About lead ammo
In the United States, an estimated 3,000 tons of lead are shot into the environment by hunting every year, another 80,000 tons are released at shooting ranges, and 4,000 tons are lost in ponds and streams as fishing lures and sinkers — while as many as 20 million birds and other animals die each year from subsequent lead poisoning.
I would bet Al Gore and Matt Damon's jet travel pollution exceeds the environmental damage from lead projectiles.
ReplyDelete-LawProfessor
Aren't you the guy who criticizes others for not providing proof and evidence?
DeleteThe loony left is an evidence-free zone. Just pointing out hypocrisy. If you don't want to harm the environment, don't live. The earth is here for our enjoyment and exploitation; without is the environment doesn't exist. And I don't see why putting lead back where it came from is harmful.
DeleteLawProfessor
Did the lead come from a human? No, but lead is harmful to humans. And form matters. You can't pump oil out of the ground and send it back into the air as chemically different where it destroys the the air we breath, or it acts as a blanket from the Sun.
DeletePerhaps in order to stimulate development of non lead based ammunition, the federal government should repeal laws restricting armor piercing ammunition.
ReplyDeleteYou beat me to it, SSG. I'd be quite happy to switch to tungsten-core handgun rounds.
DeleteOn another note, anyone else notice that the video above about how to protect oneself and one's family from lead exposure never once mentions staying away from shooting ranges and ammunition? Almost as if the makers of the video don't see lead ammunition as being a problem.
Did YOU notice the video's from Canada.
DeleteYeah, what of it?
DeleteI think Canada has banned lead ammunition for waterfowl hunting (quite a few years after the U.S. did, if I remember correctly), but not for other purposes.
Yeah, we did. They do have guns up there. Even got rid of their registry since they found that it was a bad idea.
DeleteGet the lead out! Use DU rounds!
ReplyDeleteNot being an expert, let me hazard a guess. An outright ban on lead ammunition. All other types of bullets that are currently legal, (plastic?), would enjoy a surge in business.
ReplyDeleteMaybe gold and sliver bullets. Does that make any sense? As much sense as producing millions of bullets every year for dickheads to shoot out of their toys.
The practical alternative is all-copper bullets. So expensive that shooting would become a 1%er activity, and increased copper mining would damage the environment far more that a few condors possibly dying from lead ingestion. Better kill and sicken African miners and their families than some birds, goes the loony liberal logic.
DeleteLawProfessor
The problem is finding an alternative material that is legal and effective.
DeleteI knew a couple who had elevated lead levels, so they only used "green" ammo. As LP said, it was pricey. They'd shoot 20 to 50 rounds between the two of them on a range trip while I would be able to go through 100 rounds for less cost.
DeleteOh, and the only "green" option for their gun were frangible bullets made from sintered tungsten. A type of bullet that the manufacturers have to make ride the line between too fragile to shoot and being armor piercing.
Copper is nice and soft, making it one of the better options as LP noted, but it is pricey and not very dense, so you have more of a chance of it losing velocity and not imparting enough energy to the target, resulting in more wounded but not dead animals.
Oh, and the steel shot that was mandated to replace lead shot for waterfowl hunting, let's talk about that. I think it was a good idea--dabblers like ducks and geese are certainly more likely to ingest this lead, whereas little or nothing is likely to ingest the lead shot in to berms at shooting ranges. That being said, let's not delude ourselves that the new shot, both steel and other dense materials, are nice and friendly in all ways. Certain sizes have been able to pass right through certain tight weaves according to LEO's I've spoken to.
Discussed this once with missing friend, Greg Camp. I had sort of come up with the idea of copper bullets as something with a similar mass index to lead. He pointed out that these bullets are considered armor-piercing.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of frangible bullets made from sintered tungsten. Although I have no idea what frangible could possibly mean. Isn't there some kind of plastic or rubber? Couldn't we legalize copper bullets for hunting? I first read about copper bullets, after my imagining them, as a criminal's specialty in a Raymond Chandler novella.
Don't you guys all love to read? I accidentally read just about the entire body of Chandler's work. Thank God that's behind me.
Interesting about steel shot, (instead of bird shot?). That's BBs, right? Grandmother would not clean and cook a bird shot with birdshot. She insisted that Grandfather shoot the game birds dead through their skulls with a bullet, so that the shot would not pollute the meat.
Junior, frangible means that they fragment. In the case of sintered metal, if it's made right, much of the bullet breaks up into powder quickly dumping Massive amounts of energy into the target and creating a truly nasty wound. Some of the rounds marketed for air marshals are designed to do this rather than passing through the fuselage.
DeleteAs for plastic and rubber, there are some that people use for training on paper targets, but they can be problematic. They CAN kill, so only idiots would think of playing around shooting them at each other, but they don't reliably wound or kill. Worthless for hunting and defense.
Copper is lighter than lead as covered--bullets of the same weight must be longer. They are not armor piercing as a practical matter. The problem is that the legal designation covers bullets based on compositions including having more than x% of the weight in the jacket. It's an example of the problems of sloppy drafting that these COULD be considered all jacket, and thus "armor piercing." Maybe someone has looked into how some of the copper solid bullets are sold and can enlighten us--I'm guessing the manufacturers on the market have been given letter rulings that Their bullet is ok.
Problem is, these sometimes get revoked, reducing options. Depending on what you alloy copper with, you can make either hard brass AP rounds or soft brass hunting rounds. Too bad ATF revoked the permission for the soft brass hunting rounds which were green and which were designed to penetrate a little deeper, then deform, with the goal of a quicker more humane kill of large game.
Steel shot can be BB's or Bird Shot. For hunting use it's usually bird shot of various sizes--same size as the lead shot your grandfather probably used, just made with steel or various newer, denser alloys. Steel, like copper, is lighter than lead and doesn't travel as far, making it harder to get high fliers like Geese. This, and the fact that anti-AP ammo laws don't apply to shot, is why there are lots of heavy, dense, very hard alloys used in specialty hunting shot.
I get your grandma's complaint, but I prefer careful eating like with a bony fish. Can shoot into the air with a shotgun and not worry about the shot hurting anyone as it comes back down--unlike a bullet which requires a responsible hunter to have a good backstop to avoid situations like the poor 5 day old in the other post.
As for reading, it's great, but beware the gun info--few writers research what they write on this topic, sadly. Drove me nuts reading the old Six Days of the Condor when someone was using a silencer on a revolver (Not one of the few made for such like the Nagant pistol) and shot someone causing his legs to fly out from under him and spinning him around so that he landed on his face with his head pointing away from the shooter. Was good for a laugh, but killed suspension of disbelief as much as a passage would if it went into a long description of someone getting into a vehicle with a continuous transmission and then shifting gears as they engaged in a car chase.
Thank you. That is very interesting and informative.
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