Thread: Lead Contamination In Game Meat

Something a few of you may find quite interesting, Take from it what you will. Bit of back story - my partner who i have got into hunting/shooting & recently just shot her first deer, and being the inquisitive female that she is, started doing some research on lead, lead projectiles, & what the projectiles do upon impact with animals. A quick google search for something along the lines of "deer lead xray" etc, can find plenty of articles about lead contamination in game meat, and plenty of photos of xrays showing lead particles strewn throughout the body far away from the point of impact, which at first glance to someone that doesnt know any better looks very alarming. I felt that there was likely more to the story, especially with some of the articles showing things like lead particles at near the opposite end of where the animal was shot, which made me feel like there was a bit of "anti lead projectile" bias slipping in with some of the experiments and it seemed to me as though they may have been using some very explosive/varmint type projectiles for their "testing" to make things look worse than they actually are because that would fit in with their agenda.

Dont take this in the wrong way, this is by no means me saying lead is good and not a problem, i use copper projectiles where i can and where they are effective for certain types of hunting i do. So here we go with the experiment.

My partner called around a few vets in our area to see if anyone would be willing to xray some meat for us, explaining what we had in mind & we were lucky to find someone happy to do this for us. Great!

The goal - to shoot a deer in a "worst case scenario" (i usually shoot head/neck or the meat saver in the crease shot where i can) which lines up with the type of hunting myself and alot of others do within nz, and get our own unbiased results.

The below xray is of the front shoulder of a small red yearling i shot, did my best to create a worst case scenario (for me) and hit it square in the shoulder at no more than 30m.

6.5 Creedmoor, 143gr ELDX @ 2720fps. Projectile was found under the skin on the opposite side of the animal, mushroomed and still relatively intact. weighs 119 grains now.

Interesting to see the lead contamination even with hitting hard in the shoulder has stayed really local to the wound channel (an area you wouldnt try eat the meat from anyway) and hasnt spread far and wide like some/the internet would lead you to believe. Again, not condoning lead or saying its a good thing, just pointing out that the meat contamination with a typical used in nz hunting projectile may well not be as bad as some will try lead you to believe.

fark its awesome to read and see that. good on you for making the effort to find out the truth..... please pass on my thanks and admiration to your vet.... really good they were willing to go the extra mile for you.
and you used one of the softest most explody ones for testing too.... the likes of a coreloct or interloct would be even less....I still eat right up to the bullet hole. wouldnt be stuff all duck left to eat if we didnt.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

fark its awesome to read and see that. good on you for making the effort to find out the truth..... please pass on my thanks and admiration to your vet.... really good they were willing to go the extra mile for you.
and you used one of the softest most explody ones for testing too.... the likes of a coreloct or interloct would be even less....I still eat right up to the bullet hole. wouldnt be stuff all duck left to eat if we didnt.

Yeah, i tried to make the scenario as bad as possible while still keeping it within what would be a normal situation for the kind of hunting we do in nz (im sure nobodys out there shooting deer with incendiary rounds or varmint style projectiles) hence using a common nz hunting projectile rumoured to be bad at flying to bits, at close range, into hard shoulder/bone. i can only imagine that the really bad looking results online are using chamberings/projectiles that are nothing like what we would actually use to shoot game for the purpose of harvesting the meat here in nz.

My opinion is that the shedded lead fragments will create bruising, and the bruised bits usually get thrown aside.

Had a lady bring this up the other day who researches all this sort of stuff and she said if shot in front eat rear,shot in rear eat front.

It doesn't take a lot of lead to really damage your health. Especially when the smallest fragments are quite available in the digestive system.

And please don't give the bruised meat to your dogs. They are your best friend, after all!

Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

Something a few of you may find quite interesting, Take from it what you will. Bit of back story - my partner who i have got into hunting/shooting & recently just shot her first deer, and being the inquisitive female that she is, started doing some research on lead, lead projectiles, & what the projectiles do upon impact with animals. A quick google search for something along the lines of "deer lead xray" etc, can find plenty of articles about lead contamination in game meat, and plenty of photos of xrays showing lead particles strewn throughout the body far away from the point of impact, which at first glance to someone that doesnt know any better looks very alarming. I felt that there was likely more to the story, especially with some of the articles showing things like lead particles at near the opposite end of where the animal was shot, which made me feel like there was a bit of "anti lead projectile" bias slipping in with some of the experiments and it seemed to me as though they may have been using some very explosive/varmint type projectiles for their "testing" to make things look worse than they actually are because that would fit in with their agenda.

Dont take this in the wrong way, this is by no means me saying lead is good and not a problem, i use copper projectiles where i can and where they are effective for certain types of hunting i do. So here we go with the experiment.

My partner called around a few vets in our area to see if anyone would be willing to xray some meat for us, explaining what we had in mind & we were lucky to find someone happy to do this for us. Great!

The goal - to shoot a deer in a "worst case scenario" (i usually shoot head/neck or the meat saver in the crease shot where i can) which lines up with the type of hunting myself and alot of others do within nz, and get our own unbiased results.

The below xray is of the front shoulder of a small red yearling i shot, did my best to create a worst case scenario (for me) and hit it square in the shoulder at no more than 30m.

6.5 Creedmoor, 143gr ELDX @ 2720fps. Projectile was found under the skin on the opposite side of the animal, mushroomed and still relatively intact. weighs 119 grains now.

Interesting to see the lead contamination even with hitting hard in the shoulder has stayed really local to the wound channel (an area you wouldnt try eat the meat from anyway) and hasnt spread far and wide like some/the internet would lead you to believe. Again, not condoning lead or saying its a good thing, just pointing out that the meat contamination with a typical used in nz hunting projectile may well not be as bad as some will try lead you to believe.

Attachment 218178

maybe the 6.5 crudmore was ya real problem - get a .270

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

maybe the 6.5 crudmore was ya real problem - get a .270

Yawn

Always been something I have wondered about. Wondering no more.

I have moved to copper bullets for the few deer I manage to stumble over occasionally and transfer to the freezer each year.

I'm not shooting heaps of them so in the grand scheme of things the cost is not prohibitive.

Did your vet manage to save the yearling?

Interesting topic, well done for taking the tim eot do a little research. I happened across that article recently about 'lead contamination'. Written by a professor type yet very unscientific and uncontrolled. It did sound like it had a distinct bias / attempts to deliberate skew to the results to provide arguments for banning lead bullets.

Originally Posted by svt40

Interesting topic, well done for taking the tim eot do a little research. I happened across that article recently about 'lead contamination'. Written by a professor type yet very unscientific and uncontrolled. It did sound like it had a distinct bias / attempts to deliberate skew to the results to provide arguments for banning lead bullets.

I found much the same. all the articles i could find seemed very biased toward the "lead is bad" argument and the xrays with lead strewn through the whole carcass just didnt stack up with what i have seen butchering many deer over the years. Hence the idea to run this experiment and see for ourselves with the practises and projectiles we use.

Originally Posted by 6.5 CRD

I found much the same. all the articles i could find seemed very biased toward the "lead is bad" argument and the xrays with lead strewn through the whole carcass just didnt stack up with what i have seen butchering many deer over the years. Hence the idea to run this experiment and see for ourselves with the practises and projectiles we use.

no apologys about the 6.5 crudmore joke - but seriously in the xray what is one actually looking at - is it lead or bullet jacket fragments which will be copper ? Nikel ? -dont think I have ever seen lead fragments rather pieces of the projectiles outer case - the lead core I have found intact but mushroomed - anyway I seldom bother with shoulder shot deer rather just take backsteaks and hind quarters -only take shoulders if I head shoot a really tasty looking model - sharp knife and very prudent removal of anything that looks remotely shot up way to go - goes of quick anyway

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

no apologys about the 6.5 crudmore joke - but seriously in the xray what is one actually looking at - is it lead or bullet jacket fragments which will be copper ? Nikel ? -dont think I have ever seen lead fragments rather pieces of the projectiles outer case - the lead core I have found intact but mushroomed - anyway I seldom bother with shoulder shot deer rather just take backsteaks and hind quarters -only take shoulders if I head shoot a really tasty looking model - sharp knife and very prudent removal of anything that looks remotely shot up way to go - goes of quick anyway

Unfortunately the xray cant tell the difference between lead and copper, so what we are looking at could be a mixture of both, however looking at the projectile i took from the animal, i would have to guess a fair amount of it is copper. the lead part of the core seems to be still relatively intact for the most part, where as the lead core has just mushroomed over. 143gr projectile and it now weighs 119gr so it has stayed relatively intact for this type of projectile.

On the lead core intact but mushroomed, i would agree. Thats what i have found, generally its only ever been bits of copper jacket i have found when butchering close to the wound channel. Come to think of it, not sure i have ever found lead seperate to the projectile, not that i can recall anyway.

Basically the whole point of this to see how far the projectile spreads in a realistic nz hunting situation with common nz projectiles/calibres, rather than going by the carnage that the internet would lead you to beleive. Wether thats copper or lead is hard to determine without more than an xray.

Awesome to see someone do a scientifically backed experiment. I've had this question come up a few times and feel alot more informed now thanks!