Thread: Lead contaminated meat

shot red hind a couple of hours ago...used a 110grn tsx cause thats what was in gun
poohseventy loaded hot ,so about 3200fps???....range was about 25 yards by my eyetrometre...the dog argues it was closer to 20 but she has shorter legs so can be forgiven..... projectile went in somewhere in front end,split heart,completely rooted one lung,went between back steak and shoulder blade and exited all in blink of an eye...deer was maybe 3 year old hind facing away from me looking back over shoulder....total meat lost due to bullet damage ZERO....given the same shot placement with any other of my cup n core projectiles I MAY have lost 2" of back steak.....

Good effort MD, and you recovered all the meat to boot !. What blood etc was on the ground, as in did the bullet suck much out with it ?

Interesting thread this but I'm somewhat in the sceptics camp on this. I've been carrying bits of lead in my body, result of being in the near vacinity of f-wits among other things, for coming up to 43 years now and still getting around O.K. Due to some of the work I used to do I had regular full ( including heavy metals ) blood tests and have never had a test come back that was of concern. On a side note,the only question I've had regarding phsycho problems was in basic training when some cock said I had a distinct lack of empathy/compassion for fellow human beings. As if that should have been a problem in the army ffs.
But if lead poisoning worries you I guess you can go with the alternative which is copper poisoning. And yes. I have been eating what I or someone else has shot all my life, coming up 59 years.

I guess the next logical question is 'What binds lead and removes it from your system' ?

In my .223 which I use for fallow and goats I use hornady GMX 70gr. They shoot pretty much the same poi as 62gr soft points but I fount that TTSX had a different poi. Mostly head or neck shoot but a shoulder shot does not damage much meat at all. There is quite a bit about lead contamination if you research it. Not too worried about it but being a bit cautious as well. With my 6.5cm I use 143 eldx and if I bugger a bit of shoulder meat that's fine. I'm a small bugger so hind quarters and backstrap I've pretty much got a load.

its fine I dont eat the head

I trim like a mad man I hate that blood shot meat
if things are tight shoot two is my motto

my poor bloody dog gets it all tho I suppose
I doubt id be able to get it past her without burying it deep

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Good effort MD, and you recovered all the meat to boot !. What blood etc was on the ground, as in did the bullet suck much out with it ?

stuff all,and she bled stuff all too,even though throat cut pretty much 1minute after shot,heart being split would be cause of that...no pump pressure.

Reviving this thread since I was reading anyways.
Can't find the study I was looking for, but found a few others. Have copied the interesting bits here. Click the links for xrays showing lead in carcasses/processed meat.

Acids make it easier for the human body to absorb lead. Avoid using
acidic substances (like vinegar or wine) when cooking venison.

Fragments are often found farther from the wound channel than
expected. This makes it impossible to recommend a safe distance
for trimming. However, liberally trimming around the wound channel
should remove some fragments.

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/m...s_310195_7.pdf

Lead fragments can travel a considerable distance from the wound channel. Although on the average, bullet fragments were found 5 inches from the bullet channel, some were up to 18 inches away.

Most of the lead fragments in meat are too small to see, feel, or sense when chewing.

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Hunting/L...s-in-Wild-Game

-Compared to lead-free ammunition, both the number of bullet fragments and the maximal distance between fragments and the wound channel increased when bullets were lead-based.

- studied 297 shot wild ungulates

- 263/297 shots were within 100m (and high energy or low retention bullets)

-Small fragments clustering together to clouds of radiodense particles were predominating (in lead bullets). Bone hits were not required for the production of a large number of fragments. This fragmentation pattern was similar for all three types of lead-based bullets, including bonded bullets (Figs. 2, ​,3).3). Average fragment numbers were highest for bullets with two lead cores

- The bodies of animals shot with lead-free projectiles did not always contain fragments (Table 1). When hunters used lead-free deforming bullets (type 1) no fragments were detectable on the radiographs in most 106 out of 126 cases (Fig. 1a). In 18 out of the 20 remaining cases, the number of bullet fragments on the radiographs did not exceed 10. The two remaining cases of fragmentation corresponded to a large number of fragments (100 and 150 particles) and concerned two different brands of bullets.

-Average maximal distances of fragments in relation to the wound channel were highest for lead-based bullets with two lead cores (type 4) and smallest for the two types of lead-free bullets (type 1 and type 2) (Table 2, Fig. 1b). For all three types of lead-based bullets (types 3, 4 and 5) the mean maximal distance of fragments to the wound channel exceeded 10 cm (11.7 cm for type 3, 15.6 cm for type 4, and 11.3 cm for type 5).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6675795/



A different study looking at deer. Basically they found lead in deer meat, and when they fed pigs deer meat, the pigs showed elevated lead levels above normal.
https://www.nps.gov/pinn/learn/natur...Exposure-3.pdf


By far the least scientific, but easiest to watch/read (based on research by Peregrin Fund, a raptor protection society and video made by someone who muddles his info a bit). Follow the link for parts 2 and 3.




At the end of the day, I guess it comes down to picking your poison. We breathe air polluted with exhaust fumes, waste burners are allowed in and around cities etc etc, there are acceptable levels of contamination in our water. Our food is of mixed quality etc. It would be interesting to see where game meat stood in relation to other foods in terms of contamination, and where hunters who ate lead contaminated meat stood in relation to other people in terms of lead levels, or other health metrics. It's certainly not good for you. I would like to see more context on how bad it is for you. It might be that while there is contamination, the effects are negligible, I don't know.

I'm still using lead, however leaning towards experimenting with alternative projectiles. Since I like to shoot for fun, that will get expensive if I want to shoot with the same loads I hunt with, which has kept me from switching so far.

...Or go back to shooting cast bullets at mild velocities???
I've certainly not come across cast bullets that fragment like a high velocity lightly jacketed projo does. And cast bullets seem to always way close to the weight they left the rifle at.

Why anyone would want to eat blood shot meat anyway is beyond me. I trim really heavily so doubt if any lead is ingested by us. I'm particularly careful about the meat that goes to the soup kitchen. The trim goes to my dog. Maybe though I'm slowly poisoning her?

Originally Posted by XR500

...Or go back to shooting cast bullets at mild velocities???
I've certainly not come across cast bullets that fragment like a high velocity lightly jacketed projo does. And cast bullets seem to always way close to the weight they left the rifle at.

That was in a few of the findings - low velocity projectiles lost far less weight - shotguns, muzzle loaders, low velocity projectiles. Switching to these as well as non-lead projectiles is in the list of recommendations of how to minimize lead contamination.

Originally Posted by Tahr

Why anyone would want to eat blood shot meat anyway is beyond me. I trim really heavily so doubt if any lead is ingested by us. I'm particularly careful about the meat that goes to the soup kitchen. The trim goes to my dog. Maybe though I'm slowly poisoning her?

Exactly ,l can say l have been eating shot game of all sorts for over 50 yrs,did the usual swallowed the odd air rifle pellets as a kid , shot gun pellets in cooked game,spent years smelting/making lead sinkers,years handling lead shot reloading shot gun shells, renovated old lead painted houses before it was even thought harmful,worked in mines where Lead & Uranium was common & spent 3 years in Top End of Australia shooting tens of thousands of rounds of soft points & SSG's from helicopters & spraying tens of thousands of Acres with pesticides using Aerial, Air Boats, 4x4 & quads .

For a decade l would have full blood scans done 4 times a year (my business insurance required twice a year ,l did additional for peace of mind & to use as a proof of safe operation for new contract tenders) ,the only times l had a rise in levels was after a mate & l rode motorcycles across India to Nepal ,this was when the recycle market ,(in reality the West dumping all their contaminated shit in containers & sending it to Third World countries to make hand wringers think they are doing good), was in full gear & for 5 weeks even through all the insane traffic & exhaust fumes all you could smell was burnt plastic as huge piles of this "recycled "plastic was being burnt as it was too contaminated even for them to handle & we would look like raccoons after a few hours riding from road & air grime covering our faces .

I have always treated game meat the same as l treat plastic wrapped meat from the supermarket ,wouldn't eat bruised,blood shot brought meat nor would l eat stuff covered in dirt ,left out in high temperatures,swimming in blood at the bottom of a chilly bin for hours etc .

I like a stew made of neck chops ,so my standard shot 99.9% of the time is angled chest shot aiming for off side shoulder,only untouched front leg is taken along with everything else apart from chest & offside leg.

Had my fair share of lead exposure over the years (as per others here have commented on), all good, still going strong and noticed no ill effects except that I don't float anymore when going for a swim.