How to Recycle Brass Shells: The Process

While there are different many types of ammunition including steel, brass reigns the most popular. With a plenitude of scrap brass ammo being utilized each day, there is an abundance of ammo that is as a rule erroneously discarded. This improper discarding leads to pollution and damage to the environment. However, it is vital to understand how to properly recycle brass shells.

The Process of Recycling Brass Shell Casings

Before one can understand the recycling process, one must be familiar with the different parts of ammunition:

  • The Projectile
  • The Packaging
  • Black Powder
  • The Groundwork

Information on these parts is basic before starting the recycling methodology. The brass shell recycling process comprises of:

  1. Sort the shells by material; they typically consist of brass, aluminum, or steel, and sometimes may contain chrome, nickel, silver, or even gold.
  2. Discard the sorted shells.
  3. After sorting, subject the shells to high heat in a kiln to detonate any live rounds that might have slipped through.
  4. Once cooled, a quality control supervisor examines the shells.
  5. Clean the shells thoroughly; the cleaners rinse them to remove as much lead and dirt as possible.
  6. Inspectors then run the cleaned and “popped” shells through a shaker table to remove unwanted materials like live rounds
  7. Next, a hammer mill or shredder deforms the shells into smaller pieces, allowing the aggregator machine to load them for transportation.
  8. Finally, transport the shells to a brass mill, where they melt and blend them with metallic elements to achieve a specific mix. Once this is complete, shape the shells into rods or ingots.

This procedure of recycling brass shell casings can create an abundance of reusable materials. Since the method has been clarified, it is basic to know the impacts a framework like this can make.

The Importance of Recycling Brass Shell Casings

Many people don’t know that you can recycle metals like scrap brass ammo, and this lack of awareness leads to a significant amount of waste, especially among manufacturers. To address this issue, companies like ours buy scrap brass cartridges and process them.

During this process, we need to identify shell casings with low levels of aluminum and manganese bronze. The brass shell casings can be reused multiple times, resulting in more ammo and similar products being produced, and most importantly, benefiting the environment.

How to Recycle Brass Shells: The Process


People use a lot of ammo every day, so recycling the scraps from brass cartridges not only provides materials for making more ammo but also helps protect the environment. Skilled recyclers buy scrap brass ammo and carry out the recycling process to make this change happen. If you are interested in recycling brass shell casings with us, click here to make it happen.