Using lead-free is pretty much a non-issue for me. I hunted a couple seasons in Cali with it for deer, worked both seasons. Killed my buck in Nevada with it this past season. Use it here in Washington on some DOD land for pheasant, kills em dead. Never hunted waterfowl with lead so I don't know the difference. Can only think of 2 ducks lost and I doubt lead would have changed that. The reality is that lead is being phased out for hunting ammo. We, as hunters, have bigger fish to fry, namely loss of public land access. If we loose access, it won't matter what our bullets are made of.
Obama Administration Bans Lead Ammo & Sinkers on Federal Lands
- Thread starter gelton
- Start date
- Thread Starter
- #22
Huh?
Well, you can look at the USFWS surveys of waterfowl hunters. From the 1950s through the 1980s, hunter-reported crippling rates were around 20%. With the transition to non-lead shot, they jumped up to nearly 25%. But a few years later, as hunters got used to shooting steel, crippling rates dropped down to right around 20% again. More recently they're even lower with further tech advances in non-toxic shot.
Of course, none of that means that steel is just as deadly as lead. It just means that non-lead shot doesn't necessarily cripple more birds as long as people adjust their shooting accordingly.
jmez
WKR
The banning of lead for upland birds and doves makes much less since than that for waterfowl and fishing equipment. It is all a matter of concentration and exposure.
Upland birds are hunted in wide open spaces and you are most often moving around to different areas when shooting them. You may throw out just as much lead as waterfowl hunters but you throw it over a much larger area. When hunting out of a blind for ducks for an entire season, all of your lead is essentially falling within a confined space in the water the size of the pattern for the gun. Do this over years at the same site you will have a very high concentration of lead at that one site.
Most doves are shot over grain fields, as are many upland birds. In the spring those fields are going to be worked by a farmer and turned. A lot of that lead will be driven down into the soil. It is still there but is is no longer a factor buried in the dirt. It isn't going to be picked up or eaten by anything. It only accumulates in the soil, not the food chain.
Now take your duck pond. There is lead from shot and lead from sinkers on the bottom. There are a lot of shore birds and ducks that stir up mud and filter that when they eat. Lead is an accumulator, it increases in every step of the food chain. A duck eats a few pellets or a sinker. An eagle eats that duck. Eagle flies south a ways and eats another duck that has picked up a few pellets, etc etc etc. Eventually the eagle ends up with a far higher lead level than any of the 15 ducks that it has eaten. It dies and the next eagle along feeds on its carcass and you have now exponentially increased the lead level in this eagle, etc etc etc.
Same with big game. You shoot an elk and every single scavenger in three counties are going to be on the carcass. One raven eats some lead fragments at the kill. Two days later an elk is killed half mile from this one. Same raven is going to be on that carcass. If it gets some more lead it just keeps building. Then when it dies and another raven or coyote or bear or eagle or what ever eats the raven their lead level goes up exponentially. They then get eaten and the problem just keeps intensifying up the food chain.
This is the same principle for fish restrictions on certain bodies of water. The recommendations are based on the average heavy metal concentrations of the fish. You are still getting and accumulating the heavy metals every time you eat one. The recommendations are designed to prevent you eating enough that you will ever develop any sort or toxicity. The entire time your levels will continue to go up and accumulate over time.
Upland birds are hunted in wide open spaces and you are most often moving around to different areas when shooting them. You may throw out just as much lead as waterfowl hunters but you throw it over a much larger area. When hunting out of a blind for ducks for an entire season, all of your lead is essentially falling within a confined space in the water the size of the pattern for the gun. Do this over years at the same site you will have a very high concentration of lead at that one site.
Most doves are shot over grain fields, as are many upland birds. In the spring those fields are going to be worked by a farmer and turned. A lot of that lead will be driven down into the soil. It is still there but is is no longer a factor buried in the dirt. It isn't going to be picked up or eaten by anything. It only accumulates in the soil, not the food chain.
Now take your duck pond. There is lead from shot and lead from sinkers on the bottom. There are a lot of shore birds and ducks that stir up mud and filter that when they eat. Lead is an accumulator, it increases in every step of the food chain. A duck eats a few pellets or a sinker. An eagle eats that duck. Eagle flies south a ways and eats another duck that has picked up a few pellets, etc etc etc. Eventually the eagle ends up with a far higher lead level than any of the 15 ducks that it has eaten. It dies and the next eagle along feeds on its carcass and you have now exponentially increased the lead level in this eagle, etc etc etc.
Same with big game. You shoot an elk and every single scavenger in three counties are going to be on the carcass. One raven eats some lead fragments at the kill. Two days later an elk is killed half mile from this one. Same raven is going to be on that carcass. If it gets some more lead it just keeps building. Then when it dies and another raven or coyote or bear or eagle or what ever eats the raven their lead level goes up exponentially. They then get eaten and the problem just keeps intensifying up the food chain.
This is the same principle for fish restrictions on certain bodies of water. The recommendations are based on the average heavy metal concentrations of the fish. You are still getting and accumulating the heavy metals every time you eat one. The recommendations are designed to prevent you eating enough that you will ever develop any sort or toxicity. The entire time your levels will continue to go up and accumulate over time.
Felix40
WKR
I'd be ok with a lead ammo ban if I saw some science behind it. I did my masters thesis project on an army base where I was trying to determine the biointegrity of streams as a function of land use on the base. Turns out that having a firing range (on an army base with LARGE caliber ammunition being fired) in a stream's watershed has less impact on biodiversity than almost every other metric. Makes me think that a few hundred big game hunters in a couple million acres probably has a negligible effect too.
As far as I know the lead in ammunition is largely insoluble anyway.
As far as I know the lead in ammunition is largely insoluble anyway.
- Thread Starter
- #27
jmez
WKR
Not really apples to apples to comparison. Large caliber ammunition doesn't have a very high probability of entering the food chain. Nothing is going to pick up and eat a 155 mm artillery shell.
Steel shot has come a long way but when we were first forced into it the stuff was worthless. You could barely kill little teal with the stuff and some of those would require multiple shots. I actually quit hunting ducks for quite a few years because I got tired of losing birds. The sad thing is you could watch them fly off and then fall out of the sky 5-600yds from where they were shot. In thick marsh type places the odds of finding a bird 5-600yds away is nearly impossible.
I don't have a problem with non-toxic shot in shotguns, especially around marshes, where many birds, fish, and other animals can ingest it. I do have a problem with being forced into it for rifles. The amount of lead exposure to other animals shot with rifles is so minor compared to that of shotguns. If a few less ravens, crows, or coyotes are around due to lead in a elk or deer carcass then so be it. It will make it easier for the others to survive the winter and eat naturally dying winter kill. The actual die off will be minimal because the actual amount of lead is very minimal. There is about 3 to 4 times the lead in one shotgun shell as there is in one rifle bullet. Most of the lead debris is typically in the lungs which aren't always eaten by scavengers. Many times bullets pass through the animals leaving even less lead debris in the carcass. I doubt you'll find much sound science to prove scavenger populations are hugely effected by lead bullets used to kill big game animals. It's been going on for 100's years and the scavenger population here and everywhere else is still booming. CA did it to try and protect any and all condors they could because the population got so low. So as usually they jumped off the deep end with their reaction. Now the rest of the nation thinks we need to follow suit.
I don't have a problem with non-toxic shot in shotguns, especially around marshes, where many birds, fish, and other animals can ingest it. I do have a problem with being forced into it for rifles. The amount of lead exposure to other animals shot with rifles is so minor compared to that of shotguns. If a few less ravens, crows, or coyotes are around due to lead in a elk or deer carcass then so be it. It will make it easier for the others to survive the winter and eat naturally dying winter kill. The actual die off will be minimal because the actual amount of lead is very minimal. There is about 3 to 4 times the lead in one shotgun shell as there is in one rifle bullet. Most of the lead debris is typically in the lungs which aren't always eaten by scavengers. Many times bullets pass through the animals leaving even less lead debris in the carcass. I doubt you'll find much sound science to prove scavenger populations are hugely effected by lead bullets used to kill big game animals. It's been going on for 100's years and the scavenger population here and everywhere else is still booming. CA did it to try and protect any and all condors they could because the population got so low. So as usually they jumped off the deep end with their reaction. Now the rest of the nation thinks we need to follow suit.
- Thread Starter
- #30
ChrisS
WKR
Whether something is toxic or not is all about two things: dose and exposure. Both are driven by concentration. You'll cut the lead shot out of most of the meat and you have, probably, a greater mass than most scavangers. If you're 200lbs and you ingest say 5 milligrams of lead it's not the same concentration as a puddle duck or a hawk ingesting 5 mg. The human endocrine system is complex and fully understood. No one has a good handle on what concentrations do what or what a "safe" level is. Because people don't know what the "safe level" is, erring on the side of caution is to limit as much as a possible. And it all varies from person to person. Ultimately, symptoms and effects are going to be different and lead is only an acute danger (e.g., dropping dead of lead poison) when it is introduced to a body at a high velocity.
But if you knew your child would have a 10% greater chance of developing cancer from ingesting chemical X, would you still not care? 25%? 5%? what's the limit?
No one is forcing you to do anything under this rule. You're free to buy all the land you want to shoot whatever lead you want (provided the impacts don't migrate off your property). On public FWS lands, though, the goal is to phase out lead.
Felix40
WKR
I'm talking everything from 5.56 to tanks and artillery. Ranges on ft Polk see more weapons fired than pretty much anywhere you will ever hunt. Wildlife is still plentiful in the national forest surrounding the base. Even birds.
KurtR
WKR
So is it really keeping public lands public when the rules force the public from using it? Its just a backdoor way of eroding hunters using the land.
Tod osier
WKR
Lead ingestion concerns are greatest in children when they are developing. There is a range of non-lethal effects in children that are a concern short of death or lead poisoning. The X-rays of animals shot with high velocity cup and core bullets are amazing as far as the huge number of very small fragments and the great distance the fragments travel. When a bullet looses 25% of its mass (75% weight retention) - that mass is ending up in the carcass as very small particles in both the meat and internal organs. If in the internal organs, wildlife eats it. If in the meat, we eat it. The distance travelled is far beyond the trimming area for bloodshot meat - the particles travel much farther than you can see (as evidenced by the x-ray studies). Eating lead powder is the best way to get it in your system (vs. eating a chunk of equal size).
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I'll give you the BC, but everything else is BS. A very quick look at 30-06 Barnes Vortex TTSX 180's vs. Federal Premium Nosler Partion 180's shows the SAME velocity. Now I realize you can't necessarily trust factory published data, but a few feet per second either way doesn't make a difference on game. And if BC becomes a real issue due to distance, get closer to the game before shooting. How would a solid copper wear a barrel faster? Lead core bullets have a COPPER jacket. Not to mention, for the vast majority of hunters, barrel wear is non issue. Solid copper bullets have been proven over and over to be effective on game, all over the world.
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jmez
WKR
Ft. Riley in Manhattan is similar. You could listen to them shooting artillery all day and night when I was there. Wildlife there is plentiful as well. It may be addressed in your study, and I would be interested to know if you think there is an effect of designated firing ranges? I know at Fr. Riley all of the live fire exercises were conducted in the same area. Because of the live fire and activity you would likely see very little wildlife activity on the actual ranges due to constant disturbance. The live fire area at Riley was pretty much 24/7.
How the f#ck does requiring lead-free ammo keep people from using public land? One arguement I see against going lead-free is the cost of ammo. Of all the sh^t hunters spend money on, ammo is one of the cheapest, even at $40 a box. Heck green box Remmy Core-locts are running $20-30 depending on what you shoot.
Tod osier
WKR
The angle in this argument for me that is missing is for big game shot with lead and birds shot with lead there is an enticement (the meat or guts) for animals to eat the material and if the bullet is fragmented the lead is more readily absorbed. Lead laying around is not that much a concern compared to a whole animal, meat or guts laced with fine particles. Further, birds, when they ingest a lead bullet, lead shot or sinkers, grind it up in their gizzard and turn a fairly inert chunk of lead into powder, which is much more readily absorbed.
Does military ammo even have a lead core? I was under the (possibly mistaken) impression that ball ammo was steel core. Not to mention that the military doesn't shoot open tip ammo, by the Geneva Convention, it has to be full metal jacket. Correct? Or is this also possibly mistaken? (Discounting tracer and explosive/incindiary rounds)
ChrisS
WKR
If anyone is interested in a jumping off point for reading about DOD ranges, here you go: http://www.denix.osd.mil/sri/Policy/orap/
It's the operational range assessment program. The DOD has spent more than 20 years investigating their training practices. They put a lot of effort into it after having some environmental issues get off a few installations (e.g., Massachusetts Military Reservation/Joint Base Cape Cod).
Edited to add: that the goal of these reports were to identify any contaminants from active training that were migrating off the installation. They didn't really care if anything was too impacted on the ranges themselves. The point was to make sure that they wouldn't get hit with any surprise lawsuits that could halt training because runoff from the firing ranges was contaminating a neighborhood's water supply or something.
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