Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Anyone choosing unleaded bullets for meat safety?

When I was a kid we used our teeth to bite the lead split shot closed on our fishing lines. We did that a lot. I've killed the vast majority of my game with lead core bullets. We eat primarily wild game. So far I've seen no ill effects and I'm pushing 70. Not saying it couldn't be a problem, but without a lot of real hard evidence it seems like a low priority item to worry about eating game killed with bullets containing lead.

I still do, there's no better way to clamp on a split shot.

How about debating the topic.

Are you arguing about those means of digesting it, or that lead isn't bad?

I hope we can agree, that lead is bad for children.

A variable for the people that say I am fine, is shot placement, type of bullet, speed, how it was butchered. Are certain of these variables more likely?


As for shotgun BBs. I suspect there have been kids and adults who have swallowed them and not realized it.

If you were feeding children, do you switch to copper to elimiante the .0001% chance, or do keep using lead to prove your point?

Poor parenting in this country has caused a heck of a lot more deaths than lead. Much of that poor parenting has caused lead to enter the body as a projectile. Thru out the last 50 years, the medical profession and media have published many articles proclaiming certain things were toxic. Most have now been debunked.

Millions of houses in the U.S. have been built with copper pipe, soldered together with lead based solder. I have yet to hear of one being re-plumbed to get rid of it

I am part of 5 generations that has consumed a lot of wild game taken with lead bullets. so far, I have not heard or read anything that proves the idea that game killed with lead projectiles is deadly. A lot of speculation,politics and supposition . It is not a point to keep using lead to prove a point.. It is to keep using it because actual science has shown there is no great threat.Yes copious amounts are toxic. Eating wild game from kills using lead bullets is not one of them

No, it is not lead in the blood that s the problem. It's the lead replacing calcium in the tissue of the nervous system. Lead in the blood is only the clinical measurement that allows a diagnosis.

When you or anyone else can explain how lead acts differently in the tissues of children and adults you'll have my ear. The effects can be worse, but the action is identical.

re: the Hyponatremia straw man: I saw it coming " Lead is not like substances that can be toxic at high levels, it is quite toxic at extremely low levels.. Lead accumulates, and it is not readily excreted."

Lead is toxic. Lead is always toxic. There is no benefit period to lead ingestion.

In logic this is called a straw man. No one here has posted it is deadly. Many have posted it is toxic. When I read diet pop was actually a neurotoxin I stopped using it. Within a month all the little pains I had were gone.

I'm arguing that it doesn't make sense to get too exercised about possible lead in game animals that were killed with lead core bullets unless there is substantial hard evidence to show that eating those animals is hazardous to your health. I don't see that hard evidence.

Gee, I wonder how that lead gets to the tissue in the nervous system?




DId anyone say lead is not toxic, or that there are benefits to eating it? I must have missed that.

I started loading my own in '56. I have always been pretty hard about testing everything loaded. I have killed somewhere close on fifty deer with monos and the people whose rifles I solved for monos and provided loads for have killed a like number. All of them but one were one shot kills, although a couple did get an unneeded second dose. NO head scratchers. NO bullets failures despite very high velocity hits at very short range (>3000 FPS <10 yards). No deflection off bone of note. I cannot produce that record with off the shelf factory ammo. I MIGHT be able to equal that with some of today's best cup and cores, but I don't see the likelihood of bettering it. I had one doe with a blown up heart and lungs mange 70 yards give or take. That was the longest run. I had a few (<5) that had worrisome blood trails. There were zero lost deer. Of what I killed, I would guess that about one third hit the ground where they stood or within6 feet and about a third managed 50 yards or so.

Considering that I know several of the others to be untrustworthy shots I think that is remarkable, The one really bad shot that did occur I managed to track down and kill, and that shot was solely on the shooter and wholly without excuse. Two gut shot deer needed recovery half a day later. One went less that 100 yards, one a coupe hundred or so. Both shot by the same person who shot the one I had to chase down.

As to your comment on multiple generations of Barnes bullets, I am the only one of the group to have used X and XLC bullets. I did not kill many with them, but I saw no difference between them and TSX/TTSXs. They shot as accurately, apparently expanded as the internal damage looked like they had and the deer all died promptly.

My experience is that they work at least as well or in many cases better. The worst I can say of monos is that they do have a pronounced capability to be much harder to get accuracy out of because they are very sensitive to seating depth and they are capable of extreme copper fouling in rare instance. Out of fifty some rifles all came down to an inch or less but for one. Probably close to half were comparable in difficulty to cup and core bullets work ups for similar accuracy. Several rifles produced very surprising accuracy seemingly without effort on my part.

I wish there were other bullets that were that consistently good.

That is true......

But there is also a point I didn't make clear in my first post in the thread. In the federal database that is recording deaths of wildlife because of lead toxicity, or wildlife with high lead levels (but cannot be determined if the lead levels were sufficient enough to be the cause of death) , there are a few ungulates--as in pronghorns, deer, and elk. Very few but it is there.

No, eating game meat killed with a lead core bullet is very unlikely to produce ill effects on us hunters, but consuming a game animal with already high levels of lead can be. Carnivores/scavengers are more likely to have lethal levels of lead in their system, and the data base was originally created for raptors. Birds tend to concentrate lead most of all. Explaining why that is, is out of my league.

Although the original OP was directed towards the effects of the lead core bullet we used to kill that individual animal, the question of using lead core bullets and it's cumulative effect on wildlife--and ultimately humans-- goes beyond the original question.

Casey

You can have more than one tool, in your toolbox. You can be a good parent, and be concerned about lead content.



The question I have, is why would you not use lead free? Are you concerned about effectiveness, or are you using lead to simply prove a point.

I agree with many, that I think the chance is small. What risk are you willing to accept? Is there a reason not to? Other than making a point.

Ya, I am not really disagreeing. But if you had a baby, what are the downsides of not using lead? Just your status here?

You're still here.


SMFH....

If you had someone you care about, the questions I would ask, are the copper bullets less effective, lessening your chance to kill. If not are they to expensive. If neither of these, and you had someone you care about, what would be the point not to?

Will you keep using lead, to prove, your grandchild or child, will turn out fine, cause it is all BS?

These questions should be easy to answer.

These questions are extremely easy to answer.

A little off subject, but In Colorado. it is best to worry more about mercury in fish and eating them that accrued lead in animals.What game animals that we hunt and eat would be in a class that have high levels of lead and how did they get it? As I understand it,Trinidad lake is about the only fishery in southern CO where the fish are considered totally clean.Sanchez Reservoir,one of the best pike fisheries in the state, is one of the worse. Fishermen are warned not to eat any fish out of that water.

Go back to my original response to this and I explained why I will not use them. I am not going to type the whole thing out again because you are not following the entire thread

Just feed the kids the archery meat.

Give grandpa the pheasants.

Feed the mistress the mono game.

And slurp the muzzleloader stuff yer own self.

And Catfish but once a week.