Any good ideas for finding spent pistol brass??

9

98 220 swift

New member
Bought a EAA Witness in 10mm. Took it to the local public range Friday evening. This thing spits brass every where. Normally not that big of a deal with 9mm or 45 acp(I usually bring home more cases than I came with) But with the 10mm brass is harder to come by. Any ideas on a good way to make the brass easier to find? A large tarp will not work well because of the large area it sends the brass. Also being a public range could cause some issues with that. Luckly there was hardly anyone there that evening and I only lost 3 cases out of 75. I was thinking about painting them orange?:) Has anyone done that?
 
Even with a large tarp (30x40) on private property I lose a handful every time I shoot! With the different velocities (Underwood, Buffalo Bore, UMC, hand-loads, etc) they land all over the place and hard to adjust for! Where the 9mm, 40 S&W, 45 ACP seem to drop them all in the same place...
 
Wish I had a solution. Maybe the only one is to shoot a revolver.

I shoot outdoors with ground cover. There is always the loss of reloadable brass. :( I think some brass sprouts legs and flees after being fired or slithers off like a snake.

I have one pistol when seems to throw the brass into the next county.
 
Indoors or out? When shooting indoors I'll sweep the floor of everything before I shoot, especially in the general area the brass lands, Then when I'm done, everything I find on the floor in that area is mine. For shooting outdoors, in an unimproved "range" I polish my brass to a high gloss shine (my Garand brass is so purdy I sometimes don't want to shoot it!). My Garand brass and my 45 ACP brass is easier to find in the dirt if it shines...
 
When I shoot my 357sig, I have the same problem. I just make it a habit to tell the shooter to the right of me that I will be coming over to his/hers side to pick up brass, especially my 357sig brass. Lately I have been changing my shooting time to early in the morning at public places, which makes it less crowded and easier to find your brass. Good luck and I feel your pain.
 
I HAVE THE PERFECT SOLUTION, and you'll NEVER lose another 10MM case.
Have MR. Hamilton Bowen, THE pistolsmith to God, take an old worn OM 3-screw Ruger 357MAG sixgun and convert it to the 10MM cartridge. I can knock down 8" plates at 200 hundred meters all day long with mine and ALL, and I do mean ALL, the brass drops into my right hand slick as a whistle.
And so it goes...
 
220,

I like going to national forests close to home, here in Colorado, for shooting and looking for brass. My favorite place is between Woodland Park and Deckers, CO in the Pike National Forest. It is not an organized place and is very popular; therefore, there is a lot of brass. Although commercial ranges are more convenient, I prefer national forests because I can turn a brass hunting and shooting trip into a fly fishing or camping trip or a small game hunting trip or all three.

The hand gun brass I find most is 9mm. The handgun brass I find least is 10mm. In fact, I'll bet I can count the number of 10mm brass pieces I have found over the past 6 or 7 years on one hand.

I don't know where you live or if you have access to public land areas but that would be my suggestion for finding brass and for shooting. You can take your large tarp, spread it out completely and recover probably 100 percent of your spent brass.

The problem we're having in Colorado with these easily accessible and very popular public land shooting areas is, TRASH. People take televisions, old computers, refrigerators and all sorts of target material then most people are too lazy to pick up their trash. The Forest Service is clamping down on these areas by limiting the places where you can shoot or closing them.
 
I feel ya on the trash. I have a wonderful place to shoot, its public land, but totally surrounded by private properties. Fortunately, one of the owners leave his gate open and has an open invite for me and lots of people to use his land as a cross though to go shoot. People leave so much trash its ridiculous. I feel that its really putting my "spot" in jeopardy. I try to go a little early know to pick up bottles and cans and ammo boxes and I make a big fire pit and burn as much as I can. But its overwhelming and I can barely make a dent. Especially with the electronics, propane tanks etc. Too far a hike to walk it out. Really disappointed in people that have such a nice privilege to an amazing private shooting arena allowing up to 800 yard shots. Idiots man, and they aren't kids for the most part....you'd think gun owners are generally decent responsible folks, I am learning that most could care less about others and their environment and just wanna drink beer and be idiots. We'll see what happens, but I would be crushed if that guy said "no more", although I wouldn't blame him one bit
 
Maybe the only one is to shoot a revolver.
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I can't stand chasing brass; and that is a major reason why I have taken to shooting revolvers.

I know that's probably not much help - sorry. It's just my two pennies.
 
I use one of these:
http://www.gracomodels.com/bigcatcher.html
Works fine, not too expensive.
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Next time someone asks for things a range should provide I'll suggest this...I think it would be really cool if each lane at my range had one of these.

Just think:
1. Get most of your own brass back.
2. Not get pelted so often from other people's brass.
3. Not have to walk around stepping on so much brass.

I might ask my range if I could set one up but wouldn't it be so neat if each lane already had one set up?
 
Some ranges use window screens held to the benches with c-clamps.
A diy version can be made with wood strips, screen material and a staple gun.
 
I've thought about buying a cheap kids butterfly net and mounting it vertically in some fixture so it can sit at gun-level to my right and snag all the empties.

Haven't tried it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.
 
One thing I've done to help find brass and know what is mine or someone else's is to get nickel plated brass. The shiny silver stands out a bit more on the ground to my eye and differentiates it from what most everyone else is shooting.
 
A friend of mine is a state certified conceal carry instructor. When he lays out his course of fire for the qualification day, he also lays out a huge Walmart tarp on the side the spent brass flies.

He allows anyone who wants to, to collect their own brass, but most don't. At the end of the day he just picks up the corners, one at a time, and scooting all that brass to the center.....then he lays a 5 gal. bucket next to the stash and scoops it in.......simple! Some people get all the perks.:)

I don't mine at all when he feels generous and brings me over a gallon once in a while.:rolleyes:
 
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