Is this a common rule at ranges?

The indoor range I use not only lets me pick up my brass...they encourage me to pick up everyone else's too.

Now if people would just drop their .38 specials on the floor, I'd be set. :p
 
Kyjim post #7-

An individual (personal) brass catcher.

Very interesting. I'm going to have to look into it. Thanks. Might be better than the other brass catchers that have been mentioned.
 
Yeah, they can set whatever rules they like; it's their place.

But I agree with those who would go elsewhere. If I was checking out a new range and they had that rule I'd simply leave. I've plenty of choices that don't end up with me losing all my brass (I never manage to keep it all, though- some always ends up forward of the firing line... if I keep 80% I figure I'm doing OK). I try to only keep my own brass and I don't annoy others who are shooting... I can even say I've never seen people like that at a range.
 
Let your voice be heard. When they open, go inside and ask the manager what their policy is on brass. If they won't allow you to pick up brass and that's a deal-breaker for you, explain it politely and don't go back.

Here at the brand new Colonial Shooting Center in Virginia Beach, they will allow you to pickup your own brass. My two buddies who shoot there a lot ask to be given the far right station where there brass bounces off the wall and lands near their feet. The guy walking around sweeping will just sweep your stuff up into a pile for you next to the wall if you ask him.

On another note, I'm not a member there because I refuse to use a third party payment system for a membership for any service, and the only other way to get a membership is to pay for a whole year in advance with a 90-day cancellation policy... which means they hold almost $100 of your money hostage at all times. Not my style.

In contrast, the pawn shop 3 blocks from Colonial has a membership of half the price, is never busy, and not only can you pick up your own brass, but nobody seems to care if you pick up other peoples brass as long as you ask them. I've found that most non-reloaders are happy to have you clean the floor every 10 minutes for them.

Currently I belong to a private outdoor shooting range about an hour out of town that is worth every penny to me.
 
I have encountered that rule at several ranges.

I explained one such incident yesterday, but the post was deleted.

So, my generalized take on the matter:
Reloaders, in particular, don't like to patronize businesses that think they can claim your brass the instant you step onto the range. And there are a growing number of non-reloaders that pick up their brass to give it away, to resell it, save it in case they ever take up reloading, or sell it at the local recycling center. As such, those rules either don't stick around long, or the place has a hard time staying afloat.

...Unless, as mentioned previously, it's a captive market. If customers don't have any other option, then the business owners tend to get pretty pushy and demanding. "Where else are you going to shoot? I'm the only place within 3 hours! Haha!"

Regardless of the "if it hits the ground, it's ours" rule, many people choose to pick up their brass anyway.
 
I just remembered a place in a Salt Lake City suburb that went out of business about 15 years ago, that had an even worse rule:

"No ammunition except ours, and it must be purchased at the time you pay your range fee!"

Which was immediately followed by:
"No brass casings are to be removed from the range area! All casings are the property of [business name]."

Not only that, but they would SEARCH your range bag, gun case, etc., before you entered the range, to make sure you weren't smuggling reloads in. :rolleyes: (The clerks would even admit that management had them looking primarily for reloads.)

They did VERY well, and made boatloads of cash for about 20 years. But.... they were the only dance in town. There was no other option for an indoor range, for CCW training, or even for police departments to obtain certain types of equipment.
This place really had the market cornered.

And then the city approved another indoor range.
And another.
And another.

And a few more suburbs approved indoor ranges.

Before that first business even knew what hit them, they lost 95% of their business and no longer had enough cash flow to even pay for the insurance to keep the range open. They held out for about another year after the range closed, but lost their LEO customers, the CCW trainers, and even the live-fire requirement for CCW licensing. There was nothing that made them "special" any more.
And the overall poor opinion of the business keep them from recovering.

You can only spit in you customers' faces for so long....
 
A new gun range is opening near here, and I've heard that you can't pick up any brass that hits the floor. I paid for the brass, so as far as I am concerned it is my property
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Greedy business owners, no matter what rationale they come up, the reason they want your brass is because they are making profit from stealing from you.
 
My range let's us pick up our brass no problem. They'll clean up after you even but I always pick up after myself. They have barrels for you to deposit your brass if you wish to.

I have a brass catcher so I don't have to bend down any more. Also I save my brass in case I decided to reload. It's all 223/556 though and at the pistol lanes they have grates you stand on so you can't get your brass unless you have a catcher of some kind.
 
the reason they want your brass is because they are making profit from stealing from you.
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It's not stealing if the terms are agreed upon beforehand. By using someone's facility, I am agreeing to abide by their rules. If I don't consent to the rules, I simply shouldn't use their range.
 
FrankenMauser said:
And then the city approved another indoor range.
And another.
And another.

And a few more suburbs approved indoor ranges.

Before that first business even knew what hit them, they lost 95% of their business
Click to expand...

Indoor ranges have been popping up here like crazy too. Several years ago there was one, maybe two, within an hour's drive. The others were outdoor ranges, a couple operated by the MO Department of Conservation. Now, there's going on a half dozen or so NEW indoor ranges. While the one here didn't have this "your brass is our brass" policy, I'm sure they saw a major hit to their business as well.

Where there is competition one must give customers a reason to choose you, not a reason to choose someone else.
 
Thankfully none of the indoor ranges around here have that rule, although I usually don't pick up 9mm or 45ACP anymore. Then there are a couple outdoor ranges where you have to pick up everything and throw it in the barrel if you don't want it. They do provide the little roll around brass picker upper things though.

One rule that seems to be constant is if you rent one of their guns to shoot then you have to use their ammo in it.
 
I guess I can see both sides of this, speaking in terms of indoor ranges. It is incredibly annoying to be shooting while having guys crawling around on the floor around you and even reaching into your booth for their stuff that is spread out over 5 booths. Quite honestly, for a lot of the popular stuff like 9mm and 40, that has little value, I'd rather pay a couple dollars for a hundred of theirs to replace the 100 I have strung out all over the floor rather than pick it up. I think the no pickup rule is more to keep people off the floor than it is to resell your 9mm brass. Then you have the brass rats who pay for a half hour to shoot 20 rounds, and then pick up 500 to take with them. Obviously, I wouldn't feel the same about 10mm or 38Super.

I think booths could easily be made more semi-friendly. A clear plastic shower curtain half way around your right side and right rear, and a rug or carpet on the floor under it could easily drop everyone's brass at their feet beside or behind them, and it wouldn't roll away across the floor.
 
I do not know of a range in my area that does this. There is one that does the "if you rent from us you have to shoot ammo purchased from us" rule though. I completely understand this rule since they wouldn't want an inexperienced reloader damaging one of their guns.
 
TimSr said:
A clear plastic shower curtain half way around your right side and right rear, and a rug or carpet on the floor under it could easily drop everyone's brass at their feet beside or behind them, and it wouldn't roll away across the floor.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good idea. Range owners, are you listening?
 
Most of the public ranges I shoot at allow one to pick up their own brass...period.

The private range I shoot at it is mandatory that one pick up/sweep up the floor after shooting. If the shooter does not save brass, it goes into a brass barrel for pickup by those club members that reload. The idea here, of course, is to keep the range clean for the next member that utilizes the club range.
 
I've not had that rule appear at either of the two ranges I frequent. That being said, I have heard about it being common place at indoor ranges and some outdoor ranges. I agree that it's silly and I probably wouldn't frequent any range that had that rule(if I had other options).
 
You paid for the casing when you purchased the ammo.
It is yours. No shooting center should ever have some BS thing about
your spent stuff. Pick it up and take it home or throw it in the containers if you don't re-load.
That is common sense and no need to even think about the original post.
 
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