I know a lot of you folks use the Non-Lead Bullets and I see what appears to be way more Good than Bad reports about them.

I've shot a good bit of Lead, Jacketed Lead, and Plated Lead for a very long time. I've always had excellent performance with good old Standard Grade Bullets. I typically just go to the Heavy side for larger Game, but also use Partitions on occasion.

I doubt I will "voluntarily" pay 5-10 times what I pay for a Standard Grade Bullet just to get the same results. That in no way should be viewed as a slam on the Super Premiums, simply that I do not need the extra expense to accomplish my Kills.

Would a Lead Ban be a problem for any of you?
-----

Then it hit me a couple of months ago, if Lead does eventually get Banned(Democrats running things), what will happen to our 22LRs? Zink? Tin? Zink/Tin alloy with a Copper Wash?

We will have it for big game and coyotes in California in about a 1/8 of the state this year and Europe will have it soon also.

Although I am against the ban and prefer lead-cored bullets for much of my shooting, it isn't as bad as it initially looks. Barnes Varmint Grenades will handle my prairie dogging and the different monometal bullets available will take care of the rest. Yes, cost is a definite hinderance, but...

I think the biggest impact would be on 22 rim fire.

I wonder what they will use instead.

lead shot banned over water? not a bad idea...

lead bullets? there goes casting, cheap bullets, and makes shooting a tripplyh more expensive sport....

i hope to hell people wake up and realize when it is driving shooting sports out of peoples hands...

lead isn't the most reactive substance in the world.. and the PROBLEM is acid rain on oxidized lead, not lead bullets....

fix acid rain, no problem with lead

I agree with Saeed, but in another respect, I think the BIGGEST impact will be on many of the bullet makers.

Swift just spent millions on new tooling, a new facility, and R&D for the advancement of new products. Whether or not they will include lead free, I do not know.

I have mixed emotions about going lead free. In one sense, it doesn't really bother me, yet. But looking at all of the really great lead bullets, bonded bullets, etc., well, they just flat out work and work well.

It will be a substantial blow to the bullet makers to piss away all of that tooling, and the expense at development, testing, load data, etc. And, like any business, if/when they all must comply with a lead ban, any costs they incure will certainly be passed on to us.

Nosler has the Etip, Barnes needs no comment-everyone should know that name. Hornady seems to be progressive, where Speer and Sierra have continued to remain "old school" for the most part.

I would not want to be around the boys at Sierra when they get that letter telling them to go lead free.

If in fact lead free appears certain, I will be buying thousands of Barnes TSX, TTSX, and Nosler Etips at the current prices.

Lead is a naturally occurring element in the soil. With the intellects of politicians and the crys of tree huggers being as they are, it shouldn't be too long before laws are passed requiring all lead to be dug up and transported to a safe location to be buried under gov. control. For the kids, you know.

I like to think that South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Tanzania, not to mention the Francophone African countries, will be a couple of years away from making this sort of ban. Shooting the things and making the things are two different things. I've still got some A-Frames to shoot.

Is plastic impregnated sintered Uranium or tunsten with coppr or TFE jackets doable? Thinking of varmint shooting here. The larger calbers might use copper or zink partial impregnation. Just a thought of things perhaps that might be. roger

quote:

Lead is a naturally occurring element in the soil. With the intellects of politicians and the crys of tree huggers being as they are, it shouldn't be too long before laws are passed requiring all lead to be dug up and transported to a safe location to be buried under gov. control. For the kids, you know.

+1

Lead is not the problem. The problem is people who think lead is the problem. Just another back door approach to gun control and anti hunting.

A lead ban would just about ruin skeet and trap shooting as well as muzzle loader shooting and BPCRs shooting.
Lead is a pretty non-reactive metal.
To have everyone's sport disrupted by a few buzzards is silly.

If the cost of them came down I'd be all for it.
As was stated before, I can't justify spending so much more to go lead free (for hunting maybe but not for practice).
I think right now they are so expensive because so few are making them. Copper prices are up but c'mon.
I suppose I could be wrong but I'd love to see some more manufacturers get into them and get a bit more competition.

Or maybe they will all ride the gravy train.

Copper costs about 3 times as much as lead. In an 80 cent 165 gn TSX, there's about 8 cents of raw copper. Manufacturing and distribution, not the cost of copper, sets the price of these premium bullets. Also note that a mostly lead A-frame costs more than an all copper TSX.

I have to believe all copper bullets can be made for less than what Barnes is selling them. Copper alloys are surely harder to work than lead, so I can see no hope that economies of scale will reduce the price to that of conventional bullets, but perhaps it can drop to within twice that. For no more than I shoot, that will be no trouble.

BPCR and muzzle loaders might have to switch to sabot rounds, although round ball ML shooters could probably use iron bullets (and have to move up several bore sizes to compensate) under their patches.

Hopefully common sense will prevail, making the point moot.

What about the millions of lead bullets the military puts into the California environment every year?

Like in Sweden and already in some areas of Germany they might require lead-free only for hunting.

On both shotgun as well as rifle ranges lead shot and bullets are very easy to recycle. Thus, no reason to go lead-free.

Banning lead is not going to end trap or skeet; there are several Euro countries where steel is already mandated for both hunting and target. Right now, steel shot is cheaper than lead shot, and performance, while not ideal, is plenty adequate for the purpose.

For big game, I'd not lose a wink of sleep if we lost the use of lead. I wouldn't particularly like it, but I wouldn't eat a pound of venison less for it.

For varmint and pelt shooting, it would smart, but I'd make it a point to shoot twice as many critters, just to pizz off the do-gooders. JMO, Dutch.

quote:

Originally posted by Dutch:
... Right now, steel shot is cheaper than lead shot, and performance, while not ideal, is plenty adequate for the purpose. ...

Hey Dutch, I was unaware that Steel Shot was cheaper now - had no idea.

Can you give us a ballpark comparison?

What little Steel Shot I've used on Duck and Geese did fine and shot some tight groups. Just used a bit larger diameter.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I think the biggest impact would be on 22 rim fire.

I wonder what they will use instead.

I was thinking exactly the same thing

quote:

Originally posted by DUK:
Like in Sweden and already in some areas of Germany they might require lead-free only for hunting.

Incorrect. A new government put an end to the threatened lead ban in Sweden.

For now...

John

quote:

I think the biggest impact would be on 22 rim fire.

I wonder what they will use instead.

Several years ago Federal made a run of lead free 22LR ammo for their Ballisti-Clean line, 29gr. copper plated zinc bullet.

I trap and varmint hunt gray fox and bobcats in the condor zone and use a .22 for dispatching animals in my cage traps. So I searched a bit and found a few bricks of the Federal lead free ammo.

Works for the 6" shot to the head of a gray fox in a cage. Too much velocity though, they tended to pass through and that's not good. I really don't want a bullet passing through a fox head and richocheting back into me.

CCI is now offering a lead free 22 WMR loading and I'll bet there are more coming.

What I need is a lead free 22 short at about 900 fps, like a CB long. Like the old gallery loads that used zinc bullets and fragmented on impact.

A lead free 17 Mach2 would be a damn good too,

quote:

Is plastic impregnated sintered Uranium or tunsten with coppr or TFE jackets doable?

EnvironMetal, the Hevi-Shot guys, already make such a bullet. The Dead Coyote 70 gr. copper jacketed tungsten core.

I used the 36 gr. Barnes Varmint Grenades on bobcats this season, around 3500 fps out of a .222 Rem. Dead cats, no exit wounds, so they're doing what I need them to do.

But I am glad to see a 50 gr. Varmint Grenade offered now.

I wasn't required to go lead free yet but I knew it was coming and better to experiment and be prepared than be beaten by regulations.

Funny thing is that the cats and foxes look the same on stretchers.

I need to hurry up and build the Toyota diesel 4wd pickup so I can burn biodiesel made from restaurant waste oil. Or better yet, I'll go flense the blubber off of deceased beached whales, render it down and make biodiesel out of that. Maybe even get me some hemp camo fatigues.

Civil disobedience is not an acceptable option?

quote:

Originally posted by Skinner.:

quote:

Is plastic impregnated sintered Uranium or tunsten with coppr or TFE jackets doable?

EnvironMetal, the Hevi-Shot guys, already make such a bullet. The Dead Coyote 70 gr. copper jacketed tungsten core.D

The problem with the tungsten core being solid and not sintered is the lack of frangability. roger

Hey Skinner, Thanks for mentioning all the different non-lead that has been available. I didn't know any of what you mentioned existed.

Roger, I think the Dead Coyote bullet is a powdered tungsten core as opposed to solid.

There's more too HC, like Sinterfire bullets and the Lapua Naturalis

I've used the Sinterfire bullets on ground squirrels and they produce a pleasing pink mist, accuracy was OK, not great but OK.

Corbin lists options for lead free cores for jacketed bullets.

I don't see why there would be a problem with producing lead free .17 Mach2 or .17 HMR ammo given they use a jacketed bullet.

About 45 years ago I bought some .22 short gallery loads made by Remington. I think they were sintered iron. I shot some of them into a can stuffed with cotton expecting they might break up.
They did not break up. They might be about right for a trapper in the buzzard zone. But then again why not render the condors into biodiesel and make them useful.

quote:

But then again why not render the condors into biodiesel and make them useful.

Why blame the species ?

Our side does not have the data to effectively argue that lead fragments in shot animals is not detrimental to species that consume it.

Check out this NPS site and click on the link to open the 'Peregrine Fund's Bullet Fragmentation Study: Supplementary Data and Images'.

The Peregrine Fund is sponsoring a conference on this issue in May,

Ingestion of Spent Lead Ammunition: Implications For Wildlife And Humans

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:
Hey Dutch, I was unaware that Steel Shot was cheaper now - had no idea.

Can you give us a ballpark comparison?

What little Steel Shot I've used on Duck and Geese did fine and shot some tight groups. Just used a bit larger diameter.

I'm not a steel fan, but several clubs in California have had to go to steel shot only. With lead selling at $40 per 25 lb bag, it's not very hard to be cheaper. If you are interested, check with Joe Kuhn on the trapshooters.com forum; he's been the leader in getting an economical steel target reloading program. They buy shot by the drum. HTH, Dutch.

quote:

Originally posted by Skinner.:
Roger, I think the Dead Coyote bullet is a powdered tungsten core as opposed to solid.

Corbin lists options for lead free cores for jacketed bullets..

That should do it .Thanks a lot. roger

Thank you Dutch and Skinner. Good info.

Hey Dutch, How would a person keep the Steel from rusting in a HUGE quantity? Is it oiled or greased? I don't shoot enough shotgun anymore to warrant a Barrel full, but it is nice to know they offer it that way.
-----

Hey Bartsche, Didn't you make some posts about using Varmint Grenade Bullets, or was it Nightmare?

Does the Nightmare have a non-Lead core?
-----

It is obvious I am missing a bit by not taking the Gun Rags anymore. Perhaps I need to and just turn the Skeptical Filter to a higher setting.

Hey Bartsche, Didn't you make some posts about using Varmint Grenade Bullets, or was it Nightmare? Both!!

Does the Nightmare have a non-Lead core?Lead core[/QUOTE]

roger

if non lead bullets are going to give such inconsistent results like BARNES bullets i think its going to be a unhappy existance for many
the other is the cost , i guess thats why im stocking up on lead bullets, and to hell with goverment regulations
DANIEL

quote:

Originally posted by jpb:

quote:

Originally posted by DUK:
Like in Sweden and already in some areas of Germany they might require lead-free only for hunting.

Incorrect. A new government put an end to the threatened lead ban in Sweden.

For now...

John

Congratulations! There seems to exist at least some reason with your new government!

Now, what do they say about wolves?

Lutz Moeller's copper bullets are pretty precise in most rifles and quite popular around here.

Here is his website: KJG Homepage.

For the UK it would be an absolute disaster.

Small areas, denser population - the increased over penetration and ricochet potential of TSXs etc is not an option in many areas I hunt.