doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead shot increasingly under fire

Gunflint Charlie I don't remember the exact dates but according to Wanye Capooths book "The Golden Age of Waterfowling" they knew of the effects of lead shot on waterfowl back in the 1920's.
I don't associate banning lead shot with gun control.
Cox

HJ - No one is disputing the effects of ingested shot on waterfowl or humans. However, the banning of lead shot from the wide open spaces of BLM land, or shooting ranges sounds like the gov't protecting us from ourselves - again. The antis love any restriction that concerns the use of firearms. Is there a health threat posed by lead shot deposited on ranges or public land? If there is reputable scientific evidence supporting this then I'd love to hear it. Are gamebirds showing signs of lead poisoning from ingesting shot into their craws, or is lead on the surface somehow leaching into the groudwater? I have no doubt the Humane Society/PETA et. al. are funding studies to support just such a ban. The DNR officer who was quoted in the above article stopped using lead by because he didn't want his kids eating shot by accident. That's fine, his choice, but I would submit to him that his children's health is endangered far more on the ride to school in the morning than from the potentiality of swallowing a shot or two found in a pheasant breast. Sounds like more unnecessary handwringing to me. Just my $.02.

A 10b Scott will make a good door-prop for defrosting his front porch ice box.
That is, if lead is banned all-around!

Join the NRA if you want the shooting sports as we know them to continue!
JR

Bismuth works just fine Mr. Lowell.

In Tennessee lead has been banned on National Wildlife Refuges for several years for all game. Some still allow lead for turkey hunting only. I don't know that the Humane Society/Peta had any influence on their decisions.
They started trying to ban lead shot in the 1920's it took about 80 years to be banned. I don't think the Humane Society or Peta was around back then.
No doubt Lead shot will eventually be banned.

I just hope the ammo companies will get the price down on the alternatives.
Cox

If the prices of ammo are not reduced when lead is banned you can expect the firearms manufacturing firms to go out of business. Ammo is a huge part of their past, present, and future. Without ammo you cannot sell firearms. This is why Peta/HS and others are trying so hard to ban lead. It will likely happen.

Jim

There is no question that there is a movement afoot to at least regulate lead shot. Whether this is motivated by anti-gun sentiments or environmental concerns is certainly debatable, probably some combination of the two. The EPA has been very active in NY and has required Gun Clubs to adopt lead management programs. These programs basically require Clubs to keep their soil pH in the shot fall zone w/i a certain range within which lead will not be "mobilized" so that it gets into ground water. Clubs are also supposed to consider having their fields mined when it makes economic sense to do so. The way shot prices are climbing that may happen sooner than later. The EPA has much literature available to assist Gun Clubs in managing their lead, and in EPA's Region 2 they are in effect requiring this. Whether this will be ratcheted up only time will tell but, at least in this area, the EPA is not going to allow Clubs to keep their head in the sand on this issue. I am not aware of any movement to ban lead shot for upland hunting in NY but with a new democratic anti-gun governor taking the reins January 1 (Eliot Spitzer), it may be on the horizon.

As a matter of interest, I have a book on the famous rifle ranges at Bisley, in England. They state that they do not feel lead is an issue, the ranges have been in use since 1890, and there has never been any attempt to close the ranges because of lead laying around. The area is a nature preserve too. I do have a concern re waterfowl, but not upland gamebirds. (Puts flame suit on and prepares to lose yet another star.)
In the matter of steel shot for Olympic Clay target, the International Shooting Sport Federation came to the conclusion that the use of steel shot in Olympic Trap and Skeet should be prohibited due to the danger to shooters and range personnel from ricochets. Timely for the season: "don't shoot your eye out" like I nearly did 50 years ago with a steel BB bouncing back from a sheet of plywood. 177 lead pellets do not ricochet to any degree.

I also highly doubt that lead shot on upland hunting grounds poses any threat to humans or wildlife. Unfortunately, from a politician's standpoint it's a no-win situation to try to defend the spreading of toxic material to the public. As a practical matter, on it's face it's just as difficult an argument for us to make. Most voters don't want to spend much time working to understand this, and faced with different views will opt to err on the side of no-tox.

On the political scorecard, I wonder if we don't lose more than we gain by fighting this battle. In the long run I don't think it's winnable. I just hope the ammunition companies can bring down the cost of no-tox shot with higher volume production.

No man is a kingdom. I have tried to buy my own land. When I hunt waterfowl on the farm I have to follow the rules. Even though the shot never leaves the farm and I never miss so all the birds end up dead and recovered. I will not stop hunting if lead is banned but it will get much more expensive. This is just another backdoor attempt to regulate guns and private gun ownership and hunting in general out of existance.

Why is it that a Liberal will feel sympathy for a pedefile or psyco killer but go crazy at the mention of a hunter? Why are all guns assult weapons or automatics? Why do we need to understand a serial killer? How can you pass laws to correct everything in life when you can not get every one to agree what is wrong in the first place? Why are there just Conservative Republicans and Democrats in every nation news story? Why the extra label? And last, is PETA still killing animals and dumping them into dumpsters in the Virginia area? Love to see a "right wing, conservative, Republican" group try that. There would be blood on the decks when the press got done with that story.

If I wanted to be a tree hugging, veggieterian with an inabiltiy to accept either responsibility for my own actions or the fact that I am a looser I would be a Liberal Democrat. Since I did not suffer major brain injury at birth or later, I am not. Do not shove your blessed concepts of a perfect world down my throut. I have family and friends that are decent Democrats but they are getting to be a real minority in that party. Most people get so sick of the spin masters that they do not care or trust anyone these days Republican or Democrat.

Lead shot is vastly over rated as a problem. Do the math. One ounce of # 9 shot, shot at a bird, in upland conditions. If a bird has to eat ten # 9 shot pellets to get a lethal or even a non-lethal dose of lead, and shot falls out over an area of 300 yards by a cone from one inch to a width of 30 feet at the terminus for a fallout range, this creates an fallout area of 13,500 square feet. How many pellets per square foot are there? Well, there is one pellet for every 23.077 square feet. Our bird has to only peck over 230.77 square feet of ground to get his ten pellets. No way that he can miss eating those ten #9 shot pellets in that small area.

Here is a fun fact. Sexually transmitted diseases, aids, hep, ect... will kill more people this year than guns in the US. How many people want to give up sex for safeties sake? You can not force people into safety or health. Last time they tried to ban Alcohol in the US the country got just a little drunk. We have won the war on drugs, ended poverty with the Great Society, and cured most of mankinds problems with ever increasing government. Please do not help me anymore, I can not stand it.