Anybody know what brass's melting temp is? and how one might go about melting brass down at home? reason being I have LOTS of no longer usable brass casings that I was gong to scrap but the srap yards that take copper/brass wont take "ammunition" even with the bullet/powder/primer removed. trying to educate them is useless they dont want to know --have heard it all etc. those that will take empty casings want to give cents versus what other scrap brass is going for. Anyway just thought I'd ask if anybody had a way of melting down brass at home without alot of hassle.thnx!

By varying the proportions of copper and zinc, the properties of the brass can be changed, allowing hard and soft brasses. The relatively low melting point (900-940 °C depending on composition) of brass and its flow characteristics make it a relatively easy material to cast.

wikipedia

You can do it with a couple of propane torches and some cast iron cookware.  A small cast iron bread mold will do fine for the casting of the molten brass.

Incidentally, if you wanted to make useful items from the brass, you can obtain blocks of
graphite which can be machined or carved to make molds.


CJ

The first link after Googling "melting point of brass"  seems to indicate 1700F +/-50

You ended your subject sentence with a preposition... bastard.

I work in a copper, brass and alumuinm foundry I pour yellow and red brass all day we bring it up to 2200 degrees, so in your case you need to bring up to about 1900 degrees remember melting temp and working temp are different if you plan to melt and add scrap you will be cooling it down, also if you have slag on top of your ingot slag is the impurities in the metal such as dirt burned powder, try to skim it off it makes for a more valuable ingot.  My last vist to the local scrap yard in June,yellow brass was .90 cents a pound so good luck and be safe.

Thanks for the replys
Sorry for the gramattical error
I am trying to do this on the cheap so I will give CMJ's tip a try. If not in researching this I have found plans and info in small home furnaces so If I have to I will give that a try.
 I scrapped some brass fixtures about two weeks ago and got about $1.80/lb for it copper was at $2.49/lb so I'd like to get rid of the useless brass while the price is up.

Wow I just brought in 21 lbs of brass cases to my recycling yard. They wer not squeemish about it.  

when your heating your crucible be shure to warm your mold too.