Picking up Rimfire Brass

[ESSAYONS]

The club I shoot at has rimfire brass everywhere. I would like recycle it, however, it is mixed with pea size gravel and 1/2'' stones and smaller. Does anyone have a good screen or collection system to sort the brass from pebbles and stones?

If brass were magnetic- the range would be spotless- but no one has tackled this job due to the stones.

Thanks.

 

[upjeeper]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

could you just get a couple of different sized screens to sift?

 

[vman]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

Thats a lot of effort to go to for recycled rimfire brass.

Do the recyclers knock back dirty brass?

 

[ESSAYONS]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

That may be my last resort- I was just not sure if someone had developed some sort of sifter or has the correct screen size to capture the brass. I know they have a football brass picker- but it does not work for rimfire-only centerfire.

 

[ESSAYONS]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

Scrap brass is between $1.25 to $2.00 a lb. Some of the guys at the range in the past have collected it and made bullets out of it- but they all agreed that was way more work than it was worth.

 

[Silverbullet2]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

When I was 11 years old, I was on a youth .22 smallbore 3 position shooting tean at the local club. When practicing, ther coach would issue you a block of 10 rounds, and when you were done with your relay, you would turn back into him the block with 10 empties. Before practice, and after, the coach would have every one pick up every .22 empty in sight.
I still shoot there from time to time, and there are hundreds of thousands of empty .22's.
I say you get a youth smallbore team togeather and have at it.
When I take my daughter to any range to shoot the 40X .22, she picks up every empty she shoots, as well as a few hand fulls. It helps a little, filling my scrap brass bucket.
I sure wish I had this 40x when I was shooting small bore instead of that POS Mossberg!
JPG

 

[ORD]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

The problem with screening it is that inevitably, you'll still get a $#!Tload of gravel/stones in the screened piles because of the sizes involved and then you have to pick through it by hand. It is just too big a PITA for the end result!

One of the more "enterprising" young kids at my local range was out with a dustbuster a few weeks ago vacuuming up rimfire brass out of the gravel/other piles of steel case/crap brass. He said that it was good for rimfire brass because the dustbuster wasn't strong enough to pick up centerfire pistol/rifle brass or rocks, but it did a number on the rimfires. I didn't pay much attention to him, but he left with a 5lb coffee can full of rimfire brass after about a total of an hour of vacuuming during downtime when the firing line was cold. His Dad said that he used the money to buy more .22lr for practice and was "saving" for a 10/22 of his own. I was impressed!!

It might be worth a try.

 

[SmallBoreSnipers]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

I've seen a couple of guys at the range that have what look to be fish nets. They stand right next to where the shells eject and collect them.

 

[ESSAYONS]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

There is an obvious void here in terms of tools/technology to use to pick up rimfire brass. It seems every range I go to has hundreds of thousands of .22's laying on the ground. If a sifter/conveyor system could be built to mine these things- I believe that person could make some $.

 

[TOP PREDATOR]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

a 6 or 7 year old and an ice cream should do the trick.

 

[Chiller]

Re: Picking up Rimfire Brass

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: TOP PREDATOR</div><div class="ubbcode-body">a 6 or 7 year old and an ice cream should do the trick. </div></div>

sometimes the simple approach is the correct approach.....