The sense behind Copper Alloy monolithic bullets

[WildRose]

We've had lots of discussions here about this or that bullet with some having almost a cult following while others will try anything to come up with a bullet that shoots well for them in their given rifle.

That's not what this is about however.

I can't even remember what bullet I was looking at but the other day watching slow motion gel testing of a lead core bullet (might have been one of the Hornady's but it doesn't matter) I noticed tiny pieces of the lead core splattering off into the gelatin away from the permanent wound channel and it got me thinking.

I messed around watching quite a few other such videos on YouTube and saw the same thing to greater or lesser degrees with many if not most of the lead core bullets.

From my earliest days hunting I can remember picking lead shot out of birds and laughing when we bit down on a piece of lead shot occasionally during dinner and never gave much thought to it.

When dressing larger game such as deer, we'd routinely cut out the blood shot meat and throw it away for both safety's sake and just because it was ugly.

During my college years my brother and I started just quartering and boning out our deer and letting the meat sit in a brine solution overnight to pull out as much of the blood as possible so we'd waste even less of it than doing it the old way.

I wonder just how much lead people like myself who spent a large portion of our lives eating wild game have consumed over the course of decades and how much damage it might or might not have done?

The first thought that came to mind was to just quit doing the shoulder shots, and put it through the ribcage for the old "Heart/Lung Shot" which would certainly reduce how much lead is getting into the meat since the bullet then passes through very little actual meat so unless you eat the heart, liver, and other organs the odds of even a few grains of lead being consumed over the course of eating any given animal but as the EPA puts it, "There is no safe level of lead" period.

I have no doubt that within my lifetime, probably over the next decade we're going to see if not a complete ban on lead in the taking of game animals something very close to it is very likely.

Of course nothing out there gives equal performance to lead in many ways but thankfully there's more than a dozen companies out there already well ahead of the game in producing lead free bullets and more and more lead free offerings coming out every year so our options are far less limited today than even just a few years ago.

Do those of you with kids worry about the lead content of the wild game they eat? I realize that there's so little data with respect to lead in medium and large game it's hard to make any real educated conclusions and I hate panic or paranoia driven "movements" but how many of you think this is really a valid concern?

Of those who do are you still shooting bimetal bullets or have you made the move to lead free?

I can't really see myself being too worried about how much lead the wife and I eat as whatever damage could be done probably long since has been but what little experience I've had shooting copper alloy bullets has so far been positive so if I can get them to shoot well enough for me in a given rifle I certainly have no problem shooting them but as long as I get better results with lead core bullets in most of them that's probably what I'll keep shooting at least until I run out of my rather generous supply of lead core bullets.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

This turns in to a touchy subject. Hopefully this discussion can stay less emotional.

We manufacture lead free bullets. Lead was not the reason that we took the path that we are on. Our pure copper bullet business is the culmination of years of looking for a better bullet. Over the last thirty years of hunting I was one of those guys that was always willing to try something else. My biggest goal was to minimize meat damage. I grew up hunting for the meat. If my father did not have a good hunting season, we did not have much meat. Thus my mentality has always been to not waste any of the animal unnecessarily. I remember shooting an antelope one time that I was able to cut into 2 pieces with my pocket knife with very little effort. Almost blew it in half. Or shooting a doe one time with an exit hole the size of a soccer ball.

The end result of my search was mono bullets. Then manufacturing them as we could not find exactly what we wanted for some of the wildcat rifles that we build.

I don't think anyone here will dispute the toxicity of lead. I think the dispute is whether or not lead gets into the meat at a level that causes a problem. How much lead is ok to eat? Lead contaminated meat left in the field does get consumed by animals that get consumed by other animals and insects that also get consumed. It does work through the food chain. Once consumed it does not leave the body. It does have detrimental effects.

I also do not like knee jerk reactions that create regulations. I will never lobby to get rid of lead. I do think that lead free bullets have more benefits than negatives. Being non toxic is just a bonus in my opinion.

Here is a link to a study that some may find interesting.

Bullet Fragmentation

Steve

 

[marioq]

Since we are still on the first page I have to agree with the previous two posts. There does not need to be any emotional content in this discussion. There's no need to have any smack talking about one bullet versus another. I think the goal of these types of discussion is education and knowledge. It does no good to say "I am going to use lead bullets forever because I hate X company that makes copper bullets!"
If you have real world data showing the positive or negative aspects of a given bullet construction, please show it. We all know the damage lead can do on the animal when it hits bone. We have also seen the failure to expand of some lead bullets.

I will be the first to say that I do use them both. A couple years ago Wild Rose and I took an elk at 35 yards with a muzzleloader shooting a Barnes copper bullet. I was not very satisfied with the failure of an exit wound. However, when we open the vitals, the damage was fairly significant to the Organs.
In fact, one of the petals of the mushroom broke off and dissected through the aorta.

I am interested in shooting the hammer and peregrine bulkets to compare. Once I get a gig location, we can examine the bullets in greater detail.

 

[gohring3006]

Personally, I don't know of anyone who has ever been diagnosed with lead poisoning.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I have never seen it.
Also, there has been a couple hundred years of lead contaminated meat due to lead projectiles, that's plenty of time for a detailed study. You would have thought back in the 70's and 80's when the government started going after paint and textile companies to eliminate it from the ingredients, that it would have been carried over to the bullet industry...
Not sure why it wasn't.... My guess is, its not as big of deal as they want you to believe..
Let's take a look at Alaskan natives, I would guess 40-50% of their diet comes from meat that has been shot with lead bullets.... I done see a epidemic of lead poisoning in Alaska...
Just my opinion....

 

[Greyfox]

I agree with the notion that lead poisoning of people or animals from game shot with rifle bullets is far more fantasy then fact, but it will surely make for a convenient rationale. There is speculation, but no evidence of this. I'm sure it will be some mindless politician,and/or, the EPA that regulate will lead to the point where the added requirements and costs to the producers that will be what kills it in the end. While I applaud the manufacturers for continuing to develop an effective substitute to equal the wonderful attributes of lead based bullets, I don't believe they are there yet for long range applications with conventional cartridge/chamber design. IMO.

 

[Browning300]

gohring3006
I was going to say much the same thing. i have grandparents and great grandparents who lived to a ripe old age despite exposure to lead in quantities far greater than ill ever be exposed to. so while i am not going to intentionally injest any more lead than absolutely necessary i have never really worried about it.

 

[WildRose]

Personally, I don't know of anyone who has ever been diagnosed with lead poisoning.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I have never seen it.
Also, there has been a couple hundred years of lead contaminated meat due to lead projectiles, that's plenty of time for a detailed study. You would have thought back in the 70's and 80's when the government started going after paint and textile companies to eliminate it from the ingredients, that it would have been carried over to the bullet industry...
Not sure why it wasn't.... My guess is, its not as big of deal as they want you to believe..
Let's take a look at Alaskan natives, I would guess 40-50% of their diet comes from meat that has been shot with lead bullets.... I done see a epidemic of lead poisoning in Alaska...
Just my opinion....

You make some good points of course but as far as I can tell there's just no hard data out there to look at since so very few people will ever be tested for heavy metals poisoning.

Prior to the last century before high speed projectiles were being fired using smokeless powders and cartridges I don't think it was nearly as big of a problem even with the lead solids so often used. At low velocities there's very little of the splattering that you can see in some of the slow motion videos of gel testing.

Yes I have always known that there must be some lead content in the game we consume that has been shot with lead bullets. In most cases using modern cartridges and powders that splattering of lead for the most part is going to take place inside of the rib cage so if we're not eating the organ meats it's just not a really big deal.

As far as the food chain, yes, any leaded meat/organs we leave in the field is likely to end up being eaten by opportunistic predators and scavengers from rats all the way up to big bears.

In those cases though very little lead is getting into their blood stream because that which is in large portions will mostly pass through them never being metabolized.

The bulk of it will pass with the rest of the waste when Smokey goes squatting in the woods. Does a little of it make it through? Sure, but then they aren't eating leaded meat all year long and most of what they do eat will be passed as scat so when the cat eats the rat that ate the lead in the heart whatever portion gets into the cat's blood stream will be with him/her until the day they die and the buzzards and rats will end up eating that.

The critters we hunt for meat like deer and elk aren't going to be eating the scat or the critters so I don't think there's really any way to prove that it's going to end up in them and eventually then in us when we consume them. If the world fell apart and we were having to scrape by eating whatever protein we can come across certainly rats, coons, coyotes and bobcats would be eaten by those of us hard up enough to do so but until then I'd say we're pretty safe.

I just got stuck really on the splatter effect of the really teenie tiny lead bits that were essentially spraying out well beyond the permanent wound channel. That's what then got me to thinking about how we handle blood shot meat and the fact we're probably missing a good bit of the splattered lead that we never really even realized was there.

As for the thread, I know there's a big push with both state and federal wildlife agencies to move to a complete ban on lead and with the ever expanding market for non leaded bullets I think we'll see such bans sooner rather than later.

Such things usually start in states like CA and NY and of course CA is driving the bandwagon that has the big "No Mo Lead" placard on both sides. I don't know if they have a total lead ban in effect yet but I know that in certain areas and certain species it's already been implemented.

When I was young there were some serious studies on lead and waterfowl. They were also seriously flawed studies that were done at "duck clubs" in the east where on these private reserves lead shot had been used for over a century shooting over the same ponds and creeks year after year, after year. Yes, some of the ducks tested had consumed lead shot while rooting around in the grass but I really don't remember any data showing that the birds had enough of a lead problem to make consuming them a serious risk. Lead in the environment oxidizes heavily and quickly and the more oxidized it is the harder it is for it to pass into the blood during digestion.

Sorry for being long winded but seeing those videos really got my feeble mind to working overtime.

 

[WildRose]

I agree with the notion that lead poisoning of people or animals from game shot with rifle bullets is far more fantasy then fact, but it will surely make for a convenient rationale. There is speculation, but no evidence of this. I'm sure it will be some mindless politician,and/or, the EPA that regulate will lead to the point where the added requirements and costs to the producers that will be what kills it in the end. While I applaud the manufacturers for continuing to develop an effective substitute to equal the wonderful attributes of lead based bullets, I don't believe they are there yet for long range applications with conventional cartridge/chamber design. IMO.

You know if someone really did want to do a good study on it I'd be happy to participate and I think a whole lot of other people would as well who like us have been exposed to lead far more than the average person simply due to our hunting, shooting, reloading etc.

 

[adam32]

I'm not going to be for or against a particular bullet, but what I will be against is the Gov't telling us/me what we can and can't hunt with.

Like here in California, a portion of the State is "lead free" and the entire Statewide law goes into effect in 2019. Why? Because of the California Condor, junk science pointed to hunters leaving carcasses in the field and then the Condor eating the carcass made the Condor get lead poisoning and die. The open pit lead mines in the region had nothing to do with it, only hunters leaving carcasses.

So now, since the Condors populations are skyrocketing (which of course they aren't ) the entire State needs to go lead free even though the closest Condor sighting from my hunting zone is 80+ air miles away.

But the bleeding heart Liberal's in SF and LA have a lot of power over politicians in Sacramento so they got the Statewide laws passed.

And it begs the question, if it is SO detrimental to the Condors and now other "scavengers", then why have the law go into effect 3+ years down the road? Maybe it's not about the animals and more about controlling hunting/shooting...

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I'm not going to be for or against a particular bullet, but what I will be against is the Gov't telling us/me what we can and can't hunt with.

Like here in California, a portion of the State is "lead free" and the entire Statewide law goes into effect in 2019. Why? Because of the California Condor, junk science pointed to hunters leaving carcasses in the field and then the Condor eating the carcass made the Condor get lead poisoning and die. The open pit lead mines in the region had nothing to do with it, only hunters leaving carcasses.

So now, since the Condors populations are skyrocketing (which of course they aren't ) the entire State needs to go lead free even though the closest Condor sighting from my hunting zone is 80+ air miles away.

But the bleeding heart Liberal's in SF and LA have a lot of power over politicians in Sacramento so they got the Statewide laws passed.

And it begs the question, if it is SO detrimental to the Condors and now other "scavengers", then why have the law go into effect 3+ years down the road? Maybe it's not about the animals and more about controlling hunting/shooting...

I agree with this. I am all for good information. I am against government regulation. Especially without good science.

I believe the lead ban is an anti-hunting/anti-capitalism movement.

Steve

 

[shaughn]

Don't worry about lead, worry about Cadmium and that is a naturally occurring heavy metal contaminant, made worse due to past mining activity (old mine heads,tailing piles etc), which leads to migration of the material, but is in trace elements in soil everywhere.

There are plants, that biomagnify the levels of cadmium, willow in particular, which leads to higher concentrations of the Hmetal in the liver and kidneys of birds/deer/elk etc and could lead to reproduction issues . If hunters refrain from eating the organs, then the level of Cadmium exposure is minimal, but if they eat vegetables grown in the soil, then you are back in the same situation.

A problem with Cadmium poisoning, is that it leads to leaching of Calcium from the bones, which causes a condition similar to osteoporosis, leading to bone fractures and possible death of said animal. One study I remember dealt with ptarmingan.

Then scavengers (hawks, eagles,condors,fox, coyote etc) get at the carcass and eat the cadmium rich organ meat and this results in elevated levels in their own organs.

I tend to think the "Lead" issue is being used to further an agenda in certain regions of the country and no matter how much contrary research is submitted, the idea of Hunters and their awful lead bullets, is an easier agenda to push and to get further funding and limit/end an activity that they find objectionable, than admit that Cadmium, which exists naturally and can't be cleaned up, is a major contributor to the decreasing numbers of..(animal of choice).

 

[RMulhern]

With over 65 years of hunting elk, deer, etc. I have NEVER had a failure using a lead/cored bullet and hundreds of game taken!

 

[WildRose]

I agree with this. I am all for good information. I am against government regulation. Especially without good science.

I believe the lead ban is an anti-hunting/anti-capitalism movement.

Steve

Political agendas unfortunately to a very large extent drive what passes for science today.

My favorite professor in college told me one time that the first thing to consider when reading any study is who paid for it and what there agenda is.

He was ahead of his time in realizing that and considered to be something of a heretic by a lot of other professors for having the guts to speak out.

The anti gun and anti hunting folks are quite content to attempt to do via regulation what they cannot do through legislation and I have no doubt whatsoever that much of the anti lead agenda is part and parcel of same.

What's driving it however is largely irrelevant because we can't change the direction we're headed.

I'm just glad that we have manufacturers like yourself who can see where the tide is taking us and are getting out there ahead of the rest of the industry in working hard to come up with viable non toxic alternatives.

Personally I think that at some point the answer is going to be found in tungsten cores and copper allow jackets but we're not there yet. I only know of one manufacturer that has done some work along those lines and so far hasn't been very successful in that attempt due to I think a balance problem with their original design.

 

[Greyfox]

I sure hope that a good solution is found. The lead shot alternatives which have been worked on for decades IMO still can't hold a candle to the effectiveness of the lead loads I grew up with......and the cost of the inferior alternatives is ridiculous!