Quote:
Originally Posted by 93nav
Just so you know, lead poisoning is a concern when wild animals eat animals that have been shot. There are pellets ($$) that do not contain lead.
|
This has proven to be a rather serious problem with raptors in particular, especially in those areas in the West with large prairie dog populations that attract the hordes of varmint shooters. I'm rather surprised that lead based ammunition is still legal in these applications. Guys shoot literally thousands of these things every single day across a very wide range of the Western United States. There must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions killed every year. All with lead based ammunition. All just left there for the scavengers. Lead toxicity in those scavengers, especially the raptors, is well documented.
But to extend that concern to shooting rats in the barn, or in the back yard? I think that's a bit of a stretch. Besides, air gun pellets are extremely light for caliber anyway, and their effectiveness suffers accordingly. Making them lighter, by making them from lighter materials, only makes that worse. The typical weight for a .22 caliber pellet is, for example, only about 14 grains where a .22 long rifle bullet will be about 40 grains. This severely limits their effectiveness. Which is on purpose, really, making them far safer in populated areas, which is the intent. But there is a limit to everything. Non-toxic pellets simply drop below that limit, in this case, rendering them all but useless for actually killing nuisance vermin.