copper comes from scrapping AP bullets. As well as FMJ bullets I believe. Electrolytes comes from scrapping emp things. Like car batteries and emp GRG rounds.
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As @MarkNcheese42 said, recycle everything you don’t use. Ammo, batteries, explosives, radios … if your recycling station becomes full, discard some of the most common materials or produce what you need.
Recycle materials:
FMJ ammo - explosives and lead
AP ammo - explosives and copper
Wow, it never occurred to me to scrap the crap I have been just dropping. Thx a bunch!
Since November '20 update, you can recycle everything. Given that you have sufficient quantity of it.
One last question regarding recycling, some things cannot be recycled, or is this saying there is no room left to break the component apart? I am not sure what Required Resources: 5 means. 
The message is ambiguous to me.
“Required resources-10”
Pay more attention to the info
That means you need more 9 of those, it´s a pain i know, getting electrolyte is the most difficult thing, it requires you to have lots of radios, boomboxes or large EMP cells and they weight more than they should.
Electrolyte is currently unused crafting material. But as seeing what you get from recycling items, and when new crafting schems are added to the game, Electrolyte will be crucial for crafting adrenaline shots.
And i’m not fond with the idea that i need to have 5 field radios or 10 large EMPs to recycle them either. It would make sense that you could recycle individual items. But then again, individual items may not contain enough resources where you get 1 full unit of crafting materials out of them, giving the need to have multiple items at hand, to recycle at once.
A new skill, e.g Recycler, would be nice, where at lvl 1, you’ll get 50% more crafting materials per recycle and at lvl 2, you’ll get 100% more crafting materials (similar to Salvage skill).
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Discussion moved to proper topic.
//Mod
After reading some discussions in “Storage capacity poll” and some other ammo/crafting posts, I send off another thought train.
The craft system should be tweaked, specifically recipes - both assembling and dismantling.
First - ammo.
Rule of thumb: AP - tungsten is mandatory with some exceptions, FMJ - usually copper+lead, SP/HP/else - usually lead.
Now, more specific ideas:
Pistol ammo - is about stronger charges and a bit heavier bullets, so need more lead and explosives and relatively less steel for cases. FMJ additionally requires copper (rare drop chance?). Lets keep more copper and steel for AP 9mm pistol. .44 ammo is still generally in-game heavy ammo.
Hunting rifles are just strong charges and finely crafted bullets. More explosives, more lead, steel. FMJ need a bit of copper copper.
Shotgun is not so popular, not so powerfull, so it’s ammo can have some “trash leftovers” or ubiqutous materials at expense of more explosives. Needs one unit of steel for brass anyway, plastic for hull, lead for buck, steel or lead for bird (- exp), slug is steel, lead or both (because of AP properties, +exp).
Maybe we can add there rubber/textile/glue for seal or just for lulz.
Assault rifle ammo is same in materials, different in quantity batch (75/125 ratio seems just enough for me). This ammo starts using tungsten for AP ammo instead of copper. Lead and steel still there, explosives… around same -it’s low charge ammo, compared to pistols or custom load hunting ammo as I heard, so 3-4 explosives for 75/125 cartridges should be good. Copper now is required for FMJ, but not so much - about 1-2 units.
Now, .50 cal. Steel, copper, lead for FMJ; Tungsten, steel, lead for AP. Explosives for 25 pcs is should be good or +1 unit.
Launcher ammo. HEDP: lots of explosives, steel/alluminium for hull, may be some plastic. Smoke: small or no steel for hull, alluminium, mid-low explosives for launch charge and slow burning for smoke emitting, more alluminium as part of hull and smoke mix, may be textile, plastic and glue for latter. EMP: copper, electrolyte, rubber, plastic, glue as warhead. Steel/alluminium and explosives for launch charge.
Meds:
SimFAK: Textile and threads. May be rubber or plastic.
StanFAK: Textile, threads, rubber and plastic in more quantity. May be adhesive.
AdvFAK: Same materials as StanFAK plus titanium and adhesive.
All these recipes needs material quantity and weight tweaked to be “material>=product”. About titanium - it’s not that widespread, but it’s consume rate ain’t that lot either. Lategame surely gets you a lot of it. May be add it to some ammo or gadgets/mods crafting? I mean we don’t have that much of application of “consumable titanium” medical stuff aside.
Titanium vs Steel rant
Titanium is lighter than steel and has better strength-per-unit. But it’s harder to shape/machine, due to it’s special TiO2 coating (that protects it’s body from corrosion and scratches) and it’s high elasticity (more prone to keep it’s shape at bending etc). Steel is easier to shape and has better absolute strength but heavier and it’s properties can range widely with alloy recipe.
That means, to get equal total strength (even some ordinary industry grade steel alloy) of something, you need more Titanium or if you need something stronger with limited volume and weight is not a concern - Steel is better. Inversely, if you desire something lighter than steel, but as same as strong- titanium is way to go.
Yeah, it turned out overcomlicated, but I’d like to use all scaps we gather so it won’t accumulate, when we recycle guns/ammo/items. Next car of my thinktrain is about to arrive when I constict it in more comprehensive shape.
The fact that a car battery weighs 1kg in game I’m fine with having to scrap 10 at a time. But if it was 10kg a battery. Then collecting 10 would be out of the question.
Electrolyte is used to craft the EMP rounds for the Granatgevar. I think I would never have been able to get my hands on EMP rounds otherwise.
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@Tentrix I have gotten these frequently, but only from bosses, and I think mostly harvesters.
@Mr_A1992 Yeah, okay, I guess I wasn’t reading it that way, I was expecting that meant I needed something else besides the battery. I did not read into that message, “you need 9 more (duh)” 
Sources of steel are low in the game. And those we have, yield very little.
Steel is consumed a lot of making bullets.
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I had about 2.500 steel before the ammo crafting was introduced and scrapped about 1k of it to give space for more rare ressources like aluminium and such. Now I have to search for cars and look in the engine bay for steel. I’m avoiding a lot of big fights due to the costliness of steel 
I sometimes wonder if we’re all playing the same game…
I like the ammo crafting, but I sure as heck don’t need it. At no point in this game have I ever been short on ammo, except for .50 BMG on a few occasions. I have 2 points in Salvage of course, but even without it, ammo is literally overflowing everywhere you look. I mainly use 4 weapons: KVM 59, Kpist, PVG 90 and .44 Magnus. Of these 4 ammo types, .50 cal is the only one I can/need to craft a few of in order to maintain my wished-for inventory amount.
Prime example: Use 40 rounds of 7.62 to kill a military Hunter, and get 115 rounds back from his loot pool. Ka-Ching!
I have to drop ammo constantly. If anyone wanted to find where I was hiding, just follow the trail of backpacks… 
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I need to drop ammo also, but getting 1 point or not even taking the ammo scavenge skill is possible now. Always kept this skill as support.
Now crafting gives us possibility have 1 or 2 more skill points to be used something else.
That’s true.
But personally I think that not having to worry about ammo is more worth than gaining some other marginal boost. Especially if the price you pay for that is having to spend more time searching for crafting components.
I have quite limited time for playing, so more action, less scrounging is a priority for me. 
Try building clothes using the schematics. Holy crap this is expensive!
Why not implement a mechanic when a downed rival gives no exp. weapon or schematic it instead rewards the player with a huge pile of steel (which it basically is). Or make scrapping bullets give the player at least 1 steel per scrapable unit.
I have, 4-5* bullet and explosive resistances.
Weapons dont give steel/titanium, except certain ones. And only above 4* levels.
No point collect for scarp
Bullet givin 1 steel capped stack would be nice.
Field radios should give 1 copper