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

Lighten up Brent, I was just kiddin'. Given the madness of this thread so far, I was only surprized that no one else had made the connection to GUN CONTROL...Geo

How can Brent lighten up, when he has swallowed hook-line-and sinker?

Brent - I admit that I know very little about the lead problem as it pertains to fowl. I did read your post on the results of the number of birds checked and what was found in their gizzards. What the numbers don't answer are the questions posed by salopian. How many ducks/geese have been found that were suffering from the actual effects of lead poisoning? For example, if I have an ounce of whiskey in my stomach, that doesn't mean that I will die from or suffer any permanent effect from alcohol poisoning. I've reloaded shotshells and cast bullets for over 50 years and my Dr. says my lead level is very low. I know that doesn't prove anything, but tends to make me skeptical of the serious dangers of lead. I'm just asking both sides of the arguement to present me with simple facts to convince me one way or the other that lead is or is not killing enough birds (by ingestion) that I should be concerned about it.

B Frech,
If you REALLY want to know look in the libaries. It's all there.

Dosages (# pellets etc needed to kill a mallard or an eagle are documented and you can find them for yourself. Along the way you will learn a lot more than simple LD 50s and the like. The report that Al posted will give you an opening into the literature, but in the age of the internet, there is no reason you can't research the what is known about any issue on your own.

As for your years of loading and casting - congratulations. You have good hygene, and you probably tend not to eat the stuff. I load, cast, and swage myself. So, I am not too worried about lead poisoning either as I practice a few simple precautions as I imagine you do.

But even if you did eat the occasional bullet, or two, your risk of lead poisoning is quite a bit less than a bird. What you and I lack that birds do not is a crop. And that, makes all the difference in the world.

Brent

One wonders how much of this poisonous Lead the Professor has contaminated the environment with in the last year?

Oh, on the order of couple hundred pounds. I have well over a 1000 in the garage to turn into bullets at the rate of 1.25 oz per bullet.

Of course, I don't shoot them into wetlands - and thus the difference.

That lead still leaches into the water table, and it can be as toxic to wildlife as any shot it the wetlands.

Citations?

Brent

Bouvier's post disturbed me a bit. He is a major property owner who has a stream that measures 500 times the proper lead or contaminant level (I don't recall his exact wording). He blames the upstream gun club. Has he had the water tested upstream from the gun club? As a major property owner with interest in the quality of water, I would assume he has done this. However, he didn't say he did. My gun club has been accused of contaminating the downstream water, but the water was found to be contaminated at the test level upstream from the gun club. I am against contamination, but think that industrial and development contamination exceeds gun club contamination by multiples.

Yep

http://www.vpc.org/studies/leadfour.htm