Monos vs. Lead. Which do you choose and why?

[wyosam]

Switching to lead free in an attempt to placate anti hunters so that they'll leave hunting alone is seriously flawed logic.

A few here have substantiated their opinions by posting links to studies; others drone on with sanctimonious statements. It's reminiscent of the great mask/shot debate we all went through several years back. As with everything, there's always going to be virtue signaling.

I've read a fair amount of research on this subject over the years. I haven't been able to dredge up anything that approaches definitive; but I'll hapily read anything someone posts a link to.

To me, the bottom line is that Condors in all copper areas still have lead in their systems, as do raptors and other predators. Similarly, a good friend of mine was diagnosed with high lead levels in his system. Switched to all copper bullets and steal shot. Got rid of all the lead sinkers on his boat. Wouldn't eat game taken by others. Eventhough he lived in a newer house, he drank only bottled water. He started taking sauna sessions to get heavy metals out of his system. After several years, his levels haven't changed much, and though they have theories, they haven't been able to figure out why.

There's a lot of conjecture out there on bioavailability of certain forms if one wants to go down that rabbit hole.

Lead in condors isn’t a great indicator yet unless they have data on the same individual over time. In the lifespan of a condor, lead free hunting is still a pretty short period of time, and lead levels will decrease over time, but take quite a while. Maybe that data is out there- I haven’t looked.

I doubt many people are using copper for a single reason, aside from places where it is mandatory. For most, I’d guess it’s weighing t
What’s being traded to mitigate potential risk. As lead free options improve, the trade will continue to shrink to mostly the BC loss. The human risks are largely potential increased risks as we age, with more acute risks for young kids. We don’t have a great way to measure that long term risk yet- the people aging in to the cognitive decline still had a ton of environmental lead exposure when they were younger when there was still lead in gas, paint, pipes, etc.

There haven’t been any studies on those risks large enough (or conducted in a way) to be meaningful related specifically to consumption of game meat that I’ve found.

I don’t there will be widespread lead bans for hunting in my hunting lifetime (I’m 50), but id bet on it in my 2 year olds hunting lifetime. Hopefully it’s only hunting and not a blanket ban- that would be pretty rough on all shooting sports in both cost and performance.


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[Igloo]

I’d be amazed if there is a study out there that would pass your muster- any study is going to get funding from the most local, and likely several other large raptor centers. I would assume those will be red flags for you- that is not unreasonable. The studies all tend to support their mission. If someone wants to pay for a study to try to show that all the others are skewed, they certainly could. NRA maybe? Major bullet manufacturers? Other hunting/gun rights groups? Get out there and ask those groups to do it. I’m assuming NRA fought CA’s ban on lead for hunting. Why wouldn’t they pay for studies to be done that might contradict the published studies?



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One would think, right? That's a great counter to the fact that we're getting awfully close to "let's just reject any paper we don't like because it MUST be false, just look at the source!" territory. Well, maybe and maybe not. To reject anything as out of hand without going over methodology, etc and finding the flaws is an unscientific as the claim that "the science" (tm) is just BS.

Theres a LOT of money behind people shooting animals with lead bullets, as you said there is the NRA, ammo companies, SCI and other orgs. You'd think someone would step up and get a few people together who could publish. Really just takes one or two to knock it out of the park.

The good thing about science being falsifiable or it just ain't science is that if all the others are fudging, it should be quite easily done.


(Caveat of course being anyone who disagrees can just say "Yeah well the NRA paid for it! What did you think they were gonna say?" )

 

[Pony Soldier]

Side note:
A number of years ago I found a study that looked at the uptake of lead in plants which had killed a number of swans. I never saw any followup research to explore any of this.

In mining in the 30s there were some poisonings of miners that were mining lead carbonates. They are bioavailable as opposed to lead sulfides or native lead.

At one point in my career, I had a lady in my office who was collecting all the teeth from elk that showed up at the dump. She maintained that the tarter on their teeth was gold. I sampled what she brought in and ran it through our mass spec and confirmed it was not gold.

However the tests showed an interesting array of metals that showed up on and in the elk teeth. Knowing the geology and minerology of the area, there was a very good match of trace metals in the elk to the local geology and minerals. Especially strontium which is common to the local batholith.

In another situation, Rock Creek out of Missoula has warnings from Mt FWP to not eat the fish because of mercury contamination. I am guessing the assumption was from historic mining. I looked into it and found that the mineralization of the area (multiple miles across) has an arsenic core but the soils and plants in the surrounding areas have a natural geochemistry signature of mercury compounds from the local geology.

A prospecting technique for gold is sampling of pine needles of trees and in the duff for gold. The trees will concentrate it in their new growth needles.

I could go on and on but you should get the idea on the influence on naturally occurring metal from geology in biologic forms. Especially at parts per billion and parts per trillion.

I brought this up at a gov meeting of multiple agencies one time but was told that if there wasn't a potential responsible party (prp) that they weren't interested.

Wharever research done can not assume a cause for punishment without establishing background first and why.

 

[MattB]

Good point. A definitive statement such as "Bottom line" was a poor choice of words for stating a general sense of something.

Presumably, more hunters now use lead free bullets than at any point in history; as such, if lead in gut piles is the major contributer to lead levels in scavengers, wouldn't it be logical to conclude that these numbers should be dropping overall? I read recently that lead levels and comorbidity in Condors has actually been rising recently.

One would intuitively think so, but there are number of factors that have worked against conversion from lead to copper here in CA. Part of that is resistance to change coupled with a lack of enforcement by CA DFW. Another part of it is our ridiculous ammunition purchasing law (no direct mail order allowed) which makes buying ammo in general difficult.

As for your point about the more recent increase, that is likely tied to the ammo supply shortages we saw during the pandemic. Even today with ammo availability having improved significantly from 2-3 years ago, most local retailers have limited copper offerings. If you shoot .243, 6.5 CM, .270, .308, or .30-06 you are probably in luck, but other than that it can be challenging to source copper ammo. Last I looked at the local Bass Pro, I would estimate they had 4-6 lead offerings for every copper offering in a given caliber. There are not a lot of rimfire options either, so those who shoot .22lr of .17 HMR for ground squirrels are even more limited.

 

[Mule3006Elk]

When I first started I chose copper b/c I had young kids. I've had very good result with them. Also chose them b/c less meat waste when compared to a highly fragmenting bullet. I enjoy shoulder meat, burgers, etc. For me, it was concerns about my kids consuming lead and I wanted to minimize meat loss. When I was younger I remember eating elk and got a piece or two with fragments. It turned me off to game meat at the time. Back it those days my dad and his hunting party were shooting Partitions which shed 30-40% if I remember correctly.

But, I also chose a bonded bullet with 90% weight retention mainly d/t my cartridge doesn't push heavy for caliber bullets fast and I was concerned about expansion with copper bullets. The high weight copper bullet limited my range too much. Light faster options I use copper. If I need a heavier bullet I use bonded.

Mainly in the copper camp but if I need a bullet with lead to make sure I'm ethically harvesting an animal w/o limiting my range I will. Mainly applies to heavy for cartridge bullets in my case. In this scenario I chose the heavier bonded bullets.

 

[Caseknife]

I started to shy away from highly fragmenting bullets well over 40 years ago. The 130 gr Core-loc in a 270 at close range would essentially destroy a shoulder on a mule deer. The slower 150 gr bullets did not do nearly as much damage. When you live in a state where you can harvest 1 deer and 1 elk per year and you like to eat game meat, have to limit the trauma. I have been shooting monos for over 30 years and have not lost anything. Had one failure with a 80gr Barnes x, got the buck but that bullet didn't perform as designed.

 

[35WhelenAI]

I started to shy away from highly fragmenting bullets well over 40 years ago. The 130 gr Core-loc in a 270 at close range would essentially destroy a shoulder on a mule deer. The slower 150 gr bullets did not do nearly as much damage. When you live in a state where you can harvest 1 deer and 1 elk per year and you like to eat game meat, have to limit the trauma. I have been shooting monos for over 30 years and have not lost anything. Had one failure with a 80gr Barnes x, got the buck but that bullet didn't perform as designed.

^^^This^^^

Been loading Barnes bullets since 1993. ONLY animal I lost was in 1994 with the 180X from a 300 Win Mag at a mule deer doe at a long spitting distance. Happened to be the first big game animal I shot at in my life. Could have been buck fever on that doe, could have been no expansion. Found no sign of a hit. I was in my earlier 20's.

Otherwise, when guys say they have only gotten pencil through's or bad performance, and they "still got the animal", I have to quote someone from years ago that said "at what point in the animals death did the bullet fail"? If a dead animal at your feet isn't enough, regardless of bullet, IMO, design a bullet to do the job like you want it done, like John Nosler, lol.

 

[Vern400]

I prefer lead core. I shoot 30 and 22 cal. With the right construction for the muzzle velocity:
*Velocity is virtually a non-issue
*Stability is a non-issue or easy.
*Initiation of expansion is very rapid.
*Penetration is determined by bullet construction
*I remove bloodshot meat unless I shoot them in the noggin. I don't eat that part.
*I use one bullet for all animals big and small that won't try to attack me.

I'm open to use tipped bullets or monos. I'm sure they perform well in the right application. I've got a good record with 45 cent bullets. Powder and primer cost is going up without chunking $1 bullets unless it gives me something I can't get with traditional bullets. And I'm watching for that.

 

[PLhunter]

I shoot mono’s for several reasons. Prefer to use less toxic methods when available for most anything. There is plenty of information and a clear mode of action for animals to be fatally lead poisoned from ingesting animals killed by lead bullets. When I pull the trigger I prefer to kill only the animal in the line of sight. My kids also eat only the wild game I hunt and lead, in even small amounts, has measurable effects on young kids.

As far as performance goes I have used or watched used Barnes, hammers, cutting edge, e-tips and badlands.

I’ve seen bang flops with each type.

Bang flops: Mule deer (1 Barnes, 2 hammer, 1 badlands) Whitetail (4 hammers) Antelope (Barnes, 3 hammer e-tip).

Less than 5 yards: mountain goat (badlands).

More than 5 less than 50: Mule deer (1 hammer), antelope (1 Barnes). Two hammers went more than 100 yards but shot placement was poor (brisket, neck). Both recovered. Shots have ranged for 60 yards to 550 yards. I hunted with lead for decades and can’t say I see any more or less bang flops with monos. CNC monos are also extremely consistent and I haven’t had issues getting them to shoot very well. BC issues are largely addressed with the badlands lineup.

 

[Igloo]

What cartridges are you shooting them from, PL?

 

[PLhunter]

What cartridges are you shooting them from, PL?

Various. 30-06, 25-06, 6.5 creedmoor, and 6.5 prc. Not all me doing the shooting lol I’m not that obscenely lucky with tags.

I’ve seen good hits result in bang flops and good hits result in animals running all out before crashing down with both lead and copper bullets. Some shots I wouldn’t expect to result in a bang flop but do with both lead and copper. Many accounts are just due to the inherent small sample size with well regulated hunting.

 

[z987k]

I shoot mono’s for several reasons. Prefer to use less toxic methods when available for most anything. There is plenty of information and a clear mode of action for animals to be fatally lead poisoned from ingesting animals killed by lead bullets. When I pull the trigger I prefer to kill only the animal in the line of sight. My kids also eat only the wild game I hunt and lead, in even small amounts, has measurable effects on young kids.

As far as performance goes I have used or watched used Barnes, hammers, cutting edge, e-tips and badlands.

I’ve seen bang flops with each type.

Bang flops: Mule deer (1 Barnes, 2 hammer, 1 badlands) Whitetail (4 hammers) Antelope (Barnes, 3 hammer e-tip).

Less than 5 yards: mountain goat (badlands).

More than 5 less than 50: Mule deer (1 hammer), antelope (1 Barnes). Two hammers went more than 100 yards but shot placement was poor (brisket, neck). Both recovered. Shots have ranged for 60 yards to 550 yards. I hunted with lead for decades and can’t say I see any more or less bang flops with monos. CNC monos are also extremely consistent and I haven’t had issues getting them to shoot very well. BC issues are largely addressed with the badlands lineup.

Check out apex as well. If you're more a fan of fracturing vs mushroom, but still want high bc, they have that covered.