Or someone is getting rid of Grandpa's brass and shot. Walking thru the local flea market yesterday and spotted a table with brass and lead for sale So, I ease on over to for about 200 pieces of old 30.06 brass Couple hundred of 38 special brass Some 1943 45 auto round ball about 35 pieces. Some are in poor shape so these would be nice for a collector? 3 bags of lead shot Probably #7 shot in one bag 2 Bags of what I suspect is # 1 buckshot The bags are extremely brittle so I haven't attempted to open any. 3 tins of it says muzzle loader primers, I reckon about 50 in each one. I think the majority of the 30.06 brass is 1962 match, Some pieces are earlier like 1954. Haven't gone thru the whole pile but here she is.
Due to the diversity of the stuff mentioned, I'd guess someone was cleaning out papa's stuff looking to make a buck. You don't usually see reloading/ammo items at the flea markets or trade days-at least around here. That being said, I did pick up a full 5 gal bucket of mixed brass for $50.00 a few years back at our local trade days. After talking to the guy, he admitted he had scrounged it up from a local outdoor range. Good score Bro!!
Being an RSO at local range we send off multiple buckets of brass every couple of months. We sort out the steel and aluminum the get scrap price for the brass. I do look out for any 300blk or 45LC brass for myself! But everything else is scrapped. Used to snag the 44mag brass for a friend but he has since died from COVID sadly. Tons of 9mm, 38spl,223, 380auto, 308 and 30.06 went by by... Fair amounts of other exotics including 7.62x39, 7mm winmag etc as well. Hate to see it go but if nobody shows anything interest in it then off it goes! I guess I am just lucky to say "I got mine"
Yeah years back I used to do the same. The owner of the range just laughed and said "Either I condone it or you pirates will figure a way to get it anyhow" LOL He knew us pretty well. I worked for peanuts. It was fine with me because of the perks. It was a side gig anyways. But, it opened many doors for me. We had a open house one year. All the reps from the big companies were there, and after much BSing over the weekend, they all wanted to see my shooting range. So somewhat early on that following Sunday morning we all met up and I led them to the ranch. All of us shot everything we had, passing guns to each other until there wasn't anything left to shoot. Afterwards down at the shop BSing about the day and what fun was had the HK rep fell in love with my Chevy step side, and I with the PSG1 he had brought to the open house and our Sunday shoot. And that Ladies and Gentlemen is how Tully acquired his 1st PSG1, with hard case and every option HK offered at that time. Traded him straight across. The rep for RCBS/Speer/CCI fell in love with my M82, and shot up a lot of my 50BMG ammo. After seeing what the weapon could do to targets at 1,000 yards(the max of my range) he too cornered me up in the shop drinking beers. Asked me a bunch of questions and then just got kinda quiet. Two weeks later got a call from IDEEHO asking if I would be interested in helping Speer develop loads for their .50BMG offerings that were to come to the market in the near future. DUH! The following 9 months were the closest I've come to being paid to shoot. At the end I was allowed to keep the press and dies, along with all the leftover components. At that time RCBS/Speer/CCI was just starting to get into the 50BMG game, and along with all the free goodies I am VERY proud to have helped to develop their 50BMG line of products.
Do you have rotary tumbler? If so toss the shot in there with a bit of seed silk graphite and they will look brand new. Check with the farmers in your area for the seed silk, if not I could probably send ya some.
Really wish now I hadn't let that small pile of 45/70 brass slip away. I would have mailed out to ya Gator 45/70. If someone has a need for a particular brass and I come across them would be happy to mail them for price of postage. Hate seeing brass go to waste.....
Thanks, I keep a little bit around here as this is what we use for primitive season, Good old 45/70 has pancaked everything so far that it hits!
