Should meat hunters stop using lead ammunition?

[peterb]

The intent of the videos and your post is clearly aimed and reducing and limiting the use of ammunition containing lead. Taken to it's logical and historically predictable next step would be legislation prohibiting lead based hunting ammunition then eventually all lead containing ammunition. Ammunition containing steel is already prohibited in many public areas due to alleged fire hazards. That would leave us with an expensive alternative that only the most wealthy could afford.

So yes this is an affront to OUR 2A rights not just mine.

The OP was about personal choices for hunting, not about legislation.

Do you dispute the arguments about the toxicity of ingested lead? There is a lot of bad information floating around, but there is also good science.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=34&po=19

One could argue that hunters voluntarily choosing non-lead projectiles would decrease the incentive for legislation.

I have no qualms about sending cases of lead projectiles downrange at a properly designed and maintained facility. I shoot clay sports with lead. But I fish with lead-free tackle, and if I hunt this year I’ll probably try a lead-free option.

[Nightvisionary]

The OP was about personal choices for hunting, not about legislation.

Do you dispute the arguments about the toxicity of ingested lead? There is a lot of bad information floating around, but there is also good science.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=34&po=19

One could argue that hunters voluntarily choosing non-lead projectiles would decrease the incentive for legislation.

I have no qualms about sending cases of lead projectiles downrange at a properly designed and maintained facility. I shoot clay sports with lead. But I fish with lead-free tackle, and if I hunt this year I’ll probably try a lead-free option.

Those of us that can see more than two steps in front of our own feet know where the OP's road leads. That part in red is really all I needed to know. It speaks volumes. Sounds like you are part of the "Reasonable Regulations" crowd. Am I right?

[olstyn]

Sounds like you are part of the "Reasonable Regulations" crowd. Am I right?

I'm tempted to take the same tone you have, but that would result in using derisive hyperbole which would serve only to wind you up further. You're projecting meanings that I don't think are truly there onto people's posts. There is a *wide* gulf between acknowledging that it's not healthy to breathe in or ingest lead if it's possible to avoid it and wanting to ban anything at all, let alone everything.

[Spartan1980]

I agree with this, but let me also ask: If you had a choice in swallowing that lead pellet...would you, or would you not? non-lead ammunition kills game as well or better than lead containing ammunition, so...why not?

If it's a personal decision, then no harm, no foul. But to jump on the bandwagon and encourage others could bring unforeseen and unwanted consequences if done in an "overzealous" manner.

A lot of the data out there is tied to the toxicity and, I think, glosses over the manner of it arriving in our bloodstream and the form it came as. Metallic lead isn't too much of a danger. Lead oxides and their derivatives are another matter. In order for us humans to have problems we pretty much have to inhale it to effectively get it into our bloodstreams. Swallowing a piece of lead shot is generally not a problem, it will usually pass. If it doesn't, and it gets hung up in the GI tract which does occur, then we can find quite toxic levels in our blood. There are cases of once it passes or is removed, lead levels drop to normal over time and all symptoms subside and go away.

They took the lead out of paint and gasoline back in the '70s but they sure hang onto that data and just love to cite it. The danger from swallowing metallic lead is pretty overstated, IMO. Is the danger zero? No. But it's not something to stress over either. This applies to us humans, animals may well be different.

[Trigger]

I agree, it’s death by a small cut. I’ve been shot, I didn’t get cancer or lead poisoning.

I too was shot, bird hunting when I was a teenager. I still have two pellets of 7 1/2 birdshot in me. Supposedly they get covered in gristle and just sit there.

No I’ll effects noted in the past 30-40 years. Do I need to be worried?

[Unobtanium]

I'm amazed at the level of push-back from people about ingesting lead when so many of the same crowd is all "wear gloves when you clean the gun and lube it with plant juice!"

Mind boggling.

I simply asked...if you can avoid ingesting lead, would you? I was ignorant of how much lead is in game after it's shot, I learned a thing. I was curious how many others knew a thing, learned a thing, and changed a thing as well.

Now we have talk of legislature and all that...wow.

[Duelist]

I'm amazed at the level of push-back from people about ingesting lead when so many of the same crowd is all "wear gloves when you clean the gun and lube it with plant juice!"

Mind boggling.

I simply asked...if you can avoid ingesting lead, would you? I was ignorant of how much lead is in game after it's shot, I learned a thing. I was curious how many others knew a thing, learned a thing, and changed a thing as well.

Now we have talk of legislature and all that...wow.

Legislation has been pushed for years, due to toxicity measures in dead endangered birds that eat gut piles. It’s a logical connection. Regulatory issues in AZ mean that hunters who pursue big game in the areas those birds live in are required by state fish and game to use lead-free ammo; there currently is a means whereby they can get lead-free ammo for hunting in those areas at no cost. And if you hunt other areas, they encourage you to remove carcasses killed by lead core bullets and not leave the gut pile.

I don’t know what the ultimate answer is. My 6.8 shoots well with Barnes bullets designed for it, but they are more than 2x the cost of other bullets that are as accurate and effective on game. I’ve never used an all copper bullet in any other rifle, and don’t know that I will unless legally required to.

[Unobtanium]

Legislation has been pushed for years, due to toxicity measures in dead endangered birds that eat gut piles. It’s a logical connection. Regulatory issues in AZ mean that hunters who pursue big game in the areas those birds live in are required by state fish and game to use lead-free ammo; there currently is a means whereby they can get lead-free ammo for hunting in those areas at no cost. And if you hunt other areas, they encourage you to remove carcasses killed by lead core bullets and not leave the gut pile.

I don’t know what the ultimate answer is. My 6.8 shoots well with Barnes bullets designed for it, but they are more than 2x the cost of other bullets that are as accurate and effective on game. I’ve never used an all copper bullet in any other rifle, and don’t know that I will unless legally required to.

Your call. Im simply putting things out there. If you choose to still use lead ammo on game, that's up to you, as I think that it should be.

[Nightvisionary]

Your call. Im simply putting things out there. If you choose to still use lead ammo on game, that's up to you, as I think that it should be.

Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Bloomberg, and the Sierra Club thank you for your post. It serves them well when they can point to this thread and show that even gun owners agree with their agenda to shut down recreational shooting on public lands and end the scourge of affordable lead based ammunition. After all if it saves even 1 Spotted Owl.

[Robinson]

Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Bloomberg, and the Sierra Club thank you for your post. It serves them well when they can point to this thread and show that even gun owners agree with their agenda to shut down recreational shooting on public lands and end the scourge of affordable lead based ammunition. After all if it saves even 1 Spotted Owl.

If you state your opinions in a reasonable manner folks will be happy to listen to what you have to say. But placing PF members in league with the likes of Schumer and Pelosi? Now you're just being a dick.