Lead...on the way out?

Antiqueguy: Read my original post about lead in big game hunting, not going to repeat it. As for lead in waterfowling, the removal of lead from waterfowling has not killed the sport - a box of steel has not even come close to ending the sport although there were guys like you screaming about it when it was introduced. The limiting factor to hunting is access to land/animals not the cost of a box of shells. Hunters are being forced to drive further and further to get access. As an avid hunter, I can tell you right now that ammuition costs were not even a concern to go out and hunt - I spent way more on gas/food/lodgings than ammunition. For big game, I shot a total of 5 rounds last year to take 2 Whitetail (3 siters and 2 actual kill shots). I typically take a number of varmints (coyote/fox/etc) and I may shoot about ~20 rounds/year at them. If I bought a box of 20 rounds for even $60 - that still only works out to $15/year for big game and maybe $30/year for varmint. I don't know what the heck you are hunting that you need to worry about your barrel as barrels that only see copper/metal jackets will still have thousands of rounds of barrel life. Regardless, your logic about cutting out 95% of hunters because of lead-free ammunition is right out to lunch. If you can only care about the personal cost of ammunition for hunting and nothing for conservation maybe it should be YOU to stop hunting.
 
Here is one to chew on
The U.S. EPA inventory lists approx 16,600 facilities that emit lead into the nation's air. About 7,000 of these are relatively small. The remaining 9,600 facilities release significant amounts of lead each year, from one pound to more than 10,000 pounds each with the largest being 117,392 pounds.
That is some pile of bullets IMO. But we have to save the enviroment
Seriously who is ignorant. Make the impact where it is truly required and maybe by then they can develop an alternative that we can afford and still be able to use in our vintage firearms
 
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3macs1: Two wrongs don't make a right - yes lead should be removed from other areas of use but that is not what is being discussed in this post. Your strawman point is pretty irrelevant to what is being discussed hereL: lead projectiles and the environment for hunting.
 
Glock4ever said:
3macs1: Two wrongs don't make a right - yes lead should be removed from other areas of use but that is not what is being discussed in this post. Your strawman point is pretty irrelevant to what is being discussed hereL: lead projectiles and the environment for hunting.
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I think he's saying that the eco-freaks should focus on stuff that may actually impact the environment and not worry about guys that put a couple hundred GRAINS of lead out a year.
 
BigUglyMan said:
Unless something changed recently its not illegal in Nova Scotia. Not that there is any shortage of idiots that will tell you it should be.
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only in NS? i think this year we are getting a bunch of those earlier than last year like the spring we are getting. at least here dont know for you place BUM seems the snow was in love with you guys.
 
Glock4ever said:
3macs1: Two wrongs don't make a right - yes lead should be removed from other areas of use but that is not what is being discussed in this post. Your strawman point is pretty irrelevant to what is being discussed hereL: lead projectiles and the environment for hunting.
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Please. Look at what it did to the waterfowl hunter numbers after the ban and tell me it didnot have a serious impact on the sport compared to today. We lost 100's and 100's of thousands who never returned even to this day . Do you even know that, I lived it.
Are you really that naive to think it will just be banned from hunting and not the target shooting sports also. Then what happens and don't for one minute think it won't. Sorry the red white and blue in my blood tells me when to take a stand and this is one of those times
Like I said a one box a year shooter it means nothing too but what if you were a 5000-25,000 round shooter just try keep shooting at those levels with the cost of non tox. Then again maybe you are rich. I'm not

My problem is lack of thrust with the powers that will push this and I read too much

Ever read some reports on the great copper replacement
Here is a little bit

The science isn’t fully settled on this, and very long-term exposure to elevated copper levels has been associated with degenerative disease, like Alzheimer’s, and has the potential to be associated with cancer.5

Many other studies conducted on copper toxicity have been performed on smaller animals like rats. In these animals excess consumption of copper is linked to many negative health effects, including liver damage. It’s probably not much of a stretch to think that if copper ingestion causes toxicity in some small animals, it may cause similar toxicity in other animals. As a result, copper seems imperfect in the environmental friendliness department. If animals are killed with copper bullets, and the bullet’s wound path is trimmed by hunters and left in the field, animals who consume that left over meat may ingest harmful quantities of copper. This is basically the same process that has raised concern about lead in upland game hunting. Quite possibly the saving grace of copper is that, unlike many lead bullets, it tends not to fragment; the bullets will remain larger and as a result less likely to be ingested inadvertently by other animals. If possible, it’s probably a good idea to retrieve any copper bullets that are embedded in your kill and pack them out with you.
 
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Have to agree with 3macs1 why are we trying to plug the hole in the dike with our finger when the river is running around the end of it . if society is all for banning lead lets start with the big players first . but that will never happen because there is to much big money involved at that level .
 
The other problem with banning lead. What about those shooting traditional muzzle loaders. There are no substitutes for lead for round ball.
 
Ardent said:
Not going to be a popular opinion in this crowd, but I support lead free bullets and shot. It's not as if the modern copper monos put us at a disadvantage. Lead is quite toxic, and even from an non-environmental standpoint isn't exactly a good thing to blast into your meat at 2,500fps. We encourage lead free bullets whenever possible.
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Are you planning on feeding TSXs to that Royal?
 
Ardent said:
Not going to be a popular opinion in this crowd, but I support lead free bullets and shot. It's not as if the modern copper monos put us at a disadvantage. Lead is quite toxic, and even from an non-environmental standpoint isn't exactly a good thing to blast into your meat at 2,500fps. We encourage lead free bullets whenever possible.
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As far as contaminating the environment goes, even if you sat in the same tree for 25 years, and shot a deer standing in exactly the same spot every year, there still wouldn't be enough lead to pose a serious environmental threat. And you know it just doesn't happen that way... it's a shot here, another a mile away, maybe hundreds of miles away. The environmental impact of big game hunters is virtually nil. I will concede there may have been some areas (such as California an it's condors) that are of particular concern, but that doesn't justify a blanket ban.

Target shooters and shooting ranges should be worried. There is no economical substitute for the thousands, probably millions of rounds put downrange every year by target and skeet shooters.

If you choose not to use lead bullets as a personal choice, that's fine, but to continue to use lead should be my personal choice. Monometals are not perfect, and there are a number of respected members on here that can show X-type bullets that failed to expand or showed very little expansion. There is still no bullet to equal the highly frangible, lead-cored Nosler Partition.

BigUglyMan said:
Are you planning on feeding TSXs to that Royal?
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I was curious about that myself...
 
Yes, lead salts and organolead compounds are extremely toxic. Organolead compounds like the tonnes of Tetraethyllead that go into aviation gas every year.

Any gunsmith that is experiencing lead poisoning got it from washing parts in (leaded) gasoline or chewing on paint chips.

Metallic lead is not the problem. Really.

In the early days of the banning of lead shot, copper shot was also deemed unacceptable, as it was just as toxic to waterfowl, plus it was toxic to aquatic invertabrates. You can be assured that if lead goes, copper will certainly follow.
 
Splatter said:
Yes, lead salts and organolead compounds are extremely toxic. Organolead compounds like the tonnes of Tetraethyllead that go into aviation gas every year.

Any gunsmith that is experiencing lead poisoning got it from washing parts in (leaded) gasoline or chewing on paint chips.

Metallic lead is not the problem. Really.

In the early days of the banning of lead shot, copper shot was also deemed unacceptable, as it was just as toxic to waterfowl, plus it was toxic to aquatic invertabrates. You can be assured that if lead goes, copper will certainly follow.
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How much lead does Avgas actually put in the environment every year? According to the Internet, 186 Million US Gallons of Avgas were used in 2008 (which amounts to 0.14% of the world's gasoline consumption) which should amount to a little over 532,000 pounds of lead, per year, 1459 pounds per day, which amounts to 0.000003 grams of lead per square km of the Earth per day. 100LL (the most common Avgas) has 2gr of TEL per US Gallon and a gram of TEL contains .64grams of actual lead. There just isn't that much burned any more. Something like a DHC-2 burns on average 20 GPH at a 230km/h cruise speed so you're just not adding that much lead into the environment when you take the Beaver out for a spin. Couple that with the fact that you're spreading that amount out over a vast area and the result is negligible. There was a doctor on the CBC a couple of years ago talking about the lead that was being deposited on the balcony of his West Vancouver townhouse as a result of leaded Avgas from the planes leaving Vancouver harbour. Just such BS it wasn't even funny and given that it came from a Doctor it was even worse. Not many planes burning Avgas are flying in and out of Vancouver harbour anymore and in the 15 minutes that it takes them to clear that area it's hard to imagine how long it would take for the lead to build up to the point where it was noticeable.
 
BigUglyMan said:
How much lead does Avgas actually put in the environment every year? According to the Internet, 186 Million US Gallons of Avgas were used in 2008 (which amounts to 0.14% of the world's gasoline consumption) which should amount to a little over 532,000 pounds of lead, per year, 1459 pounds per day, which amounts to 0.000003 grams of lead per square km of the Earth per day. 100LL (the most common Avgas) has 2gr of TEL per US Gallon and a gram of TEL contains .64grams of actual lead. There just isn't that much burned any more. Something like a DHC-2 burns on average 20 GPH at a 230km/h cruise speed so you're just not adding that much lead into the environment when you take the Beaver out for a spin. Couple that with the fact that you're spreading that amount out over a vast area and the result is negligible. There was a doctor on the CBC a couple of years ago talking about the lead that was being deposited on the balcony of his West Vancouver townhouse as a result of leaded Avgas from the planes leaving Vancouver harbour. Just such BS it wasn't even funny and given that it came from a Doctor it was even worse. Not many planes burning Avgas are flying in and out of Vancouver harbour anymore and in the 15 minutes that it takes them to clear that area it's hard to imagine how long it would take for the lead to build up to the point where it was noticeable.
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They say Alaska is still a big end user up our way which makes sense.
In fact the Alaska Air Carriers Association wrote in a 2011 letter urging EPA officials to give the aviation industry up to 30 years to phase out leaded fuel. They also report that over 1/3 of that 186 M gallons is used there so that would alter your calculations significantly since Alaska is only approx 1.7 M square kms How much do you think lead hunting bullets add?? That would be interesting numbers to see
Cheers
 
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rembolt said:
Have to agree with 3macs1 why are we trying to plug the hole in the dike with our finger when the river is running around the end of it . if society is all for banning lead lets start with the big players first . but that will never happen because there is to much big money involved at that level .
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Rembolt. Help me here. Has not Nova Scotia already closed a shooting club within a few months after they banned lead to be used and the boys tossed in the towel and stopped shooting there
Or maybe I am dreaming this from the effects of lead
Why am I thinking Greenwood??
Cheers
 
Hunting buddy is a veterinarian, he started using lead-free bullets a few years ago after seeing a number of x-Rays of entry/exit wounds on deer. He said that lead splatter on some reached a foot away from the entry hole.
 
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