Lead Free Ammo Laws?

G’Day All,

Just been talking to a mate in the UK and the stalkers there are being told that dame dealers will no longer accept deer shot with lead containing projectiles. That means anyone wanting to sell carcasses will need to switch to a non-lead option and there are already shortages in supply. As we know, projectiles and loaded ammo also costs more, sometimes much more. I used Barnes TTSX for years in the UK and they kill well at short to moderate ranges but less so at longer range.

Anyway, is this likely to become an issue for us here in these days of health and safety? Will this be another excuse for politicians and police to limit what we can do? Is anyone aware of discussions regarding policy or law changes? There is no pressure from game dealers here, but where others go we are likely to follow.

I see @Tahr is using Hammers. What else is being used out there and how do they perform and compare with each other, including in cost?

Cheers

My kitchen is not fussy about how it's meat was acquired, just focuses on the quality delivered. Unless they inspect my ammo in the field they'll never know...

Aint ever gonna bother me, I got enough cup and core boolits to last me out and some. And the meat tastes yummy no matter what you shoot it with. And theres always plenty of home kill butchers that will process it for us, regardless of how it hit the deck.

Most all people shooting for sale will head/neck shoot the animal. I would have thought that that neatly removes the part of the animal that contains any potential for lead to remain in the carcass???

The vast majority of deer shot for the trade in the UK are shot in the engine room. I don’t know how anyone is going to know what a deer was shot with there but it’s causing some consternation.

Less of an issue here as mentioned above, but what happens if the sale lead containing projectiles is banned, for example. I don’t currently use lead-free projectiles and I’m just playing Devil’s advocate.

This is a trend which is spreading elsewhere and we should not assume that it won’t arrive here too.

Thanks for replies so far.

Easy im using depleated uranium works great :)

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Originally Posted by northdude

Easy im using depleated uranium works great :)

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Does the afterglow it make them easier to find then when you shoot them on dusk?

Yep l and i can find the rounds easier if i drop them in the dark plus they keep you warm in the cold if you put a few rounds in each of your pockets...

I think everyone involved in shooting in the UK sees this for what it is, health and safety gone mad and making life even more difficult for shooters. Luckily, I don't think our gun toting American friends will accept this stupidity, so there will always be a supply of ammo, assuming Jacinda allows it in to the country of course.

What happened in the UK is that a few "Notable deerstalkers " have been pushing for lead free bullets because they were tinkering with them and wanted to have their names at the bottom of the hunting papers they were writing for recognised. And because paper does not refuse ink, they wrote miles of articles, including all kind of research papers notably from USA on the subject that could favour their cause, on how it killed the same or better than conventional projectiles, and how it was so much better for Health and safety (being also the other main argument), when there was hardly any case of people dying of lead secondary poisoning by ingestion.

I wonder if behind all that there is not a push from certain bullet manufacturers to push their products through the market , using the specialised press and media.
You see to run a plant manufacturing cup and core bullets, you need a lot of specialised staff that can maintain and run the complicated machinery and processes,which is a high cost.
On the other side , one might be able to start to set up a basic copper bullet factory for less than 1million$ investment with a cnc Swiss lathe.
The machinery needs only a handful of qualified staffs. If the market evolve in one particular direction they can adapt pretty quickly and follow the trend easily.
A cup and core bullet plant relies on the machinery and expertise they have acquired over decades. I am not sure we will ever see another major new player coming out for that style of manufacturing. The investment is simply too expensive compared to what a cnc lathe can do.

Coming back to the uk, the trade and stalkers have only 1 year to finish to shoot their stock of cup and core bullets before switching to copper. One wonder if there will be enough to supply the demand? Or maybe there will be a lot of headshots and headless carcasses arriving at the game dealers if the supply is not there!

I thought lead free is a Commiefornia thing where they use copper, bismuth and other things.

What is probably more likely to happen is another push to ban expanding projectiles which is what Lianne Dalziel and ER doctors wanted after march 15th

so if you put tin foil hat on....results in less humaine killing of animals...which leads to ban on hunting fullstop...... or ammunition so expensive it just doesnt happen.

I have a mate involved in supplying shot game to a pet food outfit. Now this outfit has been on his case of late to change his bullets to something else rather than expanding. It appears that small bits of lead have been found amongst pet foods. Pet owners aint happy about said lead so my mate was asked if he would use solids or maybe lead free pills,,wont repeat what he said but yeah things in the pill department are in the spotlight lol
Those at the processing plant for the pet food actually run metal detectors over carcasses to avoid lead going into pet tucker. Obviously someone is throwing everything into a mincer?
I should add that 90 percent of game from my mate is neck or headshot..he is pretty sure there is change in the wind concerning bullet types.

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Originally Posted by MB

I think everyone involved in shooting in the UK sees this for what it is, health and safety gone mad and making life even more difficult for shooters. Luckily, I don't think our gun toting American friends will accept this stupidity, so there will always be a supply of ammo, assuming Jacinda allows it in to the country of course.

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Agreed - H&S stupidity.

I’m pretty sure the US military is or has gone to copper projectiles. Where they lead manufacturers follow as they buy far more ammo than sporting and target shooters do. As Friwi says, there are likely to be more copper projectiles and fewer cup and core as the years go by. It’s also more lucrative as they cost more for us the consumers.

Two choices:

- Buy a shit load of your favourite lead containing pills (if you can find any).
- Buy a shit load of copper projectiles for future use (if you can find and afford any.

Thanks for replies so far - interesting thoughts.

I suppose there’s another option:

Shrug shoulders and go hunting with what you have.

the military wouldnt go there...its a giant leap backwards for them in so many ways....and if they had...we wouldnt be seeing projectile shortages,the military contracts have kept the big players busy.... OTM projectiles was way around laws concerning expanding ammunition for military usage...the use of match ammunition has always been allowed.....

Well if lead hunting projectiles are banned at least we will still have match ammo (some of the best hunting projectiles available ).

At this point nothing would surprise me.
This govt and the world in general seem hell bent on stopping hunting.....its far more humane to poison or let them starve to death didnt you know.

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Originally Posted by northdude

Easy im using depleated uranium works great :)

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I'm using the enriched variety, love that "almost critical" glow from the ammo box.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

the military wouldnt go there...its a giant leap backwards for them in so many ways....and if they had...we wouldnt be seeing projectile shortages,the military contracts have kept the big players busy.... OTM projectiles was way around laws concerning expanding ammunition for military usage...the use of match ammunition has always been allowed.....

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No that's not true, look up M855A1.

Year its happened here. There are quite a few reasons.

1 it lines up with the phasing out of shotgun lead.
2 EU rules.

Not so sure on that article thing mentioned above though.

I wonder how this will affect exports from NZ? WARO shot animals going to germany??!! Might make it interesting form your end because the boys will have to bend to the ban on lead shot game in the EU markets!!

so looked up M855A1 so its a steel cored copper jacketed round..... pretty sure you will find the OTM will still be being used for sniping purposes .
before these new rounds will be ALL that is used.....all the old stocks would need to be used up,there must be billions n billions in storage.

MD - military ammo is lifed and can’t be used after its use by date (even though it’s still perfectly good). When I was in Afghanistan in 2010 the UK ATOs blew up a batch of lifted ammo of various natures and there must have been plenty of it as it nearly blew the roof off our building from 3Km away. A bolt fell from the roof and loads of dust and shit fell down too. I’m guessing the US do the same, so stocks aren’t likely to sit around for decades.

So there still doing that @Spitfire , where I live in the UK there was a load of US bases around here as it was one of the main jump off points for the D-Day invasion.
Anyway when there where 2 accidental explosion near Savernake woods.
Lord Cardigan has a big house up there call Tottenwhich has the biggest brass conservatory. Also the local village is close plus the church. The blast blew out all the windows!
Shame really as it was ment to be really somthing, also the church hap some lovley stain glass in it.

Heres a link which is an interesting read.

Ramsbury at War

We walk the dog in there all the time. Loads of craters we walk past that hut. Ill get a pic next time im in there. Thats a lot of Acorns that you could store in there!!

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

so looked up M855A1 so its a steel cored copper jacketed round..... pretty sure you will find the OTM will still be being used for sniping purposes .
before these new rounds will be ALL that is used.....all the old stocks would need to be used up,there must be billions n billions in storage.

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See comments below re best before dates. Yes there are still OTM being used but in significantly lower quantities and let's not forget 9mm, shotgun and 22. But the military is way ahead of us in the lead free path.