Brass would belong to whoever owned the battlefield at the end of the firefight or, barring that, the local populace.
Having spent more time than I care to remember trying to recover brass from various army ranges I can say that it's a serious chore to get 100% recovery with a large body of guys, flat and clear terrain in a limited area, and good illumination. Give people variable firing positions in a larger area and something as minor as mowed grass and it gets about exponentially harder. Add in weapons that sling brass like its going out of style like AKs, HK rifles, and such and it's all downhill from there.
Trying to police up the brass from, say, a squad on squad firefight in wooded terrain would be very time intensive -- PCs could do it, but I'd assume it takes a full four hour time period, and final brass picked up would still end up being something on par with, say, 60%+4d10 or something.
Brass catchers would work on most weapons though they might interfere with speedy reloading drills as someone else noted previously. On M16/M4 type weapons, you can rig a pretty easy brass catcher to clip into the carry handle. With bottom ejecting machineguns it would also be pretty easy, though on guns with disintegrating belts the belt itself would be another issue (and also something you'd want to retrieve). Anyway, I'd think most people would not accept a decrease in speed and handling on a rifle or light machinegun, but MGs on fixed mounts and in the sustained fire role would be fitted with brass catchers.
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