Brass and match ettiquette

chiefsaj

chiefsaj

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What is your general take on picking brass up at a competitive shoot? Not necessarily others brass, just recovering what you shot +/-.
 
chiefsaj said:
What is your general take on picking brass up at a competitive shoot? Not necessarily others brass, just recovering what you shot +/-.
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As long as it does not interfere with the operation of the competition, I am all in favor of it. I mark my pistol brass in an effort to get it back. I like getting my rifle brass back also.

What I am totally against is the recent trend of people picking up all brass to take it home. If you need my brass that bad, ask. If you are picking up brass while a shooter is completing his course of fire, give it to him/her or put it on the bench for them to recover.

One match I worked, there were many shooters that did not want their brass back. As the RO, I picked up a lot of brass between squads to keep it from under foot and for my reloading. One squad showed up and a couple members emptied my bucket. Very poor form in my opinion.
 
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At the shoots I'm a part of all the brass goes on the table. I and many others mark their brass. We go through and pick ours out. Anyone who doesn't mark their brass then takes approximately what they shot and the rest is fair game.
 
Pistol matches: I pick up what I shot +/- a few without regard for whose it is. I don't care if you take a few of mine or if I take a few of yours so long as I end up with about the same number of cases.

Rifle matches: I pick my own brass. I don't want yours and I want mine.
 
My apologies to the OP I don't want to get this going off track. But was curious as I've had similar issues with brass walking away. I don't mind a few bits here and there I'm not greedy but when some pick thru take all that looks good and leave the "scrap". How do you guys go about marking your brass? Was thinking maybe a plaint marker on tail end? Please feel free to PM or email as not to hijack thread, unless of course OP is wondering the same. TIA Jackson
 
I would like to collect my rifle brass, but there never seems to be enough time to do it safely during matches.

I was thinking about maybe trying a brass catcher but that might be awkward...Probably better to mark the brass and hang around until after the shooting is finished to try to recover what's left.
 
I do it if it won't disrupt operation of the event. Some events I've been to (like indoor steel matches) the brass is sometimes collected by helpers and put into a sifter periodically, and you just go up and pick out whatever is yours.

I also have resigned myself to abandoning it in a lot of cases. For example, at an NES shoot, picking up brass is a lost cause, although if you stay until the end and help clean up you will probably have access to brass, but it won't (necessarily) be "yours. "

Course if you are shooting things like .38 Super, 10mm, etc, then everything changes. [laugh]

-Mike
 
In CAS we have everyone take turns picking up brass after the shooter has finished. And it's returned to him or her at the unloading table. Other matches I'll pick up brass and return it to the shooter as long as I'm not getting in the way of things.
 
With rifle matches you're generally given time to collect your brass after the line is made safe. Like many others I mark the case with sharpie to help differentiate it from everyone else's.

Pistol matches I just let it fall and divvy it up after the match. I'm not nearly as anal with my pistol brass as I am with rifle, so I don't really care if it gets mixed up.
 
I like my brass back, I put alot of work into it!( trimming, primer pockets etc.)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
meth0d said:
I would like to collect my rifle brass, but there never seems to be enough time to do it safely during matches.

I was thinking about maybe trying a brass catcher but that might be awkward...Probably better to mark the brass and hang around until after the shooting is finished to try to recover what's left.
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This is why I shoot steel at matches. Doesn't bug you to walk away from it :-$
 
I finally wised up to what most of the experienced Bulleye shooters are doing and made a brass catcher. The few that escape are not worth looking for.
 
There isn't a lot of "etiquette" as far as brass is concerned. At a well run IPSC match you should get your brass back and you should also be brassing for your fellow shooters. The exception is the major matches where brass is often left on the ground to speed things up. I have found at most other events you are on your own.

When I competed in NRA rifle matches I thought that they had a pretty good system; you go forward of the line and pick up your brass after the line was declared safe. That was until I saw the bolt gunners going forward and helping themselves to my brass. What scumbags!

I have also competed in practical rifle matches where I assumed, as did many others, that the brass would be left on the ground to speed things up. There was no "brassing" done by the squad members. Then I noticed some of the members of my squad helping themselves to this brass. That was all the invitation I needed; I also helped myself. In many competitive situations it is every man for himself where brass is concerned.

Please do not consider any of the above to be a criticism of the people hosting and running these matches.
 
To answer one of the earlier questions, the easiest way I've found to mark cases is to take a marker with a wide point and run a stripe across the base, right over the primer, or better, two lines crossing in different colors. It's easy to do if the rounds are in a factory-type box, tip down.
 
I used to police up my .40sw cases at USPSA matches even though they aren't that valuable; I'm cheap and if I can get my stuff back and re-use it then why not? now that I'm shooting .38Super there is a bit more urgency to the whole thing, that stuff ain't easy to come by OR cheap! I mark my cases with a stripe across the base and sometimes I'll use the same color around the extractor groove. doing the groove is nice because you can spot your brass wtihout turning over all the cases but it takes too much dang time.

I usually finish the stage then follow the RO as I'm scored. I collect up my mags and go clean them up and load while the next shooter goes, then try to get my brass back as soon as he's done. I do my best to get all of it back but without completely ignoring my duties to tape and reset and such....

I have no love of people that grab every last piece of brass they see, even if it's very clearly marked. if it's the end of the day and most everyone is gone that's one thing, but grabbing everything possible while the match is still going on is poor form IMO
 
My thinking is that unless it is specified as a "lost brass match" you should pick up your brass and we should all help each other pick up too. You are coming to other clubs and ranges and have these great opportunities to shoot some well thought out and well run matches. Its good to pick up after yourself. If you do not want your brass, someone will or the club will have a place for it. This includes steel case too. At Our last match there was a guy on our squad with one of those brass picker uppers and he was like a brass magnet! Everyone that wanted the brass back ... got it.
 
I wish people would help each other out more. I try to pick up brass for people I know are taking it, in a manner that doesn't interfere with the match itself. Some calibers are obviously more commonplace than others, but at the same time, people have different access to ranges. Joe Schmo may have an infinite supply of 9mm brass at his private range but Guy Duderson may not have much access at all, so brass is more important to some rather than others. I don't like when people spend more time picking brass (which frequently isn't theirs) than taping or resetting. And as has been stated already on multiple threads across the internet, I hate how some people think its a no holds bar race where whoever picks up what first is the rightful owner. When I'm low on brass I like recovering as much as I can and when you are one of a few people shooting a certain caliber or, in some cases, the ONLY person, its disconcerting to pick brass at the end of the day and find that someone else cleaned you out.

At the same time, I think some people forget that its a consumable resource...
 
It has been my experience that the only way for you to get your brass back at a USPSA match is for your fellow shooters to pick it up for you. After you have completed the course of fire you should follow the RO as he scores your targets. Mistakes can be made and the only way you can prevent this is to closely monitor the process. The feed back you get from scoring your targets is also valuable training.

By the time the scoring is completed it is time for the next shooter! Our local clubs do a great job running large numbers of shooters through matches with high round counts. The price we pay for this is hard work by both the match officials and the shooters. There is simply no time for the shooter to pick up his brass; others on the squad must do it for him (or her).
 
TY43215 said:
But that pretty much doesn't happen anymore
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At my first USPSA match, I picked up brass most of the day. I was new to 'scoring behind the shooter', and I didn't want to paste a target early by mistake. People's eyes lit up when I walked up, said nice run, and handed them their brass. I wouldn't at all mind picking brass more if other people did it for me too.
 
jar said:
At my first USPSA match, I picked up brass most of the day. I was new to 'scoring behind the shooter', and I didn't want to paste a target early by mistake. People's eyes lit up when I walked up, said nice run, and handed them their brass. I wouldn't at all mind picking brass more if other people did it for me too.
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When I started in Action pistol, everyone helped. Everyone picked up brass, everyone taped, everyone reset steel. No excuses were made and none were accepted. Every shooter had clean ground to run on. Every open shooter got 90% of their brass back and did not have to find it themselves. I have a rather nice selection of brass bags and always went to the line and left my bag at the start and usually got my brass back. Now I don't bother.

I don't know when this all changed but it has. Brass has become another cost of shooting the match. I guess I am a little different. I reload 9MM so it is nice to get brass back but it has become the exception rather than the rule on outdoor ranges.

I think it is only fair to the people putting on a match to leave the ground as clean as it was when you got there whether you want the brass or not.
 
jar said:
At my first USPSA match, I picked up brass most of the day. I was new to 'scoring behind the shooter', and I didn't want to paste a target early by mistake. People's eyes lit up when I walked up, said nice run, and handed them their brass. I wouldn't at all mind picking brass more if other people did it for me too.
Click to expand...

I'm showing my age and time in the game. We used to call, on deck shooter, hole shooter, everyone else tape and pick brass. Now, it's hard enought to get people to tape, let alone bend over and pick up brass. Not to mention getting run down by the airgunners. A lot of matches I'm still around when things are torn down, I will often pick up brass that's been left on the range.
 
Part of it is that many people now shoot 9mm or 40S&W, both of which are available on the used brass market for about the same cost as primers. In the old days, it was 45's if you were new to the game; 38super if you had been in long enough to be in open (back then, eveyone's goal seemed to be to buy an open gun). If those were still the dominant calibers, my guess is that you would still see clean ground as both are considerably more expensive (and, in the case of 38 super, bulk once fired brass is generally not available so you have to buy new at about $200/K)
 
When I shot in MA, I got a lot more super brass back then down here in NY/NJ. But back in MA, there was usually a couple of other open shooters brassing after they shot. Not true here, very few shooters here pick up there brass, even fewer shoot super.

Last year, I shot 9 and 40. Left it on the grounds. I found the matches much more enjoyable to shoot if I wasn't scurrying around on the ground looking for my brass. This year I'm going to 9major, going to shoot it once and leave it, not going to pick up brass, not going to clean brass.
 
Helping run a match I'd say the thing that's changed a lot is the volume of shooters. There are so many people attending matches that as long as the stages gets taped and steel reset everything else is a bonus. At NB if you leave brass on the range it is gone by that afternoon or the next day so picking it up is not a big priority when we're running our match. I leave a lot of 38 SC on the range at NB because I typically don't have time to pick it up while running a squad - I have to say - I get most of it back. I've had many people pick it up and hand it to me because they know I'm busy. The other thing that far overshadows anybody not picking up brass is the help we get breaking down the match. That happens all the time at the matches I attend and most people don't know just how much it is appreciated. It just goes to show what I already knew - people in this sport or pretty great.
 

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