Tungsten may be environmentally friendly, but it may not be so for humans. Sometimes a problem is solved, but it carries with it some other negatives or create some serious problems down the line. Feeding hormones to cattle and chickens is one such concern that we may see 10 years down the line when it is too late to turn the clock back. Shooting humans with tungsten bullets also bring up some ethical questions. When your own soldiers are wounded and affected and wounds are contaminated it raises some serious questions of where we are heading.

The US Army began manufacturing "green" bullets during 1999 as they are more friendly to mother earth. Lead bullets tend to bioaccumulate in the environment, especially at shooting ranges, can end up in sediments, surface water, and groundwater and so cause pollution and affect wildlife and people who get their drinking water from a contaminated source. The US Army, who uses millions of traditional 5.56 mm bullets have been forcing several shooting ranges to close. Tungsten is used to replace lead cores. It is more expensive than lead, but studies are underway to prove the danger to humans in that it may cause cancer in wounds according to US Army researchers.

Researchers at the Forces Radiobiology Research Institute implanted pellets of the tungsten alloys in rats to simulate shrapnel wounds from the weapons. Some rats received high-dose pellets, some low-dose and some pellets of other material for controlled comparison. All of the rats implanted with tungsten developed extremely aggressive tumors surrounding the pellets. Though the tumors in the low-dose individuals grew more slowly, all of the tumors spread rapidly to the lungs of the rats, requiring researchers to euthanize the animals well before the anticipated end of the study. The findings raise extremely serious concerns over the potential health effects of tungsten-alloy-based munitions currently being used as non-toxic alternatives to lead.

"If the findings are validated by further research, it appears that soldiers could be at risk of surviving battlefield wounds only to develop an aggressive form of cancer," said Dr. Jim Burkhart, science editor for the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, which published the research.

Chris Bekker

Why is this in the Big Bore forum? It is as irrelevant as the you started on RIP's Dakota 76 thread.

Science has been proven to cause cancer in rats.

Gerard,

What is relevant to you I could not give a shit about. Will you meet with me in PE next Thursday or Friday - let me know. It is time we get together.

Chris

Tex21,

Semantics aside ... with scientific studies the scientits have already proven it in rats. Dr. Jim Burkhart, science editor for the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, will tell you more about it.

Chris

Sounds like I might need to get the bullet surgically removed if I get shot with a tungsten slug, but if the bullet is pure copper, I can leave it in.

Yet another reason to purchase GS Custom bullets!

truvelloshooter,
If a person is trying to kill someone at war, why would they care if they caught cancer as a result?

" ita a dog eat dog society, and there aint enough dogs to go around"

Excellent point woodjack!,lol

quote:

Originally posted by Woodjack:
truvelloshooter,
If a person is trying to kill someone at war, why would they care if they caught cancer as a result?

" ita a dog eat dog society, and there aint enough dogs to go around"

OK fine killing the enemy now or later, no big deal.
However, Barnes and Speer are using Tungsten in bullets being handled by reloaders. If this is a cause for worry or a "Chicken Little Effect" for reloaders is my concern.

I was just testing to see if this was removed.
Frank

truvelloshooter,

I moved your previous thread on this topic to 'Military & Surplus'.

This has no relevance to 'Big Bores'.

George

quote:

Originally posted by Woodjack:
If a person is trying to kill someone at war, why would they care if they caught cancer as a result?

Well you see these same bullets are going to be fired at your own troops and that is the problem. There is a greater humane aspect that should separate us from the animals.

If the view seems to be that we don't care a shit, then it should be OK for Bush to drop 20 atom bombs against those that he considers his enemies - be it the Arabs or the Koreans. Kind of an attitude that says .... "any means fit the purpose".

That is why Melosovich and Sadam will face charges of war crimes. Put it another way, if tungsten can be replaced with mercury, or a deadly chemical that create sores on the body, would that also be OK. I don't think so, ask the lawyers of this world.

Dan, I love your humour and I agree the pure copper would not be considered a war crime. Removing it or not, or keeping it unremoved as a souvenir for being a tough shit is a personal call that I would respect. Just like to meet this tough shit, as he would be far more useful than Rambo.

Frankly speaking, you hit on something Dan ... Gerard's HV bullet would be excellent as a military bullet and I think you have just opened a marketing opportunity for GS Custom. A sleek long-range bullet at high velocity is just the ticket for the dessert in Iraq.

Take care
Chris

It would be bad for your health, to be shot with a tungsten bullet! Who would of thunk it?

"Researchers found that the urine samples of children and adults living in Fallon, Nev., contained both arsenic and tungsten in concentrations higher than national averages, but not significantly different than levels found in urine from people who live in similar Nevada towns.

In Nevada, tungsten occurs naturally. But it was recently discovered the concentrations of tungsten in the environment there had increased by 50 percent. Scientists are still trying to figure out what caused the increase, and researchers from the University of Arizona at Tucson are starting to study the effects of human exposure to tungsten.

In one study, early results showed that tungsten could increase the growth rate of human leukemia cells, said Mark Witten, a research professor from the department of pediatrics."

Got the above somewhere from a website and here is another piece:

"In work funded by the military, Christos Christodoulatos and his team studied what happens to tungsten in water solutions and soils with various pH levels, or acidity levels.

Their findings, recently published in the Journal of Environmental Forensics, reveal that tungsten and tungsten alloys dissolve in water and soil solutions - at rates that exceed the solubility of lead. The research appears to imply that tungsten bullets may be more polluting than the lead ones."

Chris

quote:

with scientific studies the scientits have already proven it in rats.

I take it you do not have much respect for these researchers?

Gerard,

Good show !!! I guess when someone is doing a tit job and he happens to be a scientist we could call him a scientit.

I am not quite sure how you can deduct that I do not respect them - because you want to argue, be difficult, be clever, be full of shit, because I made a spelling mistake, because men don't like tits or a tit is a bad thing even though we grew up on them during the first few months as babies? Be that as it may ... you always deviate from the real argument or discussion on the table - true to form.

Chris

You must be one of the most humourless people I have come across.

quote:

you always deviate from the real argument or discussion on the table - true to form.

I am waiting to see where this goes. You also seem to be blowing hot and cold on the topic of tungsten at the moment. I discarded tungsten as base core five years ago as it is expensive and introduces many complications. Maybe you should decide to root for it, then you can have another area where you differ in opnion from me.

quote:

Gerard's HV bullet would be excellent as a military bullet and I think you have just opened a marketing opportunity for GS Custom.

You are a little late with this, more bad/incomplete research. Our SPs and some HVs have been serving for some time already.

Gerard,

You have no sense of humour - just petty shit all the time. You would not last 5 minutes in my presence then the sparks will fly.

Even if I compliment your bullets, you still have to say bad things like bad research and too late and so forth.

Tungsten is much heavier and more expensive than lead ... would not suite a light for caliber bullet and would not be economical to make - so good decision Gerard and on top no pollution and impact on human beings.

Chris

Guys, as I posted on the other thread on this topic, the Military came up with the Green-Tip ammo for use against body armor...NOT because it was supposedly more friendly to Mother-Earth.

Since the enemy we face doesn’t use body armor they have since found out that it doesn’t work all that well because it tends to just zip right on through without causing much damage unless it hits a bone.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick 0311:
Guys, as I posted on the other thread on this topic, the Military came up with the Green-Tip ammo for use against body armor...NOT because it was supposedly more friendly to Mother-Earth.

Rick,
I am not sure if you are aware of this, but there are two types of the "green tip" M855 ammo. One is lead core and has no other markings on the case or can. But the other type which still has the green tip is called "green" ammo and is so marked on the case, can, and bandoleers. I am not sure of what is used to replace the lead but it has a much duller and almost granular apearance than lead if you cut open a M855 bullet.

The sole reason for the new "green" ammo was to be environmentaly friendly. To the best of my knowledge all new Lake City 5.56 ammo is "green". The "green" ammo tends to shoot a little better than the regular M855 in my opinion.

But there is no other way to tell what ammo you have unless you look at the packaging markings or cut open a bullet.

I have a can of each and will post a pic of the markings later.

Bill,

The tungsten tip in the ammo, from what I have read and been told, was what they came up with back in the 1980’s to supposedly give better penetration on targets wearing body armor. The tungsten portion is just at the tip.

The military manual/diagram even refers to the tungsten tip as the “penetrator“ and the core body as the “slug.†Both are enclosed in the jacket.

The type classification is STD-MSR 05826003

Supposedly, the main reason for the poor accuracy was due to the fact that the tungsten penetrator tip and the lead core,being very different in density and weight, caused the bullet to be unstable in flight.

If the military was so worried about hurting the environment I’m not sure how they would explain the DU rounds used in the anti-armor ammunition.

Bill,

I just went out in my shop and pulled the bullet off one of the Green Tips you sent me and I sawed it in half.

The the dull looking core material at the base can be easily pierced with a dental pick so I’m assuming it’s lead. The tip portion of the core, however, is bright and shiny and is hard as a f**king rock. The dental pick won’t even scratch it.

Rick,
The M855 uses a hardened steel penetrator and a lead core. You can verify that real easy by putting a magnet next to it. The "green" M855 uses tungsten to replace the lead core. It is just as soft as the lead. I have been told but I can not verify if it is the case, is that the "green" core is a nylon/tungsten polymer compound.

Both types of M855 have the green tip and same penetrator, and use the same load data. The only diference is one uses the lead core and one uses the tungsten core.

Here is a link I found that talks about it.

http://www.thegunzone.com/green-ammo.html

Here is another link, scroll down until you see the M855 and the lead free M855. The "lead free" is the "green" ammo.

http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/rifle/556mm_ammo.html

Bill,

You certainly know more about current military stuff than I do. Hell, they had just stopped using muzzle loaders when I joined the service...well, almost anyway!

The whole issue of lead from bullets harming the environment is ridiculous at best. Lead from bullets DOES NOT leach into the ground or the water table...period, end of story. There have recently been numerous independent tests and studies done on this due to the anti-gun crowd’s attempts to shut down shooting ranges around the country.

From the American Tungsten Association:

The facts

Tungsten is a metal of many superlatives.
It has not only the highest melting point of all elements except carbon - sources in scientific literature vary between 3,387°C and 3,422°C - but also excellent high temperature mechanical properties and the lowest expansion coefficient of all metals. A temperature of about 5,700°C is needed to bring tungsten to boil - which corresponds approximately to the temperature of the sun’s surface. With a density of 19.25 g/cu.cm, tungsten is also among the heaviest metals. Its electrical conductivity at 0°C is about 28% of that of silver which itself has the highest conductivity of all metals.

Atomic weight
183.85 g/ g atom
Density
19.25 g/ cu. cm
Highest melting point of all metals
3,410°C
Boiling point
~ 5,700°C
Pure tungsten is a shiny white metal and, in its purest form, is quite pliant and can easily be processed. Usually, however, it contains small amounts of carbon and oxygen, which give tungsten metal its considerable hardness and brittleness. For decades, scientists have worked to overcome the brittleness problem, and this brochure will show they succeded.

Tungsten features the lowest vapour pressure of all metals, very high moduli of compression and elasticity, very high thermal creep resistance, high thermal and electrical conductivity and, last but not least, a very high coefficient of electron emission. The latter can even be improved by alloying tungsten with certain metal oxides.

Most of these unusual properties are due to the half-filled 5d electron shell with a very high binding energy of the tungsten metal lattice. Based on these properties, tungsten, tungsten alloys and some tungsten compounds cannot be substituted in many important applications in different fields of modern technology.

I know government and scientests are "good" for me. They tell me so.

However, after 70 years of living pretty much without regard for the dangers of butter, cholesterol, sugar, bacon fat, salt, tomatoes (once thought to be deadly poison), caffeine, nicotine, lead, mercury, driving with or without seatbelts, DDT, horseback riding, having a pistol in my home, and probably 2.2 Zillion other things, you know I have concluded that life is still pretty much a lottery.

Most days you wake up. Someday you won't.

If I could postpone that one day of not waking up by fanatically abstaining from contact with any of the above mentioned things, I'd still have to ask a few questions...

1) Does that mean that now I will never die?

2) Even if it means "1)" above is true...is it worth it?

3) How much more would my life be worth to me and others if I spent it doing things, rather than worrying about everything with which I come in contact?

Carpe diem...SOMETHING IS COMING UP FROM BEHIND, AND IT'S GAININ' ON YA!

quote:

However, after 70 years of living pretty much without regard for the dangers of butter, cholesterol, sugar, bacon fat, salt, tomatoes (once thought to be deadly poison), caffeine, nicotine, lead, mercury, driving with or without seatbelts, DDT, horseback riding, having a pistol in my home, and probably 2.2 Zillion other things, you know I have concluded that life is still pretty much a lottery.

Excellent - well said bud.

Take care
Chris

I saw an article that that tungsten speeds the leaching of lead into the environment. Lead does enter the environment, the issue is how much lead is too much. Junk science works both ways. Several years ago our local range was threatened as a noise hazzard. When the state came out to monitor the noise a commercial jet flew over while landing at the airport a few miles away. It was louder than the range which did not excede limits on the noise ordinance, the jet did, but the airport is still there. The realestate developer isn't interested in the airport yet.

The big bugaboo with lead and ranges is far more applicable to indoor pistol ranges where people are using lead bullets. The “dust†in the air can be inhaled and is not real good for you.

Like Sam pointed out, several studies have been done recently to show that lead from bullets does not leach out of the projectile into the ground.

There are numerous islands in the Pacific (Iwo Jima, Guam, Okinawa, etc.) that would literally be hazardous waste dumps if that were the case...and parts of France, Germany and Russia would probably also qualify.