Should meat hunters stop using lead ammunition?

[Lost River]

What caused me concern was the physicians who XRayed meat processed by professional game processing centers and found that a very large portion of the packaged meat contained significant lead fragments, as well as the XRAY images showing meat rather far from the bullet-hold containing lead fragments.

I am not trying to start an argument or debate, I am simply new to hunting, and am doing it because:

1)I enjoy nature, conservation, etc.
2)It is a cheap source of food, and see #1
3)I am of the opinion that an animal which is free-range and not pumped full of drugs, hormones, etc. is a healthier source of meat for me than what I would buy in the store.

I do not want to negate or negatively impact #3 with projectile choice, even though I do like how Gold Dot's fly and perform from my rifle.

I would be FAR more concerned about the hormones, antibiotics and other crap that feed lot cattle have in them, as compared to agenda driven "studies" saying that "Lead bullets are bad, mmmkay".

It is just another incremental way for the liberals who preach peace love and tolerance (as long as you like what they like) to chip away at hunting and gun owners. One more slice of the pie that they take during their "Just Compromise" strategy. Eventually there are no more slices left to compromise over.

[GJM]

I see no contradiction between opposing laws that limit bullet type and personally choosing to use a lead free bullet for harvesting my own game. Similar to opposing attempts to mandate certain firearms training while choosing to pursue very comprehensive training for myself.

Seems like the OP asked about his own practice and not what laws there should and should not be.

[Unobtanium]

This thread went very political and ignored the lead in meat I may eat issue almost entirely except fkr a few posts. Did people watch the 3 videos, or just respond from the gut? Or is it that ingesting lead is physiologically harmless, by and large?

[Hauptmann]

Or is it that ingesting lead is physiologically harmless, by and large?

Uhh, you will be hard pressed to find anyone in the medical field that states that consuming or inhaling lead does not cause a great deal of harm to your body. There is a metric ton of data available on the internet for very reputable sources indicating that even small amounts of lead in your system can cause significant physiological problems. The Federal LE system has almost entirely adopted lead free ammunition for training purposes, and in some cases duty ammo. We had a large number of officers getting lead blood spikes which were attributed to getting lead residue from brass their hands, and not washing them with cold water and soap. Cold water so that the pores constrict.....hot water dilates them. Since we all get full blood work every 3 years for medical requirements, there is some good data there. After adopting a few of these practices and using lead free ammo in training very few officers have had elevated blood lead levels.

There are some very good Bismuth alloy projectiles being worked on by Federal right now for non-expanding shot, slugs, and bullets. Bismuth has similar weight to lead, but it is relatively brittle......thus metals such as Tin are added to it to give it more strength. It makes for a good lead substitute, and is similarly priced to lead.

[45dotACP]

I personally would hunt using a copper projectile...

[Unobtanium]

Uhh, you will be hard pressed to find anyone in the medical field that states that consuming or inhaling lead does not cause a great deal of harm to your body. There is a metric ton of data available on the internet for very reputable sources indicating that even small amounts of lead in your system can cause significant physiological problems. The Federal LE system has almost entirely adopted lead free ammunition for training purposes, and in some cases duty ammo. We had a large number of officers getting lead blood spikes which were attributed to getting lead residue from brass their hands, and not washing them with cold water and soap. Cold water so that the pores constrict.....hot water dilates them. Since we all get full blood work every 3 years for medical requirements, there is some good data there. After adopting a few of these practices and using lead free ammo in training very few officers have had elevated blood lead levels.

There are some very good Bismuth alloy projectiles being worked on by Federal right now for non-expanding shot, slugs, and bullets. Bismuth has similar weight to lead, but it is relatively brittle......thus metals such as Tin are added to it to give it more strength. It makes for a good lead substitute, and is similarly priced to lead.

Yet I have posted videos indicating that professionally processed meat contained significant lead fragments up to 50% of the time, in a random sampling of 100+ packets, and people on here say it doesn't matter if that's the case. So is it that lead is harmless, or that people don't care if it's harmless, or what?

[GJM]

I am not sure you are going to advance the discussion at this point -- don't you have enough information to decide what you are going to do?

[Unobtanium]

I am not sure you are going to advance the discussion at this point -- don't you have enough information to decide what you are going to do?

I was curious if others had researched or looked into it. It seems they are more concerned with something about shooting ranges and environmental laws and skipped right over the pertinent topic, so I suppose you're right. This seems to have played itself out. I am still on the fence, but do lean toward using a monometal bullet at this point.

[JDM]

Were I going to take a game animal, it would be with a copper projectile.

Why not? I can't think of a good reason.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

This thread went very political and ignored the lead in meat I may eat issue almost entirely except fkr a few posts. Did people watch the 3 videos, or just respond from the gut? Or is it that ingesting lead is physiologically harmless, by and large?

I've eaten a fair amount of lead-dead meat and I'm no more neurologically impaired than Gino Odjick or Marty McSorley.

In all honesty I'd probably remain unconvinced by most posts in here EXCEPT: when you have a guy who specializes in diseases of the organs that filter your blood telling you that it's probably nothing to worry about...that exceeds my personal threshold of satisfaction, anyway.