You think ammo's expensive now

[smartbomb]

Ah... Why even worry about it.

 

[drvrage]

The current known reserves of oil are going to last much longer than the current reserves of lead and copper.

Yes but oil cannot be recycled. Minerals can be reclaimed and recycled indefinitely. Both are problems, but oil is a bigger one with more difficult/painful solutions.

 

[Ar180shooter]

I can't imagine what could possibly be used to replace lead in bullets.

Tungsten is apparently even better than lead. It doesn't need to be jacketed, it's very dense, and is non toxic.

 

[Captain Paul]

Tungsten is apparently even better than lead. It doesn't need to be jacketed, it's very dense, and is non toxic.

Very dense, very heavy! Its better than lead! Just expensive as hell!

 

[mrsmitty]

We need to invent new types of rifles like plasma

 

[Backwoods]

We need to invent new types of rifles like plasma

Agreed...and I can't seem to find any legislation on energy weapons in the CFC's fact pages....except tasers of course...lol

 

[Madness]

you also need to factor in the amount of ammo thats going to be used in the up coming Iran/US festivities.

 

[cancer]

you also need to factor in the amount of ammo thats going to be used in the up coming Iran/US festivities.

From what I gather, the known uranium reserves are smaller than lead. Though, there seems to be a fair bit of US surplus plutonium around these days. Maybe when Obama was talking about reducing the US stockpile at the UN last week he meant that ala dusting a few off and lobbing them into Iran

 

[Ix]

lasgun anyone?

 

[Onagoth]

Scarcity reports are always inaccurate as far as I'm concerned. As resources deplete, usually technological advances and research lead to more discovery. Its because scarcity increases prices, which increases the researches desire to find more.

I'm sure 20 years ago, someone predicted we would be out of gas by now.

 

[fat tony]

The Antikythera mechanism was made of bronze, that's one of the reasons it survived into the modern age, it was also preserved in a layer of mud, it was recovered in 1900 one of the things known about it is that it is one of a rare few bronze artifacts of it's sort that survived, Look into it, the bronze age has long past and we have plenty of bronze around as has been said before it does not disappear into a black hole, its still out there somewhere.

 

[scott_r]

So what......I'll do more bow hunting

 

[CanAm]

The Antikythera mechanism was made of bronze, that's one of the reasons it survived into the modern age, it was also preserved in a layer of mud, it was recovered in 1900 one of the things known about it is that it is one of a rare few bronze artifacts of it's sort that survived, Look into it, the bronze age has long past and we have plenty of bronze around as has been said before it does not disappear into a black
hole, its still out there somewhere.

Exactly, we don't burn up lead, just move it around, just like most metals.

 

[Pathfinder]

Scarcity reports for lead woud like be quite innacurate or ambigious. We have quite a bit of drill crews around here and I dont' remember any of them specifically looking for Lead, they find it but Miners around here drill for gold, nickel, copper and dont' really care about lead. If prices ever climb then you may see more production come online.

 

[rgv]

Scarcity reports for lead woud like be quite innacurate or ambigious. We have quite a bit of drill crews around here and I dont' remember any of them specifically looking for Lead, they find it but Miners around here drill for gold, nickel, copper and dont' really care about lead. If prices ever climb then you may see more production come online.

The projected date to the exhaustion of the lead supply is probably reasonably correct, but very misleading, as it assumes that there will be no major discoveries or new production spurred by increased prices, as noted in several posts above.

I'll even go out on the limb and bet that the source of the reports can be traced back to a venture capital company promoting shares in their mining ventures featuring ........ you guessed it ...... lead.

 

[Petra K.]

So stock up now and start reloading.

PK

 

[broncoo]

Tungsten is apparently even better than lead. It doesn't need to be jacketed, it's very dense, and is non toxic.

its also very hard and brittle. i'd like to see a rifle barrel made to last shooting tungsten bullets

we couls always shoot gold bullets or jacketed mercury bullets

 

[tbrwlf]

I recover the lead from our range. It takes melting down and removing the junk but you get decent lead. I add 1 lb of tin per 25 lbs of recovered lead and it is about a 20:1 mix. Great in my 45/70.

I am not worried about running out of lead. I have 1000 lbs in my garage.

 

[tsmith]

Has anyone ever thought of steel bullets? Would it be legal?
The cost of steel is about $600 a tonne (cheaper if you use scrap steel) and lead is about $2,200 a tonne so that is a big saving right there. It would be more environmentally friendly and it has an almost inexhaustable supply.
Of course you will need one heck of a back stop, and all bullets will need to be copper plated (not a problem) to save the barrel.
Am I missing something????

 

[CanAm]

Steel will not work due to the fact it will not deform in the bore, causing extremely high pressures. It will likely act more like a plug than a bullet.