.22 LR for small game in California?

[DBAshland]

I'm a newbie hunter and have been doing some small game (gray squirrel, rabbit) hunting in southern Oregon. Since I'm so close to California, I got curious about small game opportunities there. With the .22 LR lead-free ammo requirement in CA, and seemingly no ammo manufacturer's making .22 LR lead free, it seems that .22 hunting in CA is just gone. What are folks doing? Using shotguns? Finding some secret stash of lead-free?

 

[jzeblaz]

Pellet guns and there are a few .22lr lead free loads, but they aren't that great, at least the ones I've seen.

 

[Steve300xcw]

 

[Kurts86]

I had a friend that was dealing with non toxic rimfire ammo and he eventually settled on .17 hmr as the .22 LR copper ammo was extremely inaccurate. It appears lead free .22 LR has been discontinued by CCI because it was so bad with something new in the works.

 

[hibernation]

I had a few boxes of the CCI copper 22 ammo, it shot... poorly.

Winchester came out with the 21 sharp last year, I think it was supposed to be a 22LR chamber redesigned specifically for copper rounds. Haven't heard a peep about it since it was announced though.