Lead contamination in meat.

[williaada]

What are people’s thoughts on going lead free to prevent lead fragments contamination?

Thanks for your input.

 

[Mosby]

I personally have never considered it as an issue but most of my hunting now is with Barnes TSX simply because they are extremely accurate, not because of lead. That said, if it concerns you, pick a different bullet.
Barnes, Nosler and Hornady all make quality lead free bullets. The only downside is cost.

 

[Yarak]

Nobody that I know of keeps any meat around or near a wound channel where most any lead would be found but if its a going concern there are several options for lead free bullets

 

[LJ Buck]

Zero concern for me. A little lead isn't that big of a deal, I still eat a good beef ribeye knowing it has been juiced up with antibiotics and steroids. Personally I would prefer a little lead over that crap.

 

[Northpark]

My switch to mono bullets was two fold. First I have little kids who eat a lot of game meat. Second I am now shooting the most accurate bullet I’ve seen. I’m running sub .5 MOA groups from my .300 win mag with 199gr Hammer Hunters at 3128fps. Kills everything extremely fast.

 

[Tod osier]

What are people’s thoughts on going lead free to prevent lead fragments contamination?

Thanks for your input.

I went lead free for that reason. At the time I had a very young kid and we eat a lot of venison. The lead travels a lot farther than the main wound cavity so throwing away bloodshot isn't getting it out and is in minute particles too small to be seen if you are using a high velocity bullet that sheds a lot of weight. Those who consume game have slightly higher lead levels than those who do not, so why not. There are some constraints going lead free, but overall I'm happy. Were I a long range guy, it would be different, but if you keep your minimum expansion velocities in mind when thinking about range, it isn't too much of an issue.

 

[txhunter581]

I guess it could be an issue for people but I don’t think lead fragments in meat is all that big an issue for us. Food passes thru our gut fast and has limited time to Be absorbed and affect a human.

However, go back to a gut pile a day after you kill a deer and see what is eating it. In addition to buzzards, quite a few hawks and even eagles will be on it. Lead fragments don’t pass thru them, they get stuck in their gizzard and let lead be released slowly. I don’t like killing those birds.

 

[BuzzH]

The study always cited is the one done by the North Dakota Department of health.

What it found was a very, very insignificant increase of lead in blood levels from people who eat venison shot with lead bullets...as in .3 micrograms per deciliter. CDC lead levels of 10 micrograms per deciliter are said to cause problems in children. Not one of the people in the North Dakota study tested higher than 9.8.

IMO, if people think its a risk, go lead free. I believe that shooting controlled expansion lead bullets, not hitting heavy bones, and being careful with butchering practices...its a non-issue and insignificant.

As noted in the above post, I would be more motivated to go lead free to help birds scavenging carcasses, than a worry about human health.

 

[Huntinaz]

Love monolithic bullets especially for elk but I don’t use them exclusively. Lead poisoning is not a concern to me. Exposure can be minimized while butchering and if lead from game was causing poisonings it would be a known thing in the medical field that hunters come in with lead poisoning at a higher rate than others.

If it helps you sleep better at night though then shoot monos. They’re great bullets

 

[Rich M]

There are a few posts like this on here.

We have the guys who say microscopic lead particles spread everywhere, folks who say don't eat the bloodshot meat, and folks who assign death to a thing that even touches the gut pile.

As a scientist, I always wonder what the desired result is behind studies and such. Most biologists I know are anti-hunting and pro anything to protect animals. They will even call roadside ditches sensitive habitat.

As a result my opinion is that fewer animals die from eating gut piles than say those giant electric turbines, so they really don't care about the birds but instead want to limit hunting.

It is also incorrect to try and compare metal levels in people to argue this point. We all have diff jobs, who still has lead-based paint in their homes, barns, places of employment, etc. Until you can compare a baseline prior to eating any game you can't compare that.

 

[Tod osier]

The study always cited is the one done by the North Dakota Department of health.

What it found was a very, very insignificant increase of lead in blood levels from people who eat venison shot with lead bullets...as in .3 micrograms per deciliter. CDC lead levels of 10 micrograms per deciliter are said to cause problems in children. Not one of the people in the North Dakota study tested higher than 9.8.

IMO, if people think its a risk, go lead free. I believe that shooting controlled expansion lead bullets, not hitting heavy bones, and being careful with butchering practices...its a non-issue and insignificant.

Yes, true on that study, but there is a larger body of work out there that I based my decisions on. Taking the body of literature as a whole, it was an easy decision for me to make given there is there is very little downside.

As I said if I was a long range hunter and needed expansion at low velocities or if I had a rifle I loved and couldn't get to shoot with monos, I'd consider an exception.

 

[Tod osier]

There are a few posts like this on here.

We have the guys who say microscopic lead particles spread everywhere, folks who say don't eat the bloodshot meat, and folks who assign death to a thing that even touches the gut pile.

As a scientist, I always wonder what the desired result is behind studies and such. Most biologists I know are anti-hunting and pro anything to protect animals. They will even call roadside ditches sensitive habitat.

As a result my opinion is that fewer animals die from eating gut piles than say those giant electric turbines, so they really don't care about the birds but instead want to limit hunting.

It is also incorrect to try and compare metal levels in people to argue this point. We all have diff jobs, who still has lead-based paint in their homes, barns, places of employment, etc. Until you can compare a baseline prior to eating any game you can't compare that.

As a hunter and a scientist, who has read ALL the published literature out there on the topic, I see plenty of evidence against using lead if you don't need to. Both from a wildlife and cautious human health perspective.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I ain’t a scientist but I have watched a lot of Bill Nye and read a Neal degrease Tyson book once. Half and half here. I don’t do a ton of rifle hunting, but I went with all mono bullets. Steel or non lead for the little water foul I do. Still using lead for upland and turkey.

I looked at so of the X-ray pics showing microscopic lead frag in game animals and just couldn’t ignore the obvious implication for potential hazard due to my own consumption.

as far as danger to scavengers, I am a lot less concerned. As Rich M points out, there are a lot more animals getting ground up in wind turbines and smashing into sky scrapers, and all kinds of other man made killers than are being slowly poisoned by lead in gut piles.

I would also add a note of caution about the anti gun and anti hunting crowd seizing on this issue to push their agendas.

 

[Rich M]

As a hunter and a scientist, who has read ALL the published literature out there on the topic, I see plenty of evidence against using lead if you don't need to. Both from a wildlife and cautious human health perspective.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[elkguide]

As a house painter here in the "OLD" East, more than 75% of all of the houses that I scrape and paint have lead based paints and residue on them. I am more worried about the lead dust from my daily work than I am about lead fragments in my meat.
Isn't it wonderful to live in a free country and to be able to have these discussions and then to be able to choose for ourselves what projectile to use to put food on our tables?!?!

 

[isu22andy]

Not sure but Ive been biting lead split shot weights for years fishing and not dead yet

 

[Marble]

These topics become political and its unfortunate. I dont trust what the scientists on either side have put out. Global warming, lead free bullets, covid.. all have "models" that try to predict what the outcomes are.

 

[manitou1]

I have been eating lead shot game animals since the age of seven. A large portion of my diet has been small game, upland birds, waterfowl, turkey and big game. I do know I have swallowed my share of lead shot over my life time. I don't know my blood lead levels... but I am 59 years old and still kicking hard.
I tried monos and had a couple bad experiences, so went back to lead.

 

[AK Troutbum]

It never even crossed my mind until a few years ago when I read something about it. It seems kind of crazy to me to think that I could have gotten lead poisoning from an animal that I killed with a lead bullet. Anything blood shot gets trimmed off and tossed, and I've never bit into a piece of lead from a fragmented bullet, so I really don't suspect that I've ever ingested much, if any, lead from eating game that I've shot. In the last half a dozen years or so, it hasn't been a relevant concern for me, since I've been using all Barnes TTSX ammo because I like how accurate it is, and it's all performed very well for me.

 

[Schism]

I have switched to lead free in my big game rifles for two reasons.

The first is I have two young children and we consume wild game for multiple meals each week. We were asked by our pediatrician during my son's 1-year appointment how often we consume wild game. I asked the physician why she would ask a question like that. Her response was that there is some concern for lead ingestion if wild game is consumed multiple times a week. I figured if the medical community is concerned enough to ask the parents of children, why take the risk.

The second reason is that the lead free ammunition I am shooting is some of the most accurate ammunition I've shot.