As the debate on lead contamination of hunted meat hots up and the likes of BASC and other interested parties start the preliminary rounds of political musical chairs,before getting down to decide the fate of lead cored bullets in the European hunting field.
Here's an interesting report by European Food Standards Agency on the health implications of lead in food. www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/contam100420.htm

Happy reading

tophand

allthough a serius matter to the british hunters, i find it hard to belive that any laws in the british iles will affect most if any of us in the continential europe, if that were so then i would not have my 9mm pistols etc in my gun safe as it is right now.
please remember the swedes just beat this..

i do hope that you guy's can rally together for once, and beat this, but fear it might be a cheap chip in the elections.

best of luck

peter

quote:

Originally posted by peterdk:
tophand

allthough a serius matter to the british hunters, i find it hard to belive that any laws in the british iles will affect most if any of us in the continential europe, if that were so then i would not have my 9mm pistols etc in my gun safe as it is right now.
please remember the swedes just beat this..

i do hope that you guy's can rally together for once, and beat this, but fear it might be a cheap chip in the elections.

best of luck

peter

Peter

Have the Swedes over turned the proposed 2009 ban or have they only managed to delay its implementation due to a change in government. I believe Norways lead ban is on the cards.

I think we would be rather naive to think that this problem is going to go away or that we will be left to carry on as we have always done. First and fore most lead pollution and contamination is one of the environmentalists hot topics world wide, secondly the banning of lead cored ammunition is seen as one of the mile post goals by the anti gun and anti hunting lobbiests. Its also a far easier win for them than a direct ban on guns and hunting. But has virtually the same results simply due to the massive hike in costs incurred by the gun owners and hunters. Its all part of the multi layered, secondary agenda strategies employed by them. So enjoy that 9mm locked in the cabinet whilst you can afford to feed it.

As the lead banns slowly become more common place and wider spread eventually the supply of cost effect reloading components will diminish. Especially once the US lead ban becomes not just state but nation wide as it most surely will.

There is no led ban for rifle/pistol bullets on the Norwegian political agenda.
Regarding shotgun ammo on the other hand, there is a total led ban i Norway, and has been so for a few years.

The operative word here is "contamination" and it's occuring more frequently .....

Not according to the data I have.

This argument has been discussed on an italian hunting magazine, that reported also some X-ray plate taken to hunted animals.
Very impressive the presence of lead splinter all around the wound channel.

Honestly speaking, I don't know if, removing the splinders, the meat can be still contaminated, but reading the report, I took in consideration that in Italy there is risk near to 0.0000*1 x million.
Little or big, game meat consume is actually not too much widespread, I can define it rare.

A risk that must not be undervaluated, of course, but not exaggerated. Italians actually consume mainly or near to totally bovine meat, pork meat and poultry.

Difficult to suffer for lead disease.

Steve,

Chill out, Pal - the current case of "Lead Contamination" is gone.

Dear Gerry,

I'm absolutely cold on the argument, and I'm not spraying gasoline on fire like this one .

For me it is simple a conversation argument and a possibility of infos confrontation. Something to think over

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Malinverni:
This argument has been discussed on an italian hunting magazine, that reported also some X-ray plate taken to hunted animals.
Very impressive the presence of lead splinter all around the wound channel.

Honestly speaking, I don't know if, removing the splinders, the meat can be still contaminated, but reading the report, I took in consideration that in Italy there is risk near to 0.0000*1 x million.
Little or big, game meat consume is actually not too much widespread, I can define it rare.

A risk that must not be undervaluated, of course, but not exaggerated. Italians actually consume mainly or near to totally bovine meat, pork meat and poultry.

Difficult to suffer for lead disease.

I think I too have seen those Xray pictures, they show a coyote shot with a varmint (thin walled and designed for rapid expansion) designed bullet with extensive amounts of lead particles distributed over a large proportion of the body.
The information I have managed to gather thru my research via the internet is that in the the majority of cases with deer shot with standard soft nosed hunting bullets the lead fragments are contained within approx 65mm of the wound channel. With only a very small percentage(less than 1%) distributed over a larger area. The discarding of any meat that surrounds the wound channel or shows signs of maceration effectively reduces the risk of lead ingestion to almost zero.

However there is now strong scientific evidence that the ingestion of any amount of lead irrespective of how small has a negative effect on the body. Especially infants and pregnant women. The upside to this is you are more likely to be exposed to lead particles for other forms of human activities than you are ever likely to thru the eating of legally hunted and properly prepared game meat and game meat products.

Lead is an ideal material for bullets and shot. There are very few viable, in regards to performance or cost for lead shot, there are even fewer for bullets. Cooper the current leading alternative is neither a match by why of performance or cost, in fact it has a number of major deficiencies in both areas. One being its tendency to ricochet like .22 subsonic ammunition. The other concern is there is no prospect of anyone producing copper .22r/f ammunition.