

[desrt2]

Raw materials for ammo manufacturing are obviously taking a hit and have a small contribution to price inflation and aavailability.

Do any ranges, "mine" their lanes and backstops for led and copper? Firing line for brass?

It's reasonable to say that most civilian and LE ammo is expended at ranges. The military uses people/trees/buildings and air as backstops for their ammo and don't fire many rounds in training.

[GunNut666]

Most ranges recycle or sell their brass. I know Sunnyvale rod and gun reclaims shot from the hillside.

[postal]

Brass is worth a lot of money for scrap metal recycling.

Copper is too, but copper jacketed lead wouldnt be worth hardly anything.

Pure lead shot would worth recycling to an ammo company.

Consider the time/effort involved and the worth of the materials.

Aluminum is a great example. In CA, ONLY because of "CRV" cans are worth about $2.00-$2.25 per pound.

Aluminum not as a can, is only worth about $.50 a pound. CRV is a scam I wish would go away. You never get full CRV fees back when you recycle. (which you were supposed to...)

[jameshenry]

U.S. gov has it's DRMO for surplus sales. Brass is surplus scrap and can be gotten by the pallet. Its on the web.

[BenHa]

Just curious but where do you recycle your fired brass?

[I Swan]

Usually at the same place that will take your aluminum cans.

[-hanko]

Just curious but where do you recycle your fired brass?

In my vibrating bowl with walnut shells, then on a reloading press.

-hanko

[BenHa]

This is old reloaded brass

[foxtrotuniformlima]

Most big scrap yards will have a price for yellow brass.

[dustoff31]

Raw materials for ammo manufacturing are obviously taking a hit and have a small contribution to price inflation and aavailability.

Do any ranges, "mine" their lanes and backstops for led and copper? Firing line for brass?

It's reasonable to say that most civilian and LE ammo is expended at ranges. The military uses people/trees/buildings and air as backstops for their ammo and don't fire many rounds in training.

My sportsman's club doesn't, but I do. Been lead "mining" my local range for years. It's kept me quite well supplied.

I used to get a lot of brass as well. Not so much the past couple of years, but still enough to for my reloading needs.

[MrPlutonium]

Brass is worth a lot of money for scrap metal recycling.

Copper is too, but copper jacketed lead wouldnt be worth hardly anything.

Pure lead shot would worth recycling to an ammo company.

Consider the time/effort involved and the worth of the materials.

Aluminum is a great example. In CA, ONLY because of "CRV" cans are worth about $2.00-$2.25 per pound.

Aluminum not as a can, is only worth about $.50 a pound. CRV is a scam I wish would go away. You never get full CRV fees back when you recycle. (which you were supposed to...)

Not just that but it creates a market where people bring in crv marked cans from neighboring states...

[postal]

Any real metal recycler will take almost any kind of metal. Copper, brass, alu, steel, electric motors...

Your local grocery store parking lot 'cash for cans' wont.

I do heating and AC for a living. When I replace old equipment, I need to tear it apart and recycle it just to get rid of it. (and make a few bucks doing it too- but it's a lot of labor - low hourly wage) So I know the local metal recyclers which will take any type of metal.

They'll take brass and copper. Pure yellow or red brass is worth money. Pure copper is worth money too. Thats why people were stealing plumbing/power wire from new construction. It's copper.

Copper plated lead is probably worthless like I said though.

I reload as well, but eventually the brass has weakened and cant be re used. It's still brass, and brass is worth money at a recycling center.

[postal]

One more thing.....

I work on my scrap when I have the time and separate it as much as I can within reasonable time limits. I wont spend 5 minutes to separate the brass nut on a copper water pipe for a whopping 10 cents worth of brass....

But when I do take my scrap in.... I fill up a 6x8 utility trailor and make $200-350 depending on how much brass and copper I have- I have a lot of steel (cheap) "breakage" like an electric motor is also cheap. But it's the only way for me to get rid of it.... and I make a little bonus when I do.

However, I own a business, and with the right paperwork get paid on the spot when I take this stuff in.

In Cali, to deter theft of valuable metals, a regular individual with more than $30 of copper or brass must wait 3 business days to get paid for the police to have a chance of determining if the materials were stolen.

This does not apply to cans however.

[CGT80]

If copper coated lead is worthless............I want some. My range would probably be a PITA to mine but I have considered it. I do pickup lead off the top of the surface when I see it. After a rain seems like the best time. The range sits in a mountain canyon with a river bed in the bottom, so it is very rocky.

Some military bases do mine the berms. A lot of people will use their ranges every year. Some of them are open to public competitions as well, from what I have read. My bother was offered a job running heavy equipment, moving dirt, so that a facility near San Diego could be mined for bullets. I highly doubt they scour the desert looking for bullets and brass, but on the man made ranges, it makes sense to recycle.

The shotgun range I was going to was mining the skeet fields last time I was there. You can buy reclaimed shot for loading shotgun shells.

Indoor ranges have to clean out their traps, since they are usually very small compared to the dirt berms in an outdoor range.

I have read of a number of people being lucky enough to collect lead or brass from law enforcement ranges. Some do recycle their own material, too.

It is possible that they didn't bother recycling when metals were cheap, but now some ranges depend on money from recycling, and the pay out is much better.

[edgerly779]

Military surplus brass is no longer available. To win the bid you must have an end user cert. and destroy the brass from weapons military sales. Every week thousands of pounds from bases goes to scrap. I reload all my brass and buy more when I can get it. I mark all my ar brass so I can identify it at range.