How do I dispose of live shotgun cartridges?

[Basil]

I came across 4 live shotgun cartriges amoungst some general junk in the outhouse today.  How do I dispose of them?

[Kim]

Remove the head or destroy the brain.

Hand them in to a police station?

[Mr Larrington]

Didn't some chap get into trouble for handing in a gun he'd found in his garden instead of calling the polis and letting them deal with it?  I'd be more inclined to phone Plod and ask for advice.

[Kim]

I know that the ossifers are less than keen on people rocking up at their reception desk^[1] with an vintage hand grenade, so maybe the same logic applies...


_{[1] Can you even do that these days?  Rocking up at an unanswered door-phone marked "beware of the leopard" with a hand grenade is likely to have a different outcome.}

[Basil]

Heh! I should have spoken to Mrs B first.   Seems she deals with this sort of thing on a pretty regular basis.  Occupational Therapy  home visit to an isolated farm and finding a 90 year old suffering from dementia and a house full of guns and ammo.
Yes.  Phone 101 and they send round a 12 year old in a PCSO uniform to collect.  Good oh.

[Pancho]

The easiest (and legal-ist) means of disposal is simply to call the police. You can DIY but not if you don't know what you're doing. And you end up with environmental nasties.

[Diver300]

Admittedly it was a .22 round that I had to dispose of, but I pulled the bullet out with pliers, poured out the propellant and just burned it. When not confined it just burns like match heads.

I fired the percussion cap with a centre punch. The hammer hitting the centre punch was all I heard and there was a tiny flash from inside the now empty brass casing. 

[Jaded]

Wait until late autumn and the new neighbours ask you round for drinks. Pop one into the fire when  no one is looking.

[Blade]

Can you send them to me if I pay the postage? I'm sure that there's lots of fun things that can be done with them. 
* Remembers how in my youth we used to play with detonators from the railways.

[T42]

Buy a shotgun?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Hide them in the SEKRIT BWNKUR in preparation for the Zombapocalypse.

[Pancho]

Don't piss around with them. My mate lost an eye doing that.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Don't piss around with them. My mate lost an eye doing that.

And an experienced yachting instructor lost several fingers.

It isn't worth messing around with them. I have a bag full of the damn things and can't find any way of disposing of them. Police don't want to know. Last time we tried to get rid of in date flares (ferry wouldn't let us on board with them, we were going to The Netherlands to pick up a boat), the coastguard wouldn't take them and the police made a huge fuss, had to get the firearms officer in especially to take them and put them in the safe. These are things you can just buy in any chandlers in the country without special permission. It's bonkers.

[Basil]

Well, as promised, a 12 year old, dressed up in a police woman's uniform came to collect them today.  I was a little surprised that she hadn't thought to bring anything to put them in. When i suggested that pop inside for a bag or something she said it was OK and just carried them in her hand.  I guess they're rather used to dealing with this sort of thing here.
I decided not to discuss with her what the 14 year old Basil would have done with them.

[davelodwig]

I'm not surprised they didn't bring anything to carry them in, I've taken up clay pigeon shooting and you end up with cartidges stuffed in pockets and all sorts. It takes a remarkable amount of aggravation to get them to go off and when they do outside the barrel of the gun they sort of just pop and not do a lot given they need the solidity of the barrel as the case is plastic.

Quite a safe weapon really, obviously not if you are standing in front of the business end.

[fuzzy]

Don't piss around with them. My mate lost an eye doing that.

And an experienced yachting instructor lost several fingers.

It isn't worth messing around with them. I have a bag full of the damn things and can't find any way of disposing of them. Police don't want to know. Last time we tried to get rid of in date flares (ferry wouldn't let us on board with them, we were going to The Netherlands to pick up a boat), the coastguard wouldn't take them and the police made a huge fuss, had to get the firearms officer in especially to take them and put them in the safe. These are things you can just buy in any chandlers in the country without special permission. It's bonkers.

Whereas PROPER POLIS will just take them off you over the counter and place them in the Bomb Bin¹ in the back yard for collection/ dealing with by the right folk at a later time.

1) An receptacle looking much like a red grit bin filled with sand (looking much like a red grit bin filled with sand because it is in fact, a red grit bin filled with sand but with a lock on it so therefore being secure and safe for storage of unwanted ammunition, pyrotechnics and possibly crusty auld grenades)

[mrcharly-YHT]

Don't piss around with them. My mate lost an eye doing that.

And an experienced yachting instructor lost several fingers.

It isn't worth messing around with them. I have a bag full of the damn things and can't find any way of disposing of them. Police don't want to know. Last time we tried to get rid of in date flares (ferry wouldn't let us on board with them, we were going to The Netherlands to pick up a boat), the coastguard wouldn't take them and the police made a huge fuss, had to get the firearms officer in especially to take them and put them in the safe. These are things you can just buy in any chandlers in the country without special permission. It's bonkers.

Whereas PROPER POLIS will just take them off you over the counter and place them in the Bomb Bin¹ in the back yard for collection/ dealing with by the right folk at a later time.

1) An receptacle looking much like a red grit bin filled with sand (looking much like a red grit bin filled with sand because it is in fact, a red grit bin filled with sand but with a lock on it so therefore being secure and safe for storage of unwanted ammunition, pyrotechnics and possibly crusty auld grenades)

What was even more bonkers was the conversation when we tried to get on the ferry.
"You can't come on there with those, they are explosives."
"They are yachting flares"
"Yeah, but they are explosives."
"Well, we can understand you are concerned about safety and them being set off inappropriately. Can we hand them to a member of the crew, to the ship's purser to keep for the voyage?"
"No, the ship can't have explosive substances on board."
"Um, are you telling me that the ship doesn't carry safety flares? That the lifeboats aren't stocked with flares?"
"That's got nothing to do with it."

We gave up. I refrained from pointing out that it was carrying several hundred vehicles filled with tanks of petrol. Binned £70 worth of flares, nearly missing the ferry in the process.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Don't piss around with them. My mate lost an eye doing that.

And an experienced yachting instructor lost several fingers.

It isn't worth messing around with them. I have a bag full of the damn things and can't find any way of disposing of them. Police don't want to know. Last time we tried to get rid of in date flares (ferry wouldn't let us on board with them, we were going to The Netherlands to pick up a boat), the coastguard wouldn't take them and the police made a huge fuss, had to get the firearms officer in especially to take them and put them in the safe. These are things you can just buy in any chandlers in the country without special permission. It's bonkers.

You'd have been all right if you'd had the boat as well!  We took ours to France complete with flares, no problem at all.  Coming back we got the sniffer dogs but they gave us the all clear, no drugs probably.

[Morat]

I met a helicopter pilot in Bosnia who had been refused permission to board the Hercules on his flight out until he disposed of the flares in his flight suit. He was wearing the same flight suit he wore to fly his helicopter, with the same flares. His helicopter was in the back of the same Hercules (with the rotor blades taken off).

THe RAF were unable to explain why flares suddenly become more dangerous in a Hercules, but rules are rules.

Apparently he had diplomatically refrained from asking if it would have been OK to sit in his helicopter during the flight.

[Karla]

Heh! I should have spoken to Mrs B first.   Seems she deals with this sort of thing on a pretty regular basis.  Occupational Therapy  home visit to an isolated farm and finding a 90 year old suffering from dementia and a house full of guns and ammo.
Yes.  Phone 101 and they send round a 12 year old in a PCSO uniform to collect.  Good oh.

Is Mrs B actually a cast member from Hot Fuzz?

[pcolbeck]

I met a helicopter pilot in Bosnia who had been refused permission to board the Hercules on his flight out until he disposed of the flares in his flight suit. He was wearing the same flight suit he wore to fly his helicopter, with the same flares. His helicopter was in the back of the same Hercules (with the rotor blades taken off).

THe RAF were unable to explain why flares suddenly become more dangerous in a Hercules, but rules are rules.

Apparently he had diplomatically refrained from asking if it would have been OK to sit in his helicopter during the flight.

I read a book by one of the Army Air Corp Apache pilots about his experiences in Afghanistan. There was a whole section about the madness that the health and safety guys tried to impose on them. This was on a fast response crew camped next to a fully armed up Apache on the end of a runway that was under intermittent motor and rocket fire. Its hilarious. Wish I could remember what the book was called.

[Pancho]

There are also quite restrictive regulations on what you can take out of theatre. In part down to SHE and in part to discourage inappropriate souvenirs and trophies, I suspect.

[pcolbeck]

I remembered the book. It was "Apache" by Ed Macy the only AAC pilot to be awarded an MC I think. Worth a read.

[Jakob W]

I have some sympathy for the HSE guys in situations like that; it's all very well if the rock-'ard action men get put out of action by a mortar strike, but if you end up unable to fly due to a slip and trip with a twisted ankle, that's rather more embarrassing...

[Morat]

The only injury I sustained on operations as an infantry officer was while playing volleyball
Not that I'm complaining... It was more luck than judgement.