I ride round the ranges near Farnborough and often come across spent blank rounds when the dumb army trainees have not bothered to clear up. I know they are not supposed to leave this stuff. I hate the mess, and can't bear to see good raw materials wasted, so I often pick them up. I always check they are spent, (and they only use blanks in the public areas anyway).
I now have about 6Kg of brass shell cases in a carrier bag in my garage. What to do with them? Will the local scrapyard accept this, or is it worth a few quid at a dealer somewhere? I could just take them to the council dump, but to throw it into a mixed metals bin seems A) Stupid (increasing entropy unnecessarily) or B) May raise some unnecessary alarms.
You could have a bit of a problem explaining where you got 6Kg of spent cartridges from.
You might also get a visit from the Police as you have removed MoD property from an MoD site without permission.
Take it to the local tat yard. Try two or three if you can to get the best price. Mmm tat. 😀
I have no live rounds or empty cases in my possession SIR! [img] 
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You might also get a visit from the Police as you have removed MoD property from an MoD site without permission.
Agreed. Try and remember where you found them, and put them back.
From what I recall from my time with the RAF if you were on a 25 meter range you'd pick up the empty cases. If you were on exercise on a training area and got 'bumped' you'd fire back. Picking up ejected cases in the middle off a firefight isn't exactly top of the list of priorities.
Very messy though. Shame on all the squaddies fr littering like that. They'll take ages to decompose.
Return them to the local army depot, tell them to clean up their act.