I just picked up my new rifle from my gunsmith for an upcoming pig hunt to California.

He asked me what I would be loading. I usually shoot Nosler Partitions or AccuBonds. He told me that you can't hunt (target practice?) with lead bullets in California anymore.

What are the California regulations Is he right?

i don't think its legal to do anything in commyfornia anymore

Lead is still legal for hunting in California. There is talk of banning it, but it hasn’t happened yet.

It's pretty warm out here right now. The hunting will be a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours in the evening, probably over water.

Where are and when are you planning to hunt?

I have lived in Calif all my life ( 52 years ) and that is the first I ever heard that. However nothing surprises me here. You can still buy lead bullets in all the stores. I think he may be talking about indoor ranges, but I have never been to one.
Thanks Sur5er

There's been talk of banning lead in areas populated by California Condors. Reportedly, some have swallowed bullets from animals that were killed by hunters and died of lead poisoning.

quote:

Originally posted by safarihunter:
I just picked up my new rifle from my gunsmith for an upcoming pig hunt to California.

He asked me what I would be loading. I usually shoot Nosler Partitions or AccuBonds. He told me that you can't hunt (target practice?) with lead bullets in California anymore.

What are the California regulations Is he right?

I don't think he is correct. YET But there is at least one ranch that has decided that hunters on their property must use non-lead projectiles. So I guess anything like a Barnes X bullet would be OK.

There's no lead ban in Ca (yet).


"The DFG and other conservation groups are asking hunters in the condor range to remove lead from the area by following a few simple steps.

Retreive all killed animals (including coyotes and small game) from the field, or

Hide gut piles or crcasses by burying them, covering them with brush or rocks, or by placing them in an inaccessible area, or

Remove bullets and surrounding impacted flesh when leaving carcasses or gut pile in the field, or

Use of lead free ammunition, in which case none of the above is needed."


The above is from Ca's DFG publication, California Hunting Digest.

Tejon Ranch will be unleaded after 12-31-07.

While I don't mind giving up lead in these areas I just can't help feeling it's another right I'm losing to the Anti's. I would imagine the chance of a condor eating a lead bullet in a gut pile is pretty slim.

When they were first released, I did see several California Condors both flying and on the ground eating road kill. But it's been a good 10 years since I've seen one. I don't believe there are many left.

They are an incredibly large bird and its amazes me they can fly. I watched one take off after eating a road kill. It must have taken it a good 75' before its feet left the ground. The wings looked like they were moving in slow motion.

Camp Roberts and Fort Hunter Liggett are lead free or soon to be (again the condor thing).

The word on the political street I've been hearing is that most likely lead free bullets will be required by CA DFG for condor areas (Southern part of the state) starting July '08.

I've hunted and guided on the Central Coast of CA for my whole life and even did three degrees in wildlife biology (and worked for DFG for a couple seasons) and have YET to see a condor in the wild.

The data does make it sound like the lead bullet fragments may have in fact killed a couple condors but my only question is: When they finally put the last couple condors in zoos can we go back to hunting with lead core bullets?

I'll bet I know what the answer is.

In fact I switched to shooting mostly TSX bullets for hunting long before this condor thing came about as I really like their performance. But now that the lead core will be banned (at least for a while+++) I've switched back to using up the lifetime supply of lead core I've stock piled.

For my personal use the lead free requirement won't make much difference. My frustration is from my guiding business. Of course I'll try to inform each hunter, but sometimes it's all I can do to get people to bring ammo of the right caliber for their gun WITHOUT FMJ bullets (people seem to want to shoot military surplus to save $0.12 per round!).

For many, many calibers lead free factory loads may never be available so the chances of even most hunting clients bringing the right ammo is slim. I'll probably just bring along as many different calibers of factory loaded in "X" bullets as I can and hope I have each person covered. (Obviously we'll have to resight but that may be the best we can do.)

If someone brings a rifle I don't have ammo for I'll have to offer a loaner with X bullets. I'm not quite sure how else to do it.

Kyler

Use Copper !. Tejon Ranch is already lead banned !. I was up that way a few weeks back and we were informed before going lead was out . No one said a word about copper jackets !. Lead cores ??.

It's because of the condors among other things .
Personally I would just as soon use those silly ass DummyCrats but those bastards have a law against that to !. Go Figure .

Shoot Straight Know Your target . ...

It's just another way to get people to stop buying guns. If they can make it almost impossible to shoot anywhere in Kalif. then why own a firearm of any kind. I'm going to have to speed up my move to Montana!