Out Of Date flares - getting rid of them

temptress

temptress

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Just been clearing the Garage/boat store out as it was getting hard just to get in the door.

We found an new 20 Kg CQR which I did not know I had BUT I also found several seriously out of date (several years and more) Flare packs.

Anbyone know how I get rid of these? I'm based in Hampshire. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
Amazing tho it may seem, flares are considered as firearms, so the police will take them off your hands and dispose of them with all the the "dodgy" stuff they confiscate or retreive.
 
It would be very useful to have chapter and verse, please, as our local force declines to accept them.
 
[ QUOTE ]
It would be very useful to have chapter and verse, please, as our local force declines to accept them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hand them in as "lost property", they don't have a choice then. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

If you ever find yourself near the IW, Newport police station takes them with no trouble.
 
It was on the news or something within the last five days. Read it and thought oh good, that will stop them being brought to the fire stn.. ( we let em off anyway). Nature of the beast i suppose!
 
I though the coastguard was the first avenue to explore.

From my house I saw a red parachute flare over Canvey Island/Benfleet Creek yesterday about 1600. I assumed it was someone just letting one off rather than a distress as it was not a day that a sane person would be out. But then if they were out it was the sort of day......Oh dear, should I have done something?
 
Many moons ago when I was a bomb disposal officer, we regularly collected time-expired flares from police station 'bomb-bins' amongst other dangerous objects handed in by the public. I suppose the bins are still in use. We had lots of fun as I recall!.
 
Sail across to France for Bastille Day and have some fun!, I was at St Malo this year and I have never seen so many flares being set off at one time in the marina. It was absolutely brilliant.
 
Having on one occasion been in the situation of trying to recover the crew of a capsized dinghy in Brightlingsea (legs caught in the rigging) and having a lot of difficulty! Flares & Smoke, let off to try and atract attention & help. No answer came the stern reply....30 mins later, when we had finally managed to retrieve the person concerned and rowed ashore to a) cancel the distress, b)to get some dry clothes, were greeted with the comment "were you practising with your Flares?" Not at all amused, nor were HMCG. They had spent the previous night doing a combined clubs flare recognition evening!!...both the capsized perticipants were blue lighted off to hospital suffering from hypothermia...moral 1) can't rely on flares.cos people can't be bothered ! or don't recognise what they are seeing. 2) at least report the thing and leave it to HMCG to take appropriate action.. 3) get on the VHF and check.
 
How To.... When I had a rural garden, I thoroughly cleaned out an old 40-gal. oil drum, half-buried it on it's side leaving the 2-inch pour-hole just accessible at the lowest point in the pit. Wearing a heavy gauntlet, I poked an old flare through the hole.
I had estimated the probability of the rocket arriving back at the hole at the correct angle for escape was about the same as being struck by a meteorite, so I fired. The noise was deafening, and the drum developed red-hot patches, but all was well. I used that drum for years, and probably scores of Pyros. Then moved house.
How NOT to.... The next time I had flares for disposal I yearned for my old drum: then remembered I now had an identical drum that had once been my bulk-stock of paraffin. I rolled it out to the yard behind the kitchen, laid it on its side, turned it to put the hole at ground level, sat astride it to keep it there, and fired one into the hole.
There was a roar like a jet-fighter take-off, a ten yard blast of flame across the lawn, me left stranded like a TT rider who banged the throttle open but forgot to pick his feet up, while the drum rocketed off three walls and flew over my shoulder on its way to the shrubbery.
I took the drum down to the local scrappy. ''Sorry, mate: can't take anything that's had inflammables''.... I said ''It's been purged'' and lifted the tail-gate. It sat there like a huge rugby ball, seams about to split. ''It sure has!'' he said, and took it.
Who says old codgers can't have fun? _-- and we all make mistakes.
I have another stock of out-of-dates, and interest in the best answer.
 
I don't believe ANYONE could 'forget' they owned a 20kg CQR .... new or old /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

As for flares: if 'several years' means anything less than 10yrs, happy to take them off your hands /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Vic
 
The garage has the contents of at lease 3 different liveabpoards and years and years of refits. The CQR was simply forgotten about.

As fot the flares I have at least 3 sets of out of date flares - odlest is unknows most recent expired 03/2005.
 
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