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Well....... not really an adventure, more like an observation. 
The club I belong to here in ID is inexpensive, only $40/year for membership. Comes with a caveat though, a member has to volunteer 10 hours/year before they can renew. RSO, Assistant RSO, range cleanup, painting, repair, that sort of thing. One of the chores is to clean up brass left behind at the end of the day, and then sort it for resale in the clubhouse.
So lately, after finishing a match I've been taking big buckets of brass home to sort. Pretty easy work, helps the club, and I get my hours in about a 2h/week dose. Easy-peasy. after sorting 10 or so buckets, I've noticed a few things.
First, it's no surprise that .223 and 9mm are the most common. That stuff is literally everywhere. Out of every 5 gallon bucket I sort, easily half of it is comprised of those two calibers.
In second place for rifle brass left behind is .308, which kind of surprised me. I expected that one of the cool calibers would be in front, .308 being "obsolete" and all with the new crowd. Nope - big bags of it, all over the place. Third, 30-06 is almost nowhere to be found - same with 270. Maybe a small handful in every bucket, but no more. I find more 6.5CM than 30-06, but still not much.... those folks probably take it home to reload. Surprisingly though, 7.62x39 always has a good representation, and I probably find 50 - 100 cases per bucket. Good stuff, too - mostly Norma. That's a head-scratcher, I would think those folks would be saving their brass for reloading as well. In last place are the oddball calibers like 30-30, 300 Blackout, Valkerie, various belted magnums, the odd .303 and 8mm, etc.
For pistol brass, after 9mm comes 40S&W, but not all that much. 10mm makes a showing, but maybe at most 15-20 cases per bucket. .38spl sometimes appears, very rarely .357, and rarer still .380. Out of all the buckets I sorted there was about 30 - 40 pieces of .45 Colt, but that was all in one bucket so probably just one shooter having a field day with a new toy.
No real conclusions form any of this, except I can't figure out for the life of my why anyone would pay for .223 or 9mm brass. The range is practically paved with it. Also - maybe the "legacy" calibers like 30-06 are still being well used, but those folks tend to pick up their brass so the caliber goes under-represented in the bucket.
The club I belong to here in ID is inexpensive, only $40/year for membership. Comes with a caveat though, a member has to volunteer 10 hours/year before they can renew. RSO, Assistant RSO, range cleanup, painting, repair, that sort of thing. One of the chores is to clean up brass left behind at the end of the day, and then sort it for resale in the clubhouse.
So lately, after finishing a match I've been taking big buckets of brass home to sort. Pretty easy work, helps the club, and I get my hours in about a 2h/week dose. Easy-peasy. after sorting 10 or so buckets, I've noticed a few things.
First, it's no surprise that .223 and 9mm are the most common. That stuff is literally everywhere. Out of every 5 gallon bucket I sort, easily half of it is comprised of those two calibers.
In second place for rifle brass left behind is .308, which kind of surprised me. I expected that one of the cool calibers would be in front, .308 being "obsolete" and all with the new crowd. Nope - big bags of it, all over the place. Third, 30-06 is almost nowhere to be found - same with 270. Maybe a small handful in every bucket, but no more. I find more 6.5CM than 30-06, but still not much.... those folks probably take it home to reload. Surprisingly though, 7.62x39 always has a good representation, and I probably find 50 - 100 cases per bucket. Good stuff, too - mostly Norma. That's a head-scratcher, I would think those folks would be saving their brass for reloading as well. In last place are the oddball calibers like 30-30, 300 Blackout, Valkerie, various belted magnums, the odd .303 and 8mm, etc.
For pistol brass, after 9mm comes 40S&W, but not all that much. 10mm makes a showing, but maybe at most 15-20 cases per bucket. .38spl sometimes appears, very rarely .357, and rarer still .380. Out of all the buckets I sorted there was about 30 - 40 pieces of .45 Colt, but that was all in one bucket so probably just one shooter having a field day with a new toy.
No real conclusions form any of this, except I can't figure out for the life of my why anyone would pay for .223 or 9mm brass. The range is practically paved with it. Also - maybe the "legacy" calibers like 30-06 are still being well used, but those folks tend to pick up their brass so the caliber goes under-represented in the bucket.
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