Brass marking for easier pick up

[BugI02]

I'm going to be doing a bit of shooting at an indoor range, and I will be firing new Starline 38 Super brass. I was wondering if anyone has ever marked the base of a case with a colored sharpie or similar to make their brass stand out better. I'm mostly worried about contaminants that might cook of in the breech and would like to know anyone's experiences with the strategy

 

[crewchief888]

I'm going to be doing a bit of shooting at an indoor range, and I will be firing new Starline 38 Super brass. I was wondering if anyone has ever marked the base of a case with a colored sharpie or similar to make their brass stand out better. I'm mostly worried about contaminants that might cook of in the breech and would like to know anyone's experiences with the strategy

id guess that any 38super brass you find on the floor will be yours....

 

[HoosierHunter07]

I've never been to a gun range, but guys at work tell me some wont let you pick up your brass FYI

 

[Leadeye]

I shoot a lot of 38 ACP using 38 Super cases, never have seen anybody else using them when I've been shooting. You are probably good to go.

 

[Leo]

I shot in a team event that all the brass is collected at each line of fire by a third party. Simply running a good Sharpie marking pen makes it easy to sort, they even have different colors. "the blue stripe brass is mine" good luck

 

[Sylvain]

 

[efd1295]

Nail polish works good too. Bright red or bright green is easiest to see.

 

[Ingomike]

How about one of those California micro cartridge stamps?

Think purple...

 

[t-squared]

This looks kinda cool....Brass Marker
It looks like it might be able to do handgun stuff too...

I just flip 50 base up in a couple factory holders and put a stripe on them with a fat tipped Sharpie.

 

[Hawkeye7br]

The indoor range here will only let you pick up your brass that falls behind the firing line. Most of mine bounces around a lot. The net thing looks nifty.

 

[tackdriver]

FWIW - I've used the Sharpie trick a lot to mark handloads I'm testing. Often, I have many combinations of bullet/powder on a given range trip, and I'm horrible at keeping the empties separated at the range. Different colors, with stripes, rings, etc. to keep it straight. Just know that much of the marks do rub/burn off when fired. They won't look like they did when you left home for sure, so use wide marks so there will be something left to see. I tried writing info on cases at first, but that didn't work so well. I marked the primer area once, and it worked great for ID, but made it more difficult to eyeball check the primers for pressure signs at the range.

For the OP's purpose any bold mark will do. It comes right off in the tumbler also.

 

[BugI02]

Thanks for the info, guys. I've shot at this range previously and the cases do bounce around and wind up in the area behind adjoining bays. Am hoping to make picking up my brass quicker and easier. Was mostly worried about winding up with a purple breech because of cook off of the ink and whether if that happened it would clean up thoroughly. I've found that 38SA doesn't stand out visually from 9mm as well as one might hope and don't feel comfortable spending too much time prospecting.

 

[jcj54]

Thanks for the info, guys. I've shot at this range previously and the cases do bounce around and wind up in the area behind adjoining bays. Am hoping to make picking up my brass quicker and easier. Was mostly worried about winding up with a purple breech because of cook off of the ink and whether if that happened it would clean up thoroughly. I've found that 38SA doesn't stand out visually from 9mm as well as one might hope and don't feel comfortable spending too much time prospecting.

I have been marking my brass with permanent markers for 40 years. It leaves residue on the breech face that comes right off with solvent when cleaning the firearm.