Lead Free Ammunition

[30338]

Disregard.

That was a cute eagle pic, you should have left it up.

 

[bsnedeker]

How much do you shoot? Do any plinking with a 22 lately? Surely you were using leadfree. Just because someone is a "hunter" does not absolve them from having an agenda. Though I disagree %100 I've seen hunters that think plt is a fine idea. Monos are good hunting bullets for some. But they're inhibitavly expensive for practice. And they're simply inferior for long range shooting.

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Good point, my 22 ammo is lead. However, the only thing I shoot with 22 are squirrels and grouse and I do not leave those gut piles in the field so there is no danger to wildlife from what I've seen.

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[Rifles And More]

Not Oregon Outdoor Council.

METRO - Ultimately Leland is employed by METRO via the Oregon Zoo. METRO has (and continues to) purchase thousands of acres in Washington County (and others) that have been historically (and recently) used as waterfowl hunting grounds. However, METRO does not allow hunting on a single piece of its property.

Unless I have mis understood you.

 

[doverpack12]

I use lead free bullets when I can get them to shoot acceptably by choice and have since 2007 or 2008. I made the switch because I cut up all my own meat and I got really tired of the waste and extreme bloodshot due to traditional premium bullets (not berger, I use mostly nosler). With a lead free bullet the majority of the time you can cut about a 1.5"-2" diameter hole around the bullet hole and the rest of the meat is unaffected. Not only is dealing with bloodshot meat a pain when cutting it up, but your meat won't taste as good with lots of bloodshot and you will be more wasteful in cutting up the animal as well. Lead free bullets are extremely effective when you know the limitations of impact velocity which you should know already with traditional bullets as well becuase the truly effective expansion velocity isn't that much different.

I gave Bergers a try and not only did they not perform acceptably they wasted a ton of meat and I shoot for behind the shoulder!!

The latest lead free bullet I have been using is the Hammer Hunter and they performed fantastic this past year on 3 different animals. They also shoot great at distance. I think the Hammer type lead free bullet (offers penetration and large piece fragmentation) is about the perfect bullet option for me.

 

[brocksw]

Form have you used mono bullets much? What are your experiences?


Based strictly on research and a couple of my own close range encounters (literally under 150 yards), Mono bullets are satisfactory for most factory calibers under about 5 hundred yards...give or take. Obviously dependent upon velocities, like Pods said.... 2200 fps+ is where most people draw the line regardless of what the manufacturer says. Run your solver and I'd be willing to bet most people hit that mark around 500 yard mark... Hence your limit. I've never experienced or witnessed a bang flop with copper... At any distance.

It does seem like lead leads to more DRT/bang flops and if a person wanted to shoot 500+, lead seems to be a better option in terms of ethically killing...which to me means fast killing.

Those are two vastly different things. Lead poisoning from indoor ranges without adequate ventilation is caused by aerosolized lead styphnate from primers, NOT lead projectiles. There are MASSIVE actual studies of solid lead from projectiles, and it does not cause increased lead levels.

You are being lead down a path that anti-hunting groups are laying for you. As stated- windmills cause MASSIVE deaths of birds of prey, yet there is no drive to remove them. I’m a little disappointed, though not surprised, that Randy Newburg has fallen for the lead ammunition boogeyman. There are reasons to shoot copper, but it isn’t because you are saving raptors or human health.

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[OXN939]

Yep monos are effective but the whole lead in meat thing is a complete non issue. Consider the fact that your ancestors likely ate off lead plates and drank from lead cups, yet you're here.

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Definitely agree that historical data is informative in this case- as it turns out, the anthropological consensus is that many Romans suffered from chronic lead poisoning as a result of eating off said plates and drinking from said cups:

A Brief History Of Lead Poisoning: From Ancient Rome To Michigan, Lead Has Plagued Our Bodies For Centuries

Not trying to fearmonger here, and certainly don't support the coercive tactics adopted by California to stop the use of lead ammo. Just good to know that for the cost of a cheap beer, you can eliminate the concern of having toxic particulate matter dispersed throughout your food... if you want. I use Nosler E Tips because of this and the fact that they outperform the bullets I used to use for a negligible increase in cost.

 

[beetlespin]

Good thing the other 49 states let us pick the bullet we want, because each person has their preference and it makes no difference to me if another guy wants to shoot a solid. I feel much more confident using a regular lead bullet and on deer but may change my option if I was hunting something different. To be honest, on a whitetail even a controlled expansion like a partition is too hard. Ive just seen too many deer run several hundred yards shot in the lungs with a solid. It works but I just feel like something like a hornady interlok is way more effective. Once again. some friend love barnes and more power to them. We all need to hunt with what we are confident in. I just feel that California is being dishonest about bird deaths because they care so much about lead ammo but not at all about all the golden eagles getting killed by wind mills. Its BS. Ill care more about global warming when Al Gore sells all his homes and stops flying to save the environment as well ;-).

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

But they're inhibitavly expensive for practice. And they're simply inferior for long range shooting.

Yep they are more costly for practice (though barnes on sale aren't that much more than bergers are typically which lots of folks shoot), I have 2 loads for my guns one being lead core and one a mono, I know the clicks on both from the same scope setting so I can practice trigger time and wind etc. with lead all day long and the fundamental portion of the knowledge is transferable to making calls for the monos. Yes the mono's ballistics will be a bit different and I shoot those to determine that curve independently but after that I don't need to shoot many to practice. I can hammer steel with lead while working on fundamentals, etc. and then grab a mono make my adjustments and shoot to confirm I know that bullet also. Going between bullets really isn't much different that going from a 500yd to 1000yd shot, you have to adjust and it all has to do with what zero you are adjusting from and what the environmental conditions are.

A precision lathe turned mono isn't inferior for long range shooting (not talking hunting) but its not cost effective for high quantity target work if there is a quality lead core on the market. Some of the extreme long range wildcats use monos since its easier to make a new bullet cost effectively in small quantities on a lathe.


Again its all personal preference, some of you anti-mono folks need to take a deep breath though. We haven't turned our back on hunting or sold out, etc. if we CHOOSE to use monos and successfully and ethically kill animals with them. If they weren't affective I wouldn't use them, but for me they are very effective.

 

[NDGuy]

Son of a b$%ch, did not mean to start a political thread lol

Good info guys, thanks for the discussion. Gonna do some more research myself and carry on.

Happy Hunting!

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I've never experienced or witnessed a bang flop with copper... At any distance.

Really? Half my kills are bang flops, most of the rest are a couple feet, and I've had a couple animals run for about 30yd max.

Antelope typically crumble on the spot but that isn't saying much. Last years bull I lost sight picture in on the shot ~440yd but when things settled it was on the ground so it didn't go far if it didn't fall on the spot, 2 weeks later I shot a large mule deer broadside at 250iirc, that thing stowed is landing gear on the spot and slid a bit down hill.

 

[204guy]

I'm far from anti mono. I've killed or loaded rounds with mono's that have killed, elk, whitetail/muledeer, sheep, mtn goat, antelope and grizzly off the top of my head. They can be very effective hunting bullets for the general public. I'm very anti being forced to use mono's and the propaganda/ selective (hypocritical) outrage that is used to support it. I see it as an obvious foot in the door to restrict hunting and eventually general shooting. It's that whole slippery slope thing and no stretch to think that all lead bullets will be banned in California.

Think about what being forced to use all non toxic would do to general shooting and the cost to shoot. 22lr, skeet/trap, long range shooting/hunting etc.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Gotcha. Yeah definitely not in favor of any state saying you can't fire a lead projectile whatsoever.

 

[Formidilosus]

Form have you used mono bullets much? What are your experiences?


Based strictly on research and a couple of my own close range encounters (literally under 150 yards), Mono bullets are satisfactory for most factory calibers under about 5 hundred yards...give or take. Obviously dependent upon velocities, like Pods said.... 2200 fps+ is where most people draw the line regardless of what the manufacturer says. Run your solver and I'd be willing to bet most people hit that mark around 500 yard mark... Hence your limit. I've never experienced or witnessed a bang flop with copper... At any distance.

It does seem like lead leads to more DRT/bang flops and if a person wanted to shoot 500+, lead seems to be a better option in terms of ethically killing...which to me means fast killing.

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Much experience. From contact to near transonic: in tissue. Barnes TSX bullets are pretty reliable and consistent in performance, yet I have watched as multiple examples fired back to back of the same bullet, from the same lot, from the same gun, at the same muzzle velocity and impact velocity perform very poorly. Thing is, the next several hundred did exactly what they were supposed to do. This is why I do not go off of limited experience with anything. Most people’s beliefs are based on one or two examples- or maybe even 10-12. I want to see dozens, hundreds, before I feel confident about a likely outcome.


Legitimate testing, and thousands of live tissue research has shown unequivocally that monolithic bullets such as Barnes TSX/TTSX, Nosler E-Type, etc.-

Have higher rates of failure to upset (expand) than most equivalent lead cored projectiles
Create much narrower wound channels than most equivalent lead cores projectiles
Need much higher velocity to reach full upset than most equivalent lead cores projectiles
Penetrate deeper than most equivalent lead cored projectiles
Require faster twist rates to fully stabilize and upset than same weight equivalent lead cored projectiles



All of that, means that unless the CNS (spine/brain) is destroyed, animals will travel further than with projectiles that cause more damage.



Now, having said that- I have little issue with copper bullets. Have, and do use use them extensively. But I do not burry my head about what they do, or try to put rose colored glasses on. They can kill very well, but there is no free lunch. Based on this experience, regardless of what Barnes or Nosler states I want a minimum of 2,400 FPS impact velocity (even then with chest shots expansion isn’t ideal), as much bone as possible, and I’m only using them because I am legally required to, it’s issued, because I need the penetration depth and no lead cored bullet will do it, or I’m gathering steaks and the animal traveling farther after the hit isn’t a big deal. All in all, I treat monos like an arrow that I can put through bone.


For hunting and meat damage, I go the other way. I prefer the consistency, and tissue destruction of bullets such as heavy for caliber AMAX/ELD-M’s, Berger VLD’s, Sierra TMK, etc. I get all the benefits that such bullets bring, but I get to step way down in some cases with the caliber and cartridge. I don’t need a 300WM to kill big deer- a 223 with 77gr TMK’s penetrates 18-24 inches after passing through bone, and creates a massive wound the entire way. So I get great terminal performance, almost no recoil, unmatched precision, and I get to watch it all happen through scope. If the damage with that bullet is too much, and for the vast majority of people they are absolutely shocked that a “22 did that”, then the Federal Fusion 62gr bonded offers 18-22” penetration, and a wound channel that looks remarkable similar to a 30cal 165gr or 180gr Barnes TTSX at like impact velocities.






There isn’t a person alive that would switch faster than me to non-lead projectiles if there was actually any merit to it. As I said, monos can work well and there are reasons to use them, but health and raptors ain’t it. Guess what, before the onslaught of hunters... The same entities that are pushing the “lead is bad” nonsense came after the military and ranges with the same arguments. After millions of dollars spent with well done research, it went no where because the arguments aren’t scientifically sound. “You say that lead fragments hurts and kills raptors... ok, show us the decline in raptor numbers since the advent of lead projectiles, oh and how about those windmills...”. cricket, cricket..

 

[amassi]

You guys shoot what you want But please, dont attach a moral or health emparative to justify it.

I shoot both, and have been impressed with both. I dont feel 1 is better than another, they were mission specific.


I listened to those podcasts and was appauled to see the talking points taken directly from the group that worked so hard to ban lead ammunition in California. Sometimes good podcasters/youtubers put nonsense out. Just because you like the rest of their body of work doesn't mean you have to take them at face value at lemming March into oblivion.

This has been a 20 year fight in California. And we lost. Please dont follow in our footsteps

The pattern here was
- large birds of prey, particularly condors(a species that without intervention and hand raising would be extinct)
When this failed to close the whole state due to the condors limited range they tried really hard to find other Raptors that were dying from lead poisoning and they couldn't. Despite the millions of lead rounds used to shoot ground squirrels and coyotes. So the raptor protection failed to close the state

Next was environmental impacts- which is funny since this state is so poisoned with mercury and arsenic from the gold rush this fell flat pretty fast.


Finally- and this is a classic as old as time, we had to save the children. Lead ammo was poisoning our kids! From a data standpoint, it should be easy to find a California resident with heavy metal poisoning since we have a large population of substinence hunters/fishermen who eat way more than reccomended fish(mercury) and shot everything from squirrels to bears with lead ammo. This group also tends to eat more organ meat(lead capture zone) and the findings showed there was no significant correlation between eating wild game that had been shot with lead.

None, zero, experiment failed to prove predicted outcome.

Finally, dont take hunting advice from a zoo.



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[brocksw]

Really? Half my kills are bang flops, most of the rest are a couple feet, and I've had a couple animals run for about 30yd max.

Antelope typically crumble on the spot but that isn't saying much. Last years bull I lost sight picture in on the shot ~440yd but when things settled it was on the ground so it didn't go far if it didn't fall on the spot, 2 weeks later I shot a large mule deer broadside at 250iirc, that thing stowed is landing gear on the spot and slid a bit down hill.

Keep in mind, and like form has said... I'm talking about a very small sample size (limited personal experience). So if you've killed 50 animals with mono bullets thats a much larger sample size than mine.

How ever I shot a doe a couple years ago with 168 ttsx at about 125 yards. Quartering away, plowed through her lungs and broke her offside shoulder... She ran 75 to 100 yards and fell over... Still alive when I walked up to her... Albeit her time was closing quickly. I've shot multiple animals at similarly close distances with lead bullets... Seen many more... They just die faster than they do with my limited experiences with mono bullets.

My dad still shoots the 168 ttsx... And likes it.

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[204guy]

As has been mentioned another problem with monos is how much velocity is needed to make them work and how that turns convention bullet weight selection on its head. I had a friend come out a couple years ago who is not a gun guy at all but a really good hunter. He and his girlfriend each killed an elk with a factory 180 tsx out of a .308. Ranges where not far but bullet performance was abysmal, just not enough velocity to make the monos work. He would of been way better off with a 150 gr mono out of his .308. Conventional gun counter wisdom is, elk are big use a heavy bullet. The truth is it depends.

 

[Laelkhunter]

As has been mentioned another problem with monos is how much velocity is needed to make them work and how that turns convention bullet weight selection on its head. I had a friend come out a couple years ago who is not a gun guy at all but a really good hunter. He and his girlfriend each killed an elk with a factory 180 tsx out of a .308. Ranges where not far but bullet performance was abysmal, just not enough velocity to make the monos work. He would of been way better off with a 150 gr mono out of his .308. Conventional gun counter wisdom is, elk are big use a heavy bullet. The truth is it depends.

Agreed the lighter bullet might have been better. To the uninformed, they think the same bullet weight in mono should be used as the same they would use in a cup and core. Had they done some homework and "checking out the bullet makers website" they would learned that the bullet maker reccomends to go lighter for caliber in the monos. I think most of the failures or lack of performance goes back to the old adage "If all else fails, read the directions" ie: follow manufacturers instructions to go lighter for caliber, instead of the "Well, that's the bullet weight I always use" or "My best buddy 's neighbor who works at the hardware store says to use the……."
If you have a cup and core design bullet, and wish to try a mono bullet for the same game, go at least 10% lighter in the mono, or lighter.
For Elk, I use a .340 Wby and used to use 250 Nosler Partitions, but I now use Barnes 225 TTSX (10% less than the 250).

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Keep in mind, and like form has said... I'm talking about a very small sample size (limited personal experience). So if you've killed 50 animals with mono bullets thats a much larger sample size than mine.

No probably around 20 with the 145LRX, I'm pushing that at 3130fps from a 280AI for an impact velocity perspective if anyone is curious, which is decently fast but not a screaming speed for a 7mm caliber. Maybe I picked a good combo of bullet/velocity for my shot placements with that combo, dunno its been rather effective for me.

I'm working on the 181gr hammer in a 300wsm right now (and also the 208amax) which will be around 3k for velocity and hopefully a half dozen samples collected with that this season. Maybe more if anyone wants to us my gun on a shot.

 

[Fish N Chips]

I am going to have to switch as well being a commi-fornia resident (not for much longer though, this state is going to hell pretty quickly with all the crime). Some of my buddies have switched and are fairly happy, but it is all the result of junk science and political agenda which is the biggest issue IMO. The recent lead tests on the condors and raptors shows the lead is actually from unrefined and naturally occurring sourced (eg, not lead ammo), but they end the documents with the politics of it even with the lack of proof, showing the researchers bias. The lead is from natural occurring open pit mines, man made lakes, ect; and are not fatal levels, the birds dying from age before the lead levels were a concern; even in waterfowl. Heck the condors are still being fed, with only a few documented occurrences of them eating carrion along beaches, on seals and whales where lead bullets are not an issue unless they open whale hunting again, lol. I spoke with several biologist I have worked with and they stated the lead is a pure political agenda, the condor decline had more to do with fire suppression reducing the needed landing and take off areas for an adult condor along the coast range.

Regardless of politics or not I have to make the change. I am debating on buying factory ammo or starting to reload. With the new DOJ background check and fee and limits for all ammo bought in California starting next year, I am tempted to make the plunge in reloading although it has some upfront cost and the time involved. It would allow me to tailor my loads to get better accuracy out of my guns though, especially at longer ranges and I can mail order supplies (for now), rather than ordering ammo through a dealer.

I have heard the Barnes rounds do very well. I checked local and they are starting to carry more non-lead options but the cost definitely prohibits doing much target shooting!

 

[Scoony]

Any of you have experience with CavityBack bullets. Depending on the particular bullet, they say they open up as low as 1600 fps.

I have not tried them as I currently have a good stock of bullets, but was considering them for my 6.8 SPC.

http://www.cavitybackbullets.com/default.asp