Thread: Lead Contamination In Game Meat

This is the main reason I only hunt using monolithic copper bullets. Having the family consuming lead is the last thing I want and am worried about.

I even get to the stage where only buying my hunting rifles solely depends on how easy to find monolithic copper ammunition in the NZ market. 80% of my ammo safes are monolithic just keeping stock to prevent running out.

Hope for more lead-free ammunition choices in the future NZ market.

Be really careful what you wish for.
It is everyone personal decision on what projectiles they want to shoot and what meat they want to eat and feed their family with.I get that.
But understand that the reason to ban lead in projectiles is not only scientific but also another way to go after hunters and gun owners.

Because once a law is introduced to ban copper jacket with lead chore projectiles for hunting in a country, the next step will be to ban the target projectiles.
On the medium to long term that could turn into the closing of your favourite hornady or nosler plant.
And imagine if all lead core projectiles sold in the world where replaced by copper only projectiles, well you would be paying a lot more for them, since Elon Musk and his buddies needs also copper for their production. And it becomes harder and more expensive to extract.

And of all the hunting people that I have known who died in the last decade, and where eating regular game meat and waterfowl, none have died of lead poisoning or seemed to have been affected by lead during the course of their life.
Sugar, fat and high cholesterol were the predominant factors.

Error. Deleted post.

Originally Posted by Friwi

Be really careful what you wish for.
It is everyone personal decision on what projectiles they want to shoot and what meat they want to eat and feed their family with.I get that.
But understand that the reason to ban lead in projectiles is not only scientific but also another way to go after hunters and gun owners.

Because once a law is introduced to ban copper jacket with lead chore projectiles for hunting in a country, the next step will be to ban the target projectiles.
On the medium to long term that could turn into the closing of your favourite hornady or nosler plant.
And imagine if all lead core projectiles sold in the world where replaced by copper only projectiles, well you would be paying a lot more for them, since Elon Musk and his buddies needs also copper for their production. And it becomes harder and more expensive to extract.

And of all the hunting people that I have known who died in the last decade, and where eating regular game meat and waterfowl, none have died of lead poisoning or seemed to have been affected by lead during the course of their life.
Sugar, fat and high cholesterol were the predominant factors.

100% Correct. Much of the information spread on the www is mischievous. The risk is highly exagerated. If you eat it almost daily or every week it may well be an issue. Particularly for children. But small amounts consumed occassionally won't hurt you. They pass through the digestive system and very little is absorbed by the body. Vapours are different matter and far more hazardous. Always ensure good ventilation if casting.

What your not told by these so called experts on the www is the body slowly removes any lead in your system.

Just remove all bruised meat plus a little extra.

Originally Posted by Jake77

Saw this article pop up on Rod n Rifle last year - https://rodandrifle.co.nz/articles/a...esearch-study/ Caught my eye as I sent 3 samples into Eric's study.

I am pretty cautious about keeping well away from the wound channels but even then they did get a low hit on one of my samples - still below the level of concern even though was using a 7mm RM with SST projectiles but surprised they found any given I am generally pretty careful. I will probably try copper projectiles when I run through my stash of lead but not going to stress about it for now, enough animals around to leave the odd quarter on the hill.

He did say that they were finding lead with the inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) at the Cawthron Institute that wasn't showing up on the xrays as it was too small.

He is apparently going to publish the results soon but summary advice was:

My recommendation from this work is that if you don’t know where the game meat came from, don’t eat it. Especially don’t feed game meat from unknown sources to kids. While you might be very careful not taking anything from the wound channel, someone else might not be as careful. If you want to use lead bullets and you make a good broadside shot, consider leaving the front quarters and just taking the back legs.

I would imagine a sst projectile would have a much higher chance of spreading parts of projectile further throughout the body of the animal compared to the likes of an eldm/x or interloc/corelokt etc especially out of a 7rm if it was at close ish range (sub 200m sort of thing). not that im any sort of expert but from what ive read and seen using ssts myself, they tend to be pretty explosive when sent into animals at high velocity even at resonable distance. I have started using copper projectiles in a couple of my rifles with good results so far, only real problems being ive had to change the way i shoot things (meat saver shot behind the shoulder isnt really an option any more as they need to hit something solid to really get proper expansion going) and distance becomes a factor much more so than a conventional style of projectile. Barnes say 1800fps minimum for reliable expansion but alot of people say stay atleast 2000fps+ so it can hinder your effective shooting range quite drastically if your using a calibre that isnt a rocket ship to begin with.

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.

Heading that way,but some Game Dealers keep pushing the date back. With most of Deer head and neck shot I can’t see the issue with lead bullets

Originally Posted by EmpireSafaris

Heading that way,but some Game Dealers keep pushing the date back. With most of Deer head and neck shot I can’t see the issue with lead bullets

I'd like someone to provide quality data that clearly shows that hunters are dieing of lead poisoning.

Bet I have a very long wait.
.

Originally Posted by Oldbloke

I'd like someone to provide quality data that clearly shows that hunters are dieing of lead poisoning.

Bet I have a very long wait.
.

Made it to my mid 50's after eating rabbit/pheasant/partridge shot with lead probably twice a week from wo to 17 on the farm. That is without walking round for hours with half a dozen .22 air rifle slugs in my mouth ready to go for the next pest that needed annoying.

Have been accused of being somewhat grouchy at times by the wife but personally i think that is just her.

Will let you if anything changes.

Thanks for taking the effort

This has been covered in another thread on here previously. I can remember stating that I’ve been regularly eating game meat recovered from animals shot with lead pellets or conventional cup and core bullets on a regular basis for getting on 60 years without ill effect. I’ve also been carrying around bits of lead in the body due to shooting incidents going back as far as the ‘70’s. Like most of my generation I also have amalgam fillings in my teeth. My health is regarded as pretty good for my age by my doctor. I used to have regular tests for heavy metals in my system due to some of my work and never had a bad test result apart from being a bit lax while sanding lead based paint on a boat once while on holiday, my bad. As long as you cut out obviously shot up meat I don’t see anything to worry about regarding lead poisoning. Certainly back in the day we didn’t give it much thought. As an aside, back then it wasn’t unknown to eat possum off a cyanide line, you were just careful taking the meat. Bet that puts the shits up a few of you.

From what I have learned over the years, ingested lead (small amount of course) isn't the problem. It is pretty inert in that state. Now lead based fumes are a completely different animal.
Like anything that is small enough to be respirated, it causes all sorts of problems

Originally Posted by Jhon

Did I read recently that moves are afoot to ban use of lead for all game shot in the UK for resale or public consumption? Anyone able to clarify that?

Hi @Jhon not really. Some game dealers are moving that way. But at present the game dealers around me are taking no deer. There full up. Mine can take 800 carcasses. He’s not taking anymore for the next 2 weeks as everyone scrambles to finish there roe doe cull before the end of the season.
The fact is that there is just not enough copper projectiles on the market to fill the hole.

If they ban lead now deer numbers will just go nuts. It’s bad enough as it is. We have quite the problem.

They are moving away from lead but when it comes who knows.

Short answer there is no date set.

Your more likely to die of lead poisoning from cereals than game meat.
Cereals have been found to contain some very high concentrations of lead that enter the food chain.