bullet shells

whitesid

Bronze Member
Aug 7, 2006
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when i go metal detecting in the woods i always come across a few shells, rifle and shot gun. does anyone save them and cash them in for brass scrap?
also i noticed in the shot gun shells there a piece of non-brass metal by the part of the shell that gets hit to by the gun to ignite the powder(don't know the name of it ???). what is that? steel? lead?
and my final question what is a good website for scrap prices? i used to have a really great one that showed the prices for everything but i can t find it.

thanks,
whitesid
 

BenVA

Full Member
Sep 16, 2003
122
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SW VA
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I always save all of the casings of what I shoot. I also save stuff I dig up, but haven't really accumulated enough to sell. I would recommend saving it if you can. You put forth the effort to dig it up so you should try to get something out of it.
 

Rumblebelly

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Jan 20, 2007
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I have not found a site right now. I call the local scrap companies to get prices. I cash in yellow brass this weekend at .65 cents a pound. Most of the scrap yards are pretty good on the phones.

Happy hunting /scrapping
Rumblebelly
 

Mar 6, 2007
2
0
hey there. new couple here from PA. Well i just so happen to ask my scrap company about amunition casings the other day. they do take them as yellow brass. and the primers are fine left in the casing to. Had the office girl write down on my slip what they are paying for yellow brass. It was: $.90-1.15 per pound.
 

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whitesid

whitesid

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Aug 7, 2006
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couplehunter in PA said:
hey there. new couple here from PA. Well i just so happen to ask my scrap company about amunition casings the other day. they do take them as yellow brass. and the primers are fine left in the casing to. Had the office girl write down on my slip what they are paying for yellow brass. It was: $.90-1.15 per pound.
thanks alot for the info. :)
 

wolfmann

Jr. Member
Dec 30, 2006
43
4
you must take the primers out of the center fire ammo as well as the shotgun ammo. its the little area where the firing pin hits the end of the shell try a magnet on that end and you will see that it sticks
 

Emperor Findus Cladius

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Sep 2, 2004
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I sold a couple hundred pounds of brass casings a little while back, and did not have to take the primers out.
 

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whitesid

whitesid

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Aug 7, 2006
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wayne1956 said:
I sold a couple hundred pounds of brass casings a little while back, and did not have to take the primers out.
you get full price?
 

Emperor Findus Cladius

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Sep 2, 2004
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As far as I know of. The dealer told me what he was paying for scrap brass, and did not ask if the primers were in or out when I told him I had brass bullet casings.
 

N.J.THer

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Nov 16, 2006
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Lets bring this post back from the dead.

Anyone have recent prices for scrap Shell Castings. Over the weekend I was hunting an old WWII training area and the shell castings were everywhere. Each one was approximately 2 1/2 inches long. The weight of my trash pouch started building up pretty quickly so I stopped digging them. Now I wondering if it would pay to go back and focus on gettting as many as I can...lol

The only problem I can see is thay many of them have dirt inside which I assume I would have to clean out and that maybe a big pain in the rear. The casings are tappered at the end so the openning is not that big.

Any thoughts? Is it worth the effort.

NJ
 

DemonWolfe

Full Member
Apr 11, 2008
200
2
Russell KS.
I usually just soak them in a bucket for awhile and then empty them out. Sometimes takes more than once to get most of it but its the only way I can think of without washing each one out one by one. Last time I took some in they were all .22 shells which have no primer and still only got $1 a pound this is when yellow brass was almost $2 a pound. They said its because all shells pay a lower price no matter what. Later I was told by someone else its because they cannot ship shell casings over seas and seeing how it was because of china buying everything up that the prices were so high and they could not ship them to china.
Whether or not that's true I have no idea but it seems that you never get full brass price outta them.
 

drbecker

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Feb 8, 2012
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I sold some casings (Think it was 25 pounds) about a month ago got $1.80 a pound. Primers were in the shells. I always make sure i do not give them any live primers but fired primers do not bother them.
 

gunntekk1

Sr. Member
Mar 19, 2005
269
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Newport PA
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i just cashed in my brass for 2.00 us dollars a lb. in harrisburg, PA
 

winslow

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Oct 30, 2004
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The local scrapyard here requires them to be completely separate from other brass.

Any metal I find detecting (even pull tabs & bottle caps) ends up at the scrapyard. Every kind of metal has some kind of value. Even a rusty tin can is worth about 8 cents a pound. Makes those finds of bare copper wire seem like treasure!
 

Lethal

Jr. Member
Sep 12, 2008
22
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I've gotten shell casings from the local Vfw, and we got full price for them when we turned them in with our brass.
 

one8orz

Jr. Member
Nov 1, 2006
53
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Arizona
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I have a cement mixer which I put shell castings an add some sand and run it for come out all nice and cleaned
 

namster

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Nov 20, 2011
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Good brass casings, y'all should sell to someone who reloads. Its worth far more than scrap value to someone like that. FWIW.
 

billjustbill

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Feb 23, 2008
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I have a cement mixer which I put shell castings an add some sand and run it for come out all nice and cleaned

A Cement mixer works great!!

I had an issue with a local bank, about 5 years ago. It was a Friday afternoon, and they counted $849.20 in clad coins of nickels, dimes, and quarters that I'd found metal detecting over a 4-1/2 year period. Now, to completely understand this nightmare, all the coins had been soaked and shaken in a dishwashing liquid soap and water mixture, inside a clean plastic instant coffee jar. Then rinsed and let air dry. After drying they weren't completely clean, and over the years, inside the heavy Zip-Loc baggies, a fine dust could be seen on the baggie... The fine dust would get on the sensor of the bank's new electronic coin counter machine they had purchased and set in the center of the bank for its customers to use, and would stop the machine....

To solve the problem the clad silver coins were counted on the bank's old manual coin counter, but the head Cashier refused to take them...REFUSED To Take Them!!! .... Why? It wasn't because they were lightly dusty!!! Her quote: "...Because they're DARK, they're NULL COINS, and MY Customers don't want DARK coins...." and she shoved the canvas bag of coin back across the "Customer Service Counter"....

With that amount of money, a Coin Star machine would have cost me almost $90.....it was out of the question. So, I went to Home Depot, and bought 50lbs of sandbox sand, some hail screen, and a large Rubber Maid plastic tub. The dry sand in the cement mixer did start to clean, but the iron in the sand caused the coins to turn yellowish. I added water, but it didn't make much difference. Then, I added a half-cup of "CHEER" laundry powder and let the mixer run for 2 hours. The soap was the magic and kept the dirt and iron off the coins. I dumped the coins out of the mixer and rinsed them with clear water as they laid on the hail screen supported by the plastic tub. Then, I spread them out on kingsize sheets to let them dry over night.... Just don't let the coins touch each other as they dry or the contact surfaces will turn dark again. Pulling all the sheet corners together, the dry coins easily emptied into a big Orange Home Depot 5-gallon bucket. The following Monday morning, I took the "SHINEY" coins back to the bank. When finished counting on the lobby's electronic coin counter, one of the bank tellers took the paper reciept and asked, "Do you want to deposit this?" I took my paper cash with me....

Add a bit of water and Cheer with your sand on the next batch of empty brass shells in your cement mixer, I'll bet it will cut the cleaning time in half.

Bill
 

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