Thread: Lead bullets and their risk to human health

was getting some raw pet food on saturday and talking with the owner everything that comes in has to go through a metal detector, they get skinned, offal checked then cut into chunks, through metal detecter then into mincer.
And he get MPI audited every 6 months.

The worrying part for me is that half of the mince samples had levels much higher than the safe daily amount for children. I want to safely feed my family.

I tend to agree that the risk to human health can be managed easily enough by avoiding meat near the entry and exit wounds, but the main reason I am switching to copper (first box of Hornady SST CX on the way) is due to scavenging by hawks, pigs, kea, etc.

I have mainly been using Barnes bullets for my hunting the last 15-16 years and the lack of lead particles in the meat is just a nice bonus for me.
The main reason for why I use them, is how accurate the bullets are in all my guns, great effect on the animals and less to much less meat damage and less to much less blood shot meat.
The retained weight of them are also usually 95-99%, making them penetrate very well, even if you use a much lighter and then faster bullet than what is normally used when it comes to lead core bullets.
And since I never do any form of very long range hunting, do the Barnes bullets I use expand and kill very well for the distances I am willing to shoot at animals.
For my hunting are there zero negatives by using the Barnes bullets and multiple positives, so I see no reasons for not using them.
And then I don't need to be worried about any possible negative health effects from lead core bullets as well.
No matter if they are real or not.

I have been using solid copper bullets for many years, Barnes TSX, TTSX, Hornady GMX, CX, Lehigh, Maker, Cutting Edge, Hammers, Absolutes & HHT's

Usually light & as fast as possible for calibre

I got terminal performance results with the 162 HHT's at 3125fps recently that were extremely encouraging

They are extremely accurate with explosive terminal performance, the only downside is the lower BC which is par for the course with monos

We donate a lot of venison & the lead topic has come up from time to time, but it is a non event because we i only use copper projectiles

Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

I have been using solid copper bullets for many years, Barnes TSX, TTSX, Hornady GMX, CX, Lehigh, Maker, Cutting Edge, Hammers, Absolutes & HHT's

Usually light & as fast as possible for calibre

I got terminal performance results with the 162 HHT's at 3125fps recently that were extremely encouraging

They are extremely accurate with explosive terminal performance, the only downside is the lower BC which is par for the course with monos

We donate a lot of venison & the lead topic has come up from time to time, but it is a non event because we i only use copper projectiles

Have you used the Maker in .224 at .223 speeds @Kiwi Greg?

Easy fix to all this, shoot them in the front end and eat the back end. Or shoot them in the head, like they have to do for pet food in Aus. Or do what I do and prioritise on the things I am concerned about in life.

Originally Posted by Tahr

Have you used the Maker in .224 at .223 speeds @Kiwi Greg?

No sorry, Makers have been Sub's

Originally Posted by John Duxbury

Easy fix to all this, shoot them in the front end and eat the back end. Or shoot them in the head, like they have to do for pet food in Aus. Or do what I do and prioritise on the things I am concerned about in life.

It's more than likely costing these guys more money using mono's (from there own pocket) to feed less fortunate people. And keep the pc (lead free) side of things all good. Something I'm keen to do when in a position to do so.