Ban lead bullets?

[GH85Carrera]

Environmental Protection Agency Reviewing Petition to Ban Lead Bullets | The Weekly Standard

[Tobra]

That is just stupid

[RWebb]

Tobra, You need to get your money back on that correspondence school degree, they ripped you off.

Once again, you stepped in it.

It is surely troublesome for hunters, but it is not stupid since since one would like to have something left to hunt, and for many, to eat.

Lead poisoning of waterfowl is a real problem.

[mossguy]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Tobra, You need to get your money back on that correspondence school degree, they ripped you off.

Once again, you stepped in it.

It is surely troublesome for hunters, but it is not stupid since since one would like to have something left to hunt, and for many, to eat.

Lead poisoning of waterfowl is a real problem.

Are you sure that you are not confusing lead bullets with lead shot?

Best,
Tom

[Jeff Higgins]

The use of lead shot on waterfowl has been banned for a couple of decades. It was actually a much needed ban, with lead concentrations in marshes open to public hunting just flat skyrocketing, and documented cases of its affects on waterfowl populations (not to mention everything else that lives with them).

Lead bullets are another matter. Other than some very, very dubious cases involving the California condor, no one is even claiming any observed affects of lead bullets on any kind of wildlife, save for the ones they hit (like the old westerm tombstones that say "cause of death: lead poisoning"). Big game hunters simply do not sling enough lead to ever be a concern. If one looks at hunter success rates on big game, it becomes apparent that most hunters never get to fire a shot when afield.

The motives for this one a pretty darn transparent. This has actually come up before, and cooler heads have always prevailed. At least outside of "condor nesting areas" in California.

[krystar]

just means more of a market for gathering up wheel weights to melt and cast/swage bullets with hehe.

apparently they don't realize how MUCH lead business they're talking about removing from production. let's talk umm...DOD defense contracts? sports hunting probably has 1/100th the lead footprint of the military.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by krystar

just means more of a market for gathering up wheel weights to melt and cast/swage bullets with hehe.

apparently they don't realize how MUCH lead business they're talking about removing from production. let's talk umm...DOD defense contracts? sports hunting probably has 1/100th the lead footprint of the military.

I know someone who bought an old wooden 72' sailboat years ago (now beautifully restored). At the time he knew he could get his money back (if he chose to) from the 30,000 lbs of lead used as ballast...that's a LOT of bullets

[krystar]

30,000 LB = 210mil grains .. yea he's good for like 1.5mil bullets hehe

[M.D. Holloway]

I use enriched Uranium. Lead is for suckas!

[Tim Hancock]

Simply another attempt by govt to control guns. Long term, they hope it would make shooting firearms more expensive which they hope would lower the number of future firearm owners.

[RWebb]

I don't agree with the Weekly Stds. take on this, but they do note that the petition is to ban both lead shot and bullets. It is not just about big game rounds. I know some of the people at CBD and AFAIK they are not anti-hunting at all (much less anti-gun). This is about pollution from lead.

Read thru the rule making file at the EPA site (big) rather than rely on characterizations by others. No question that it would alter ballistics.

[cgarr]

Where does lead come from?

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by cgarr

where does lead come from?

:d

[Danny_Ocean]

Shot down (pun intended):

The Associated Press: EPA denies bid to ban lead in hunting ammunition

[RWebb]

I bet this is not over. They will probably sue to get a Ct. to tell EPA "you do have jd. so make a decision."

[Jeff Higgins]

Any animals dying from ingesting lead found in dead carcasses would have to be consistently consuming lead tainted carcasses over a period of time. Big game lost after being shot is simply not common enough to support the numbers required for this to happen. Very few game animals are lost these days. Even if they are, they might have one or two bullets in them, assuming those bullets failed to fully penetrate in the first place. Most modern big game ammunition is capable of full penetration on virtually any shot taken on an average size deer, our most common big game animal. The woods and prairies would have to be literally littered with lost big game with bullets still in them for this to be an issue.

Lead shot is a bit more plausible as far as being suspect in this area. Far more hit birds are lost than big game, and certainly not all of the shot even hits a recovered bird. We wind up spraying an ounce and a half of lead out into the wilderness every time we pull the trigger. With the high concentration of hunters in specific areas, it does add up. But, like I mentioned earlier, lead shot has already been banned in the one area of its heaviest concentration - waterfowl hunting. No one has cleaned up the marshes, though... One is left to wonder how much of today's affect is a legacy of our past.

I kind of have to suspect these environmental groups are taking advantage of that legacy. They point to continuing problems (and rightly so) but are now attempting to place the blame on big game hunters (an absolute non-starter) and today's upland bird hunters who, for the most part, still use lead. I believe there is a great deal of crossover between "environmental" and "anti-hunting" groups, and they are using one cause (that they are intentionally misrepresenting) in an attempt to get some traction on another. Anyone even remotely familiar with big game hunting can see the absolute implausibility of that argument, and anyone familiar with upland bird hunting can see the very thin, very dubious, very remote possibility that there may be anything there.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Any animals dying ...

the problem is that lead causes a bunch of sub-lethal effects; not just death

worse, humans eat animals that ingest lead, and some of thsoe sub-lethal effects show up in the humans...

I don't know exactly how bad a problem this is - my guess is that no one knows for sure.

We'll see what happens.

[aigel]

Lead was a big issue when it was still used in paint and pipes. Kids in the 70s had 10 times more lead in their blood than they do today.

I have to hunt with copper / non lead here in CA in most areas. It is a non issue for hunting. The rounds may be 50% more but how many hunting rounds do you buy a year? I appreciate the penetration on wild boar and don't bother to switch to lead when hunting out of state or in a lead allowed zone.

Like it was mentioned above, the issue really is that there may be a hidden agenda: get people away from shooting by making it more expensive / complicated.

Cheers, George

[Jim Bremner]

Once lead bullets are banned, next it's steel bullets etc.

[Danny_Ocean]

Originally Posted by Jim Bremner

Once lead bullets are banned, next it's steel bullets etc.

Certain steel and copper-jacketed bullets ARE banned, under the guise of "armor piercing". So, they ban lead bullets and make steel/copper bullets illegal...we'll all be shooting AirSoft pellets soon.