My back hurts!

J

JeepHammer

Moderator
My back is killing me, 3 days of cleaning brass.
Just weighed the clean brass 2,204 pounds, and every pound, plus nearly that much in steel pins, gets lifted several times.
No wonder my old back hurts! :)

Now, it's time to handle around 163,000 cases several more times during processing... Anyone that says this is 'Easy Money' needs to be punched in the mouth!

I need a fork lift again!
 
Starting point... STOP MOTION ACTION PICTURE!

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End point is every bucket, box & container I own full of brass...
I was just too tired to take pictures tonight.
 
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No mini-gun, but I have more 7.62 Milbrass than I'm ever going to use,
No shortage of blanks, MG links, rocks, paint ball cartridges, even a few live rounds...
The dirt got washed out, but there has to be 100 pounds of rocks and other trash.
 
I think he needs to anneal it (his back) at about 120 degrees for 3 hours!

You don't want glowing red.
 
 
Rice in an old sock.
Don't know why, but a little time in the microwave and it works great.

What I need is an intern to do the heavy lifting!
Maybe one with a hot girlfriend that hangs around... ;)
 
What I need is an intern to do the heavy lifting!
Maybe one with a hot girlfriend that hangs around...
Click to expand...

Uh Huh, I see that working out well.

Now, it's time to handle around 163,000 cases several more times during processing... Anyone that says this is 'Easy Money' needs to be punched in the mouth!
Click to expand...

Hopefully you can find an intern with a hot girlfriend willing to work for McDonalds wages doing heavy lifting. Even at that I can see the profits rolling in at about negative $3.00 per thousand cases when you sell them. :)

Ron
 
Negative $20 a thousand if she's a redhead...
I can't say no to redheads!

Superman's weakness is Kyponite, mine is redheads...
 
JeepHammer,
We share the same weakness. We must be from the same planet. :)
That is a lot of brass to deal with! With the hours and back ache is it worth doing? By that I mean do you make a "living wage" with it?
I have more brass than I will ever shoot - thanks to buying it in bulk many years ago but I only process it in batches of about 200 at a time. I find it relaxing. I don't thing relaxing describes what you are doing - even if you had a redhead helping.;)
 
Oh man, huge boxes of brass and a hot redhead I think I'm in heaven. I've been in love with Ann Margaret my whole life. My girlfriend in high school was her doppelgänger. I was so heartbroken when she moved away my Sophomore year.
 
That looks like a lot of work the way you are doing it. i built a bank of tumblers for a friend after he sent me this photo and asked how I would clean them.

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Each drum would hold 15 gallons of brass times 6 drums (a gallon of .223 is around 809 cases). Makes it move along, an over head gantry crane makes lifting as easy as pushing a button. Work smart not hard, is an older guys motto.
 
Mine looked like that a couple years ago, had a MUCH larger mixer then.
Now I have three smaller (and cheaper) mixers and a roughly 55 gallon tumbler/seperator.

I have an overhead hoist in the big shop, but I wash at my pole shed... sooooo LIFTING...
What I need to do (time constraints) is build a lift table that several buckets can sit on.
Allow me to dump the mixers, the raise buckets back up to mixer height.

I sure paid for working like I was a 25 year old farm boy! I'm just now starting to get around... I have to spend at least 2 days a month doing paperwork and chasing paperwork around town, yesterday was that day and I was none too fast about it...

They say you are only as old as you feel, yesterday I was 700 years old!
 
Mostly third party auction services for the government...
Talk about a screwed up way to do things!
Nothing like buying, paying for, then waiting 2 months for the sale to be government approved (a different third party contractor has to approve you for the sale AFTER you win the auction and pay in advance),
Plus there is a 12-15% buyers premium added to your winning bid, just because they haven't screwed you enough already...

Nothing quite like paying brass price for wet cardboard tubs, rain water in the cases, rocks & sand/dirt, rusted steel barrels or scrap wood boxes, blanks, paint ball cartridges, brass that's been on the ranges for YEARS, brass that's been stepped on, ran over by vehicles & tanks, etc.

You have to bid against people that will bid NEW CASE PRICE for the lots because they *Think* this is easy, or they are hording Milbrass thinking there is going to be another 'Shortage'...
There wasn't a shortage the last time, the big manufacturers actually expanded, by t then the government is paying 300-400% over civilian market price for everything they can manufacture/produce, the guy with the cash wins, then 12-15% tacked on for good measure...

Then you apply for your EUC (End User Certificate) and.... WAIT...
Money tied up for about 2 months while the second bunch of buttholes at Battle Creek, MI loose your paperwork a couple of times...

Then there is the $5,000 or so to get rolling...
$300 Each for mixers/tumblers, seperators, $3,300 for a case neck qualifier, storage containers, etc.

It's WORK! Difficult manual labor, and how much cleaned & qualified brass can you buy for $5,000?
That's the question you have to ask yourself...
 
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