Ben, you're doing a little "book cooking" in that last post. Roster's test didn't prove anything as far as comparing lead to steel on PHEASANTS--because he tested ONLY STEEL. In order to compare the lethality of steel vs lead, you have to put them against each other in a head to head test. All Roster concluded was that pheasant wounding losses with steel are lower than waterfowl wounding losses. Well . . . waterfowl shots are longer, on average, than pheasant shots. And the comparison was with preserve pheasants, which are significantly easier to bring to bag than are wild ones. You can take that from a guy who's shot a whole bunch of both (but FAR more wild ones) over the course of several decades. A "low" wounding loss rate compared to waterfowl isn't necessarily a low wounding loss rate compared to pheasants shot with lead. And in fact, my own wounding loss rate on pheasants, using lead shot over a period of 30+ years and over 1,500 wild pheasants bagged, is about 1/3 of the 12.2% Roster characterized as "low". In order to establish that steel is as lethal as lead on pheasants, one would have to repeat the Roster test, but with the shooters unaware of whether they were shooting lead or steel. Then, as in his test, the birds would have to be examined to determine the damage caused by steel vs lead pellets. Since feather-balling was identified as a problem with #4 steel--probably the most popular shot size used by those shooting steel at pheasants--there should be a comparison to the equivalent lead shot size (#6) to determine whether it's more or less of a problem with steel than with lead. That's "science" the way it should be done--not to just say "Well, we know that we can kill pheasants with steel, and we don't lose as many wounded ones as we do ducks." The REAL question is, by restricting lead shot, are we killing more pheasants by crippling them with steel than we are losing as a result of birds ingesting spent lead shot? We can't know that without testing both types of ammunition, side by side.
And I'm still waiting for the research that establishes losses of wild pheasants (or other wild upland species, other than doves) from the ingestion of lead. All I've seen so far are studies showing that there's an elevated lead level in the blood (or lead pellets in the gizzards) of some wild upland birds. But those birds have been SHOT--which obviously means that they died not from the lead they ingested, but from the lead with which they were shot.
What it comes down to is how many pheasants (or whatever other upland species we're discussing) are dying via ingestion of spent lead pellets, versus how many more MIGHT die as wounding losses if we switched to steel--which we know is less ballistically efficient than that "antiquated ammunition material" called lead. Were that not the case, other than for those guns that can't shoot steel because it's too hard on the barrels, ammo makers would not have spent nearly as much time and effort coming up with nontoxic alternatives that are ballistically superior to steel--which is ballistically inferior to lead. We'd all be perfectly happy campers if there were a nontox alternative out there that works as well as lead, can be shot safely in older guns, and doesn't cost any more. But at present, if we get rid of lead, steel is the only economical alternative. And it's both inferior ballistically and can't be used in a whole lot of guns--some of them not all that old.
And Ben, you're talking to the absolutely worst group when you tell us that we ought to be warning shooters about what might happen if they shoot the wrong loads through old guns. If those old guns handled large lead shot just fine at the pressures for which they were originally designed, then they will handle equivalent loads just fine today. It's a question of shooting what the gun was originally meant to be shot with--and I don't know of a resource anywhere on the Internet with a group of more knowledgeable shooters and hunters than doublegunshop.com, when it comes to advising the vintage gun crowd on what they should or should not run through their older guns. Large shot was around before WWII, and if your gun was used to shoot geese with lead 2's back then, it will shoot lead 2's just fine now. You may have to reload to keep the pressure down, and you ought to stick to a shot charge that's no heavier than what was available when your gun was made, but there shouldn't be any other concerns.
As for the "health" thing . . . kids eating lead paint chips is a different story than people eating game shot with lead. The North Dakota study of lead levels in human blood established that the participants had a lead level lower than the average American, and far below the CDC's "level of concern". Likewise, those participants who were hunters had a lead level lower than the average American. Lead poisoning is certainly real, but to suggest that it's a real danger to hunters and others eating meat from animals shot with lead projectiles is a pretty poor scare tactic.
Last edited by L. Brown; 01/21/10 09:27 AM.
