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

[AkRyan]

I think shot placement with monos vs lead is a better discussion. Imo shoulder shots are the best bet with a mono and vitals with lead.

 

[Newtosavage]

It was a question floated to determine just who I'm dealing with, which is why I asked the question, which is what it was, a question. IF a guy answers yes to that question then his credibility with me goes down, way down. I'm sure I'm not alone with that thought process.

So your willingness to discuss a topic and provide factual information is contingent on how credible you find someone? Or are you saying that you only find people and sources who agree with your position to be credible?

 

[fngTony]

I read all five pages and have no idea what this thread is about. @Drenalin made a couple great memes and @fwafwow keeps tagging me in some of the more bizarre threads.

 

[Pony Soldier]

Not to interupt a vigerous pissing contest but --- Two issues - 1) I read the articles and found them interesting but they were not complete. It is rare that you use pure lead to hunt with. I wonder about both the solubility of various lead compounds in bullets and the bioavailability. I haven't found any research that documents any of that.

2) I don't load or shoot monos because they require a differant twist in the barrels of the rifles I have. The loads I have don't fragment and make little to no bloodshot.

 

[z987k]

I would like a reasoned discussion with more than feelings and anecdotes - whichever way it goes. There are some pretty conclusory statements in the other thread, on both sides, but only a few with backup. And the backup support has been questioned.

No offense, but saying you haven’t had ill effects from breathing lead sounds like many (including in my own family) who said cigarettes weren’t harmful because grandpa smoked 2 packs a day from age 16 “and he lived to 94!” For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone in the other thread is questioning lead being bad for you, just that it may (or may not) be harmful when eating lead in game meat.

It's really odd. I don't think anyone that shoots monos claims they are better than lead at killing. At times they're the same, but over every shot scenario no one would claim they are.

On the other hand, when lead toxicity is brought up, the refutations are almost all anecdotes and red herrings.
Literally no one says anyone will die of acute lead toxicity from eating animals shot with lead. Not a single person or study. But that's the straw man that is built to attack.
Higher lead levels in the blood/bones has been shown to decrease intelligence in a significant and measurable amount. It's been shown to cause neurological disorders, kidney disorders and anemia. None of this happens quickly.

There's been claims than inorganic lead isn't easily absorbed. That is true. And compared to organic lead compounds it's not even close. That doesn't mean that inorganic lead is completely non-bioavailible. And long term higher exposure, it would make sense would lead to higher levels in the body.
The entire field of toxicology is the dose makes the poison. Everything is poisonous if the dose is high enough.

Is the dose from inorganic lead in game meat enough to cause symptoms of long term lead exposure, or is it just enough to have higher levels of lead in the blood/bones but not high enough to cause the long term effects known with lead exposure?
I think the answer to that question at the moment is we don't really know. The blood levels in tests have people below the level the cdc would be worried about.

Given that answer, and the very very well known long term effects of lead on humans, I personally chose to error on the side of caution and not use lead hunting projectiles. It effects me in almost no way at all to chose to do that, so the cost vs potential harm reduction really really weighs in favor of not using lead.

 

[JFK]

I shoot copper. Mostly because I have to in Ca. But after seeing it work to my liking it’s what I also choose to hunt with out of state. Lead bans are stupid, most of this thread is even stupider. Use whatever you want is what I say. All bullets have pros and cons. I saw an eld-x blow up on an elk this year. Thing literally turned to dust inside the animal and all we found were a few pieces of jacket. The elk still died, but it’s probably not what people would hope for out of a bullet. Copper works well enough if you understand it’s limitations. But again, people should just use what they feel comfortable with.

I still use my teeth for split shot too.

 

[amassi]

I was hoping for a separate thread about the basis for (or lack thereof) the dangers of lead. Should I start another?

Yes you should

 

[Shraggs]

I tried to attach most of the research and state guidelines that I've used to make my personal decision in the other thread, as I've gone through most of the available studies out there, from the US and abroad. I'll post it again here.

People tend to find flaws in the research, whether it's the methodology used, or the entity funding the research, or what's actually being studied, etc. For me personally, I still trust the integrity of the researchers / universities / DNR departments in question, because I tend to be an optimist and would like to think that scientists are interested in truths, not predetermined outcomes. I'm also not prone to conspiracy theories and doomsday takes. Call me naive, but that's my take. Yes, the study may be funded by an avian interest group, but the scientists are still just taking meat, looking for lead fragmentation / dispersal, and publishing the results. When said results, across multiple DNR departments, multiple universities, and multiple separate countries align, that's more than enough for me to come to a personal decision. But to each their own. It can be hard to have your beliefs challenged, and some folks just don't take too kindly to it.

In my opinion, it's pretty much common sense that lead in the body is pernicious. I don't need to wait for a study to come out stating that lead isn't good for me to make the personal decision to minimize it in my body and those of my kids for the time being. We know that lead from paint and gasoline were proven to be unsafe, and the inorganic lead in ammunition, while absorbed into the bloodstream more slowly than organic lead, is still not what I would consider to be a healthy part of one's diet.

One doesn't need a PhD to understand that ingesting lead particles (even microscopic), on a regular basis, over a period of years is likely no bueno. I think it's awesome that people have grandparents that ate lead-shot game meat their entire lives and still lived to be a hundred, but let's also agree that there are many of those same anecdotes for smokers, and yet we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that smoking is not good for your health. I also get that some people take the tough guy stance, and claim that eating lead is way down their list of worries. Cool, I guess? Whatever floats your boat.

My personal choice is to use copper monos. Why? Because I want to. Because they are available, group well, kill game well, preserve edible meat portions well, and remove any concerns of consuming lead particles. My decision is to err on the side of caution, because I can, and because this is America, and we have innovators that solve problems, and I like to support said innovators.

Do I think all states should follow California in banning lead projectiles? No. Do I feel that I have read enough research to conclude that lead ends up in my meat, and that there's a better alternative? Yup.

Lastly, I'm not going to go back and forth with people on this thread regarding interest groups, government conspiracies, or personal anecdotes. I'm simply presenting my personal choice and the research / data behind my decision. I encourage everyone else to do what makes them happy.

Here are the same links I posted in the other thread.
Michigan DNR: https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/managing-resources/wildlife/deer/precaution-about-lead-in-venison

Michigan DNR: https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Pr...lies.pdf?rev=66a1fb2c45b3456bb73aecb00e60ed04

Minnesota DNR bullet fragmentation study: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/ammo/lead-short-summary.html

Connecticut: https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Hunting/Lead-Bullet-Fragments-in-Wild-Game

American Journal of Medicine: https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(16)30021-3/pdf

German study: https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/press_in..._risk_for_certain_consumer_groups-127610.html

NZ: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/...-could-make-you-sick-researcher-warns-hunters

American Journal of Public Health: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307069

Lead toxicity: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4961898/

Lead toxicity: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/leadtoxicity/what_lead.html

You’re passionate and I appreciate that. It’s been some time that I’ve read many or most of these. Peer reviewed of observational or peer reviewed of retrospective anything is nothing but data at best. These are not studies the are conclusive, maybe that lead can be in meat and consumed. That still is not conclusive of anything. Folks just assume, but the form of lead, how it enters the body and other sources occurring naturally in nature is unsettled.

Most important to me would be a placebo controlled 2 or 3 arm study of at least 10 years per participant and 10,000 patients looking specifically at levels of lead consumed only in meat from bullets and the other arm exclusively controlled to other sources of lead contamination excluding lead in meat and placebo is strictly excluding both. Without this it’s laughable to me to be drawing conclusions.

Seems like it’s someone else game to watch…


I’ll shoot either. Prefer lead obviously. But I’m pushing the limits on a 358 win and killing currently with a 200 hammer. Mid bores don’t have great options for both terminal AND long(er) range. Oddly on paper this edged out a 225 partion. Couple more kills and I might have a meaningful opinion. The gun, mission, distance dictates for me.

 

[amassi]

I've also had good luck with the LRX. Have you tried the Hammer bullets yet? Supposedly they mimic the fragmenting of lead core bullets, while retaining a decent amount of weight. I'm going to load some of the 120g Hammers for the Wisconsin holiday hunt.

They do not in any way mimic lead core bullets. They may shed some petals, when they shed petals their no more or less damaging Than any other mono.
They may also fail to open and pencil through, they may fold the nose of the hp over and tumble.
If and when they fail their owner has a million ready made excuses why they failed mostly too little twist:velocity:accuracy et el.

 

[Kenai_dtracker]

Wow. I started reading around lunch, was at 2 pages, come back a couple hours later and it's at 4 pages but 50% of the posts are memes.


I only shoot lead thus far.

Lead bullets seem to have more reliable killing efficacy in the many reports I've seen on many of the commonly available monos.

Cost. Monos are too expensive and I like to practice with my hunting load.

Mines. I don't want to promote more copper mining than is already happening. I live next to a copper mine that can be seen from friggin space.

We don't need complete Lead bans. Lead is the best and only decent option for some rifles. Patched round ball. The California idiots won't even allow lead PRBs despite the fact that they don't fragment. Plus, I don't care about the California condor.

Bald eagles have had a huge increase in population since the banning of DDT. Yet they're worried about some of them getting lead poisoning from scavenging on game carcasses. Well, they haven't definitively proven that the lead those birds ingested is from bullets. I also don't really care, because their population is on the rise.

I haven't seen any studies on this, but I have to think we are affecting surface water and groundwater quality by having lead bullets strewn across the land and it will become an undeniable problem at some point in the future.

So.... Give me the most environmentally friendly alloy that works in my bolt gun and compares to mid-price lead bullets and works well on game and I'm there.

How about a bismuth tin core copper jacket?

Shit, I’ve been sitting at Bass pro all day with my left hand on a box of monos and my right hand on lead just waiting for the answer. Then someone said I can’t kill elk with a 270win, so now I’m just standin here with my thumb up my arse feeling dumb.

 

[Rob5589]

Mono. California. Although may try to work up a load for out of state too without.

 

[Marmots]

I shoot monos for big game because I work with birds of prey and personally feel guilty leaving lead-tainted meat on the landscape. I am not concerned about eating lead fragments myself, and use lead for small game because I can just haul the whole carcass out of the field. I am concerned about exposing scavenging bird to lead fragments, because there's some major differences between the anatomy and physiology of humans and scavenging birds.

Birds of prey have extremely acidic GI tracts which allows them to be able to survive eating the gross stuff they eat. Human stomachs have a pH of 2, and raptor stomachs have a pH close to zero. That’s a hundred times more acidic, as pH is a logarithmic scale measurement. Because of this, lead is much more biologically available after going through a raptor stomach than a human stomach.

There's also the obvious size difference. A particularly large female golden eagle is 16 pounds, so those bullet fragments count for a lot more relative to the bird’s body size. A very old bird that’s my age weighs the same as I did at four months old.

Lead is pretty easy to quantify in the blood of live birds, or the liver and bones of dead birds. Liver biopsy can quantify acute exposure, and bone tissues can quantify chronic exposure because Pb2+ ions are taken into bones in place of Ca2+ ions.

There’s good data out there on how much lead it takes to poison various species of raptor to the point of neurological damage and to the point of death. This is because it is a pretty straightforward research paper to get some birds, keep them in a lab, and gradually feed them size 12 shot to record and compare the symptoms that develop.

There are very narrow margins for what is considered a safe amount of lead. Less than 0.2ppm is considered background, 0.2-0.6ppm is sublethal toxicity indicating exposure to lead, and over 0.6 ppm can be considered clinical. Laboratories can differentiate human-sourced lead in bird tissues from background levels because the US currently has no primary lead smelting facilities. Most of the lead in the US was originally mined somewhere else and as a result has a unique isotopic signature. You can also corroborate acute lead poisoning with high kidney copper concentration to infer that the lead came from a jacketed bullet. Sometimes folks know to test for acute lead exposure because some brain-damaged bird gets brought into a rehab center, and the initial X-Ray shows bullet fragments in the bird's GI tracts.

Lead can also have sublethal effects. For every bird that dies of outright lead toxicity, there’s likely several others that flew into a wind turbine or failed at hunting and starved because of neurological damage.

I don't support lead ammo bans. I'm personally not too concerned about tasting a TMK in elk meat while living in a world surrounded by obesity and endocrine-disrupting microplastics. The amount of lead fragments that ends up in a carcass is a function of velocity, so I never understood regulating lead as a muzzleloader projectile.

If I had any sort of say in the matter I would just start some sort of outreach program asking folks to clean up the carcasses they generate varminting the same way you pick up targets and cases at the end of the day. There's also probably something to burying a gut pile or kicking it out of sight of anything that might be soaring over, similar to trapping rules about having uncovered bait on top of a set.

 

[6.5x284]

I also use both. I use mono’s in guns where I want every inch of penetration and I use bullets meant to fragment quickly in others. Glad I hunt states where I can pick my poison. Launch something into the heart or lungs and it seems to die regardless.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[JohnB]

Thanks Marmots for the well written post.

 

[Fartrell Cluggins]

Real bullets have lead. I'll never hunt with lead free bullets anywhere.

 

[fwafwow]

I shoot monos for big game because I work with birds of prey and personally feel guilty leaving lead-tainted meat on the landscape. I am not concerned about eating lead fragments myself, and use lead for small game because I can just haul the whole carcass out of the field. I am concerned about exposing scavenging bird to lead fragments, because there's some major differences between the anatomy and physiology of humans and scavenging birds.

Thank you for a reasoned response. I’ve heard the above and it make sense. I know I can us e”the Google” but is there a source for the birds va humans distinction that you think is the best resource?

Birds of prey have extremely acidic GI tracts which allows them to be able to survive eating the gross stuff they eat. Human stomachs have a pH of 2, and raptor stomachs have a pH close to zero. That’s a hundred times more acidic, as pH is a logarithmic scale measurement. Because of this, lead is much more biologically available after going through a raptor stomach than a human stomach.

Same as above.

There are very narrow margins for what is considered a safe amount of lead. Less than 0.2ppm is considered background, 0.2-0.6ppm is sublethal toxicity indicating exposure to lead, and over 0.6 ppm can be considered clinical. Laboratories can differentiate human-sourced lead in bird tissues from background levels because the US currently has no primary lead smelting facilities. Most of the lead in the US was originally mined somewhere else and as a result has a unique isotopic signature. You can also corroborate acute lead poisoning with high kidney copper concentration to infer that the lead came from a jacketed bullet. Sometimes folks know to test for acute lead exposure because some brain-damaged bird gets brought into a rehab center, and the initial X-Ray shows bullet fragments in the bird's GI tracts

This is fascinating. Seriously. Could this ability to differentiate help with the problem (or one of the problems) in human studies of eliminating confounding effects of other lead sources, like indoor target shooting?

I don't support lead ammo bans.

Agreed

I'm personally not too concerned about tasting a TMK in elk meat while living in a world surrounded by obesity and endocrine-disrupting microplastics. The amount of lead fragments that ends up in a carcass is a function of velocity, so I never understood regulating lead as a muzzleloader projectile.

Also agreed, especially after all of the time I have invested in the 223 thread and the TMK rounds I purchased - before building my RS Special.

 

[fwafwow]

You’re passionate and I appreciate that. It’s been some time that I’ve read many or most of these. Peer reviewed of observational or peer reviewed of retrospective anything is nothing but data at best.

There is a pretty decent debate (IMHO) on the value (or drawbacks to) “peer reviewed” - so I’m with you.

These are not studies the are conclusive, maybe that lead can be in meat and consumed. That still is not conclusive of anything. Folks just assume, but the form of lead, how it enters the body and other sources occurring naturally in nature is unsettled.

Most important to me would be a placebo controlled 2 or 3 arm study of at least 10 years per participant and 10,000 patients looking specifically at levels of lead consumed only in meat from bullets and the other arm exclusively controlled to other sources of lead contamination excluding lead in meat and placebo is strictly excluding both. Without this it’s laughable to me to be drawing conclusions.

Seems like it’s someone else game to watch…

I agree. I think though that it would be next to impossible to get that type of study - due to costs and ethics. But we have plenty of studies that are less than as rigorous as your (logical) suggestion but the vast population points to and relies upon them. And for much shorter time periods. (Statins? One of the most prescribed drugs, with the longest study being 5 years and only demonstrating - at best - one added day to your life.) Like my earlier comment, that doesn’t mean a study which isn’t *ideal* is meaningless. But if you do a few (ahem, again, statins) and the closest to ideal points in one direction, that is still evidence to consider - fwiw.

 

[35WhelenAI]

It's not just humans as Marmots shared. Regal and worthy raptors are seriously affected by the lead. Bald eagle is the National Bird no matter what side of the aisle. They get it from scavenging remains from lead in animals and/or fowl that get away wounded. Myself included, go read info with respect to lead vs regurgitating about grandpa/uncle/brother Bob eating game meat and it's easy to see beyond ourselves. If I were to think I remotely had a leg to stand on to present a valid debate, with the preponderance of proof out there, it would be out of selfishness, stubbornness, ignorance, or a combo of any of those.

 

[kkp005]

I prefer lead because
- I don’t live in a communist state
-I prefer fast / quick kills
-I don’t like blood trailing shit through thickets

 

[Desk Jockey]

I will put this out there even though my position stands against banning lead for hunting. It does seem that some lead finds it’s way into scavengers, in this case birds, feeding on hunter killed carcasses. Of course there are plenty of issues with this study and no one seems to care at the flies, mammals worms, mice etc that also feed on those carcasses because they don’t get people riled up like eagles. I am also quite sure that wind farms, skyscrapers and house cats kill more birds annually by orders of magnitude than lead ever will.

Groundbreaking Study Finds Widespread Lead Poisoning in Bald and Golden Eagles | U.S. Geological Survey

A first-of-its-kind, eight-year study has found widespread and frequent lead poisoning in North American bald and golden eagles impacting both species’ populations.

www.usgs.gov