Saving Brass...is there ever too much brass on hand?

Bloodhound

Bloodhound

New member
My wife has been buggin me to clean up the basement and suggested that one step might be to get rid of some of the brass. I tried to explain to her, the guy who dies with the most brass, WINS

Yup she isn't buying it...I then explained to her that most of this brass was given to me or traded for and that someday when I retire I will need lots of brass to re-load so I wont be getting in her way hanging around the house all day, and that if I sell or trade or gift it away now, I'll have to buy more later and it will likely be more expensive then. So I am saving money
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She is kind of on board with that reasoning
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Hard to believe that it all started with 40 rounds of .308 brass for my hunting rifle
 
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I collect brass. I load for many calibers but pick up all the brass I find. When the prices were high, I sold a bunch of it. Now prices are low, I sold a bunch more for pretty cheap. I keep enough to make sure I won't run out, and sell the rest.

It's only a problem if you need to move.
 
I pick up all brass I find, even calibers I don't have. If I don't need it, it goes in the scrap bucket. If it is a caliber I have then it gets cleaned and put away. I have a lot of ammo cans with clean brass.
 
I had the same problem. Piles and piles, buckets and buckets, odds and ends containers full of brass. Most all of it cleaned and culled. I am still sitting on a pile of 40 and 9mm, odd I have never owned one of either and no plans either.
I was gifted a couple of five gallon buckets full of once fired 38 brass. Took me a while to get rid of that.
I have more than I need of most other calibers and seldom pick any up any more.
Thousands of 223 to feed the ARs yet I just bought a bunch more because I felt I was low on virgin brass for other projects.
I bought about 3k of 22 hornet because it was a good deal and sold and traded it off, then had the urge for a Hornet and brass was hard to come by. Did about the same with 221 fireball, then got interested in the small calibers.
Have a bunch of virgin brass put back for other projects.
It doesn’t eat or crap on the floor. Stores well when kept it of the elements.
Lol, I guess you will find no pity from me.
 
Just cleaned, sized, trimmed, and primed 4 gallons of .223. Have a 5 gal. Bucket waiting to go.

I pick up anything my buddies can use. Give away what I don’t want and just keep picking it up. I guess I am like the little fellow in the hobbit.
 
Originally Posted By: BloodhoundMy wife has been buggin me to clean up the basement

You can always tell her: When a man says he will do something he will do it. There is no need to keep reminding him every 6-8 months.
 
I have been saving rimfire brass as well. Got an idea to maybe melt it down and do something 'special' with it. Not sure if I will ever get around to it, but we'll see. I pick up what ever happens to be laying around; I might own a gun that shoots it someday.
 
I normally won't take the time to process anything that does not have a correct brass cycle count, and that was not fired by me in one of my rifles.

I have so many thousands of cleaned cases i don't even know where to start.

All this... And i still can't help buying bags of Federal Premium brass.....

Back to my brass farm...........
 
Yup, also a proud member of the Brass Hoarder's Society. I just sort it, clean it or scrap it, and store it until I need it. My wife never says anything about my hobby hoarding. She is a quilter, and I just have to point to the storage containers, full of fabric, and the conversation changes.

It does have a price though. I picked up a bunch of range 9mm brass, cleaned it and loaded it. I do inspect the cases, and scrap anything that is cracked, excessively bulged, etc. But one, with a Glock Smile, must have slipped through the inspection. When fired, with a medium target load, had the case fail, and blow the magazine out the bottom of my pretty Browning DBM, and it took out the extractor. Nothing that couldn't be replaced, but my hand stung for a few hours. I now am MUCH MORE CAREFULLY check brass for signs of stress or defect!

Squeeze
 
I have quite a bit laying around too. So much that if its not quality name brand stuff I leave it lay for the next guy. I just sold a bunch of "range" brass a few weeks ago and got $90 for it. Enough for a few pounds of powder so it was worth the trouble of picking it up.
 
Originally Posted By: arlaunchOriginally Posted By: BloodhoundMy wife has been buggin me to clean up the basement

You can always tell her: When a man says he will do something he will do it. There is no need to keep reminding him every 6-8 months.

I think she is talking about the brass, the bullets and powder and all that goes along with re-loading PLUS I started tying flys last year for my new hobby...so add to the reloading and shooting stuff, fly rods, reels, waders and plastic containers of skins and feathers and thread and hooks and...

I don't need to clean up the basement, I just need to expand into the guest room upstairs
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just the other day I saw some artwork that the guy uses brass to make. He has a chess board, punisher skull, and an awesome picture of his wife. He used the brass as canvas. The punisher skull was a little small. I want a bigger one.

So there are uses for brass and excuses for hoarding
 
My question is.......Why is she bugging you to clean up the basement? Does she want to use the extra space for something?
 
Originally Posted By: BloodhoundOriginally Posted By: arlaunchOriginally Posted By: BloodhoundMy wife has been buggin me to clean up the basement

You can always tell her: When a man says he will do something he will do it. There is no need to keep reminding him every 6-8 months.

I think she is talking about the brass, the bullets and powder and all that goes along with re-loading PLUS I started tying flys last year for my new hobby...so add to the reloading and shooting stuff, fly rods, reels, waders and plastic containers of skins and feathers and thread and hooks and...

I don't need to clean up the basement, I just need to expand into the guest room upstairs
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you just need to organize your reloading stuff so the brass looks like it takes up less space. order some shelves or something. those nice heavy duty metal racks are relatively cheap on amazon and will hold a nice amount of weight
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030BEPP2/

and trust me - i get ya on being both a fly tier and a reloader. i also started building fly rods for myself last year too

my advice - besides organizing the basement a bit - move the tying stuff into the spare bedroom upstairs. that way it seems less cluttered downstairs AND you have some fresh space to clutter up upstairs :p
 
With the price of brass these days, those that just leave their brass laying on the ground either have a lot more money than I do or a lot less sense.

For my AR, which I am starting to shoot a little more, I even bought a cheap Caldwell brass catcher that works great.
 
Originally Posted By: BowhuntMy question is.......Why is she bugging you to clean up the basement? Does she want to use the extra space for something?

I hope not...its the man shop/cave/den
 
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