Being from the Netherlands I know nothing about this stuff, and some of you do, I know. My guess is: shell, not fired (there is wax-like stuff inside), bullet removed. Or is it something completely different?
And yes, it’s unfired, but that little silver primer packs a punch in it’s own right! Throw it in the trash or give it to a cop.
Mount it in a vice and smash the end with a ballpein hammer! (Wear some safety glasses). It doesn’t have any gunpowder per say or a projectile. Just a primer which is used to fire the power which is missing in this case. <—-Yup thats a pun!
Or you could just bury it. Its not really too dangerous.
Thanks guys. This is a rarity here. If you are not a criminal or a cop, you do not own a gun. I'll bring it to the police office :-)
It looks like it is a blank,for making only noise, but still could be dangerous. The wax holds the powder near the primer.
The way that the mouth of the case is rolled closed a little indicates that it is not a normal cartridge with the bullet removed. The mouth is rolled over for feeding into the chamber without the round nose bullet for guidance.
Careful with that hammer idea if you value your eyesight and your hearing.
It appears to be a 9mm blank cartridge. If not contained in a proper firearm, it can cause a LOT of damage.
Give to a friend who has a 9 mm or give it to a cop or a soldier; there’s a good chance both of them use that cartridge, and it’s probably one of them who lost it.
Looks smaller than 9mm to me, unless you have really giant hands. :D
.380??
.38" x 25.4 = 9.652mm
Is there anything between 9mm/.380 and .22/.25, and centerfire?
Hey OP, how 'bout some measurements on that thing!
And how'd it end up where you found it...? A few years ago I found a discharged 12 gauge shot cup in my backyard, laying out in the open, and as far as I know nobody's ever fired a shotgun anywhere near here anytime in the past 30+ years. This was fresh and recent, clean, obviously had been fired and not just removed from an unfired shell. Very weird.
Shotgun with silencer? ;)
For all practical purposes, .38 Special .380, .357 Mag and 9mm Parabellum are all the same, with the .357 Mag being the only one at actual call size. All take a .355-.359 diameter bullet, composition usually being the determining factor there (copper being smaller, lead being larger). While bullet diameter is almost exactly the same the cases are different. But what a difference a case can make!
If it’s smaller than that, it could be a .25 blank. A .22 is a rimfire cartridge, no silver primer.
Blanks are used by cops in riot situations to disperse a crowd. Why or how one would turn up near your front door is indeed a mystery. Sometimes a blank will have a rubber pellet to cause the subject pain without actual injury.
And comfy, could some youngster have been rabbit hunting on your place while you were gone? Usually the case, a bird hunter or rabbit hunter crossing boundaries.
Does the wax appear to be at the bottom? The only reason I can see for wax to be in there is to act as a plug in holding the powder charge in place. Blanks of various “noise” levels are made up and these are widely used in movies. With a powder charge present, hitting it with a hammer would be a very bad idea!
Comfy, good guess on the math but in this case totally wrong. For whatever reason most American ammo cartridges are not using a bullet of the call size. .38 Special is, like I said above, .355-.359 in diameter. The good ole .44 Mag? .429 The .45 is using a larger bullet, at .454 I think the metric ammo is indeed correct, like the 9mm being .355. The .380 is essentially a 9mm short.
The .25 ACP is actually .251 and I believe that may be what he has there. The case is somewhat slimmer, so your guess of a .25 or larger would seem to be pretty close. All of these take a small pistol primer, and that primer looks pretty big in that shell, so based on that alone it probably is a .25 blank.
Some people use these blanks to scare birds off from fruit tree orchards. They have a wide variance on use, from a starting gun at a track meet to para-military uses.
Blank ammo for a starter pistol. ........GO!!!
That looks just like an 8mm blank fire cartridge that is fairly popular in Europe for use in blank firing weapons. I had several of these myself and am familiar with the blanks. If you look closely you can see that it appears to say “8 mm” on the rear. Did you have lots of fireworks last night given that it was New Year? Someone maybe took advantage to fire a few shots off with their new Xmas present.
HNY to all of BLF!
I thought it said 8mm, but am not familiar with that cartridge. Never seen one.
Had any movies filmed in your area?
Didn’t they just do that special on djozz’s work with emitters? They probably wrote a gunfight in to keep everyone riveted. 
Nope, no hunting around here.
+1 8mm would be about right for Europe