Fragments in Meat?

[rookieforever33]

My nephew put 4 wichester soft points into a deer. Butchers must've ground some bloodshot because every burger had a little. Tossed most of the burger after 3 bags had lead bits.

I used to find chunks of lead slugs in my deer when I would butcher them. They would spread all over somehow. Never ate any that I noticed.

Most butchers do a good job. Some bullets definitely cause more meat to be tossed to be safe. Better than eating lead.

 

[Robobiss]

Never found a single one in 30 years of eating wild game. Half of those were killed with archery equipment though.

I’m just good at processing them, I guess.

 

[Jethro]

I’m sure I’ve found some fragments during butchering. But never during grinding, cooking, or eating.

35 years nosler partitions

 

[KsRancher]

We butcher our own hogs. And shoot them in the head with a 22LR. Put an X from ear to eye and shoot there. They drop like a rock. We like our meat ground really course. I found half a 22 bullet in a sausage patty one morning. My brother found the other half in his sausage a few months later. The grinder cut it right in half. I have no idea how that 22 bullet got thru the head and into something that we ground up.

 

[Chris_in_Idaho]

We butcher our own hogs. And shoot them in the head with a 22LR. Put an X from ear to eye and shoot there. They drop like a rock. We like our meat ground really course. I found half a 22 bullet in a sausage patty one morning. My brother found the other half in his sausage a few months later. The grinder cut it right in half. I have no idea how that 22 bullet got thru the head and into something that we ground up.

Impressive!

 

[Rich M]

People will tell you fragments travel feet thru meat without any disruption…. Blah blah. Once you clean a deer, elk, antelope you will find the majority of muscle groups encased in silverskin and membranes.

Punch thru the ribs or shoulders - trim around the hole and leave the bloodshot stuff too. Leave a couple ounces or pounds of meat.

Or shoot for the neck. Save shoulders and rest, waste neck meat.

The ass and backstraps hold the bulk of the yummy meat - dont shoot them there.

You’ll be fine and so will your family.

 

[Rich M]

I shot a yearling bull - 700#er in the forehead w 357 mag and found bullet 16 inches behind skull in neck. Bullets do some crazy stuff.

Thankfully they dump energy upon impact and the destruction of the bullet decreases exponentially from there as it penetrates. Complex way of saying most shrapnel upon emtry.

 

[HunterGatherer]

Thanks for all the info so far! I'm hoping not to devolve this into an outright lead vs mono argument, but rather stick to the specific question.

Have you found fragments in your meat? What bullet? What shot placement? What cut of meat?

Thanks!

My point about the lead in meat is that it’s kind of pointless to ask people if they found lead because most lead isn’t found. If 80% of tested samples had lead ( in the study I posted) , it means anyone who shoots lead for very many years is almost certainly eating lead rather than finding it.

 

[Kingofthemountain83]

I've found some from the 243 in deer, elk, and bear... When I shot Powerbelts in 50 muzzy I found a lot of pieces in three elk and three deer... They didn't hold together very well... Switched to Maxi Balls and didn't find any fragments... I've spit out more shot in birds that I can remember...

 

[NRA4LIFE]

I've spit out more shot in birds that I can remember...

Don't ever remember finding any in 150+ kills of big game, another 100 or more by my dad. Ducks, geese and other birds, and rabbits, different story.

 

[Fartrell Cluggins]

Is this the thread that is going to kill the TMK worship here?

 

[Chris_in_Idaho]

Is this the thread that is going to kill the TMK worship here?

Nope, just me hoping to benefit from other people's experience while making my own decisions.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Never found a piece of lead or jacket in anything I cooked. I have trimmed away a good amount of meat from around the impact area. If you cut away everything bloodshot, you should be fine. The bloodshot area can have a good number of fragments in it if you hit bone. Most of the deer we have killed were with Gamekings or good old CoreLokts.

 

[R boar]

I have found fragments. I've sent 'em through the grinder too. Probably could have been avoided by more careful trimming, I will admit I don't like tossing meat that's "probably fine".

I switched to copper a few years ago (TSX). They kill fine if you hit them good, but I don't know if they kill as good when you hit them bad.

That study linked above is interesting, I think I've read that before too. I don't know how credible it is (I haven't looked into it) but if true it seems less than ideal. I'm not worked up about it and I'm not gonna try to convince anyone else to go lead free, but it's working for me for what I hunt. I mostly only shoot bears with a rifle though.

 

[Chris_in_Idaho]

I have found fragments. I've sent 'em through the grinder too. Probably could have been avoided by more careful trimming, I will admit I don't like tossing meat that's "probably fine".

I switched to copper a few years ago (TSX). They kill fine if you hit them good, but I don't know if they kill as good when you hit them bad.

That study linked above is interesting, I think I've read that before too. I don't know how credible it is (I haven't looked into it) but if true it seems less than ideal. I'm not worked up about it and I'm not gonna try to convince anyone else to go lead free, but it's working for me for what I hunt. I mostly only shoot bears with a rifle though.

Is a double lung in & out through the ribs and good hit or do you need to hit a shoulder on the way in?

 

[R boar]

Is a double lung in & out through the ribs and good hit or do you need to hit a shoulder on the way in?

Yes that is an ideal hit. I try to avoid the shoulders if at all possible. I just hate wasting meat, and prefer the whole butchering process with less busted up muscle and bone. Which has been great with bowhunting.

Kinda nitpicky though, it's easy enough to cut it all out, I just don't like to.

 

[TaperPin]

I’ve sometimes wondered why I’ve never had a fragment in big game, but it seems bullet choice, shot choice and detailed attention to boning things out works.

The front 30% of a Nosler partition sheds off fairly quickly, but shortly after that it doesn’t do much and not much trimming is required around the hole. One family that processes about ten animals a year for their use won’t allow anyone in their group to use a fragmenting bullet.

From a young age it was always stressed to avoid shots through any of the quarters when meat hunting and for the most part it isn’t too hard to do. Trophy hunting I don’t consider meat damage and carefully look for fragment penetrations in muscles when trimming in the field. I’d never rely on the game processor cutting 100 miles an hour to be as detailed as I am.

Something I hadn’t thought about is lead from other people’s animals. If you have jerky or sausage made, you’re not always getting your meat back, and nobody is cleaning the grinder in between animals, so a little bit of whatever was in the last burger gets in yours.

For someone’s first animal I won’t even bring up avoiding shooting through quarters since they have plenty to think about already, so we’ve had some extra trimming with those.

Elk in the timber are hard to be picky about angle, but if it’s strictly meat hunting the trigger doesn’t always need to be pulled.

If lead poisoning was a big issue it would show up more than it does in families that live on wild game, especially bird hunters.

 

[Weaseltail]

I canned a deer and found a bullet fragment in one of the jars. 7 mag.

 

[AnnualRye]

I feel confident having cut meat professionally for 16 years and having graduate degrees in meat/animal science to state that despite your best trimming efforts lead fragments can and do go undetected during carcass fabrication and further processing. Grinding can comminute particles throughout the entire meat block into microscopic pieces that easily go undetected. As someone alluded to above, lead can have detrimental impacts on human health, especially in susceptible populations like young children and women who are nursing who do not clear it from their tissues as quickly as adolescents and adults.

I believe The Hunt Backcountry podcast had an episode on this a few months back that discussed this in great detail. If I remember correctly, the risk of lead in your system is even greater for those who reload. Folks should give it a listen if they haven't already.

To each their own, and if it was purely ballistics-motivated I'd shoot lead all day and twice on Sunday. But, copper kills just fine and alleviates the concern of lead exposure to my family and me in the meat we eat. YMMV.