Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Monometal bullets question

Is the heebie jeebies curable?

Yes, but the holier-than-thouitis is incurable.

Nothing a donation to the Clinton Foundation couldn't cure.

I shoot mostly 35 grain VMaxs which are Hornet bullets for small varmints using my .223 with Blue Dot. At 3200 FPS they come undone well enough that they usually won't touch a piece of wood a foot behind a chipmunk. Even something that fragile bothers me more than I can handle even if the building I can see in the scope is miles away. If those VMaxs hit the ground they are gone I don't know how close to coming undone they are at that speed out of a 9 twist, but I do know I can easily push them past that point, it's somewhere under 4100.

True.

Right, shooting coyotes w a premium makes no sense at all but question is, why any lead in bullets at all??

Didn't realize the lead free Nosler bullets were actually a powdered copper core.

Wonder how they will penetrate bones on larger varmints?

Personally, I like my recovered bullet collection, so two holes isn't real desirable to me. I haven't found critters go any further after the shot with one hole vs two anyhow, so to me that's a wash. I have found normal C&C bullets to perform better than any mono on critters, at any speed, though the monos have performed just fine in a general sense (with two notable exceptions).

As far as lead in the environment, from what I understand it is industrial processes putting processed forms of it in the air and water that is an issue---not solid chunks in the ground. There's lots and lots of lead naturally in the soils (which is why lead is so cheap to mine) though I think it normally is combined with sulfur---but regardless we're just practicing reclamation by shooting lead bullets in my mind.

I have zero plans to move away from lead bullets myself, but to each his own...

The one thing the "science" never tries to explain is why California Condors seem to have a large incidence of lead poisoning, even though lead has been outlawed in California for years. I saw a "documentary" on them just the other day and they blamed deer hunters for the poisoning, even though it was eight months from last season and even though those deer hunters were required to use lead-free bullets.

Same thing with bald eagles living in remote areas where no hunting occurs. Plus, it is very rare for a bald to dine on carrion, as they are fish eaters by nature. When one scientist was asked why deer hunters were blamed for lead being found in fish-eating birds that live nowhere near an area of hunting, he blamed "lead sinkers" from fisherman. This was in the ocean.

It is a political agenda, for sure. It may or may not happen, but plenty of other critters are coming up with lead issues where hunting couldn't possibly be making an impact.

Also, what about magpies? Any lead poisoning being found there? They are the number one carrion eaters in may places.

Man, ain't that the truth around here!

Not around here. It's pretty common to see them dining on a woodchuck or deer carcass out in a field.

Here in NW MT. the only critters I see bald eagles feeding on are ungulate carcasses so it is a possible vector during hunting season I suppose but there needs to be a lot more data from a larger cross section of the country related to lead poisoning and hunting bullets before I were to take a side on the issue. Like T Inman said, there are natural and man made sources other than firearms hunting that could/can be a source for eagles dying. As bad as it is being described, eagle numbers and most other birds of prey are on the rise through better conservation measures.

Back in the day guv sponsored poison bate traps for coyotes and high power lines killed more eagles than just about anything else, nefarious hunting included.

3 years ago I killed a coyote one morning and left him lay. A few days later a pair of bald eagles were dining on him. I don't even think a buzzard will eat a coyote.

Near deer camp if a gut pile is in/on a field it is only a matter of a few hours at most before the eagles are on it. They do not seem to like getting into thick brush for gut piles, and the coyotes usually get those before they do. More open mature woods,it's a tossup whether the eagles or coyotes will get there first. Those eagles move inland from the St Croix River mainly (about 10-15 miles) and set up housekeeping well away from lakes and rivers just before deer season and stay through November. Like crows and ravens, they sometimes respond to the gun shots and will be in the trees around a field waiting for the gut pile while you are gutting Bambi.

Crows, Ravens, magpies, Jays, woodpeckers and chickadees all get lead from gut piles.

vapodog,

I know somebody who wrote a comprehensive sausage-making book that explains how, without using the usual chemicals. Have been married to her now for 35 years. You can find it on www.riflesandrecipes.com.

Thanks John......I just ordered the recipe book.....I'm sure it's as good as you say.....you're quite a salesman too.....LOL

Vapodog, you just fell for the oldest trick on the internet. The ol' "get into an argument with a guy then get him to buy your book" routine. Works every time.

Strange......I never thought John and I was having an argument.....hey.....want to buy a good recipe book?

Haha. I couldn't take your book. Sounds like you've invested heavily in the sausage project and without that recipe book, you'll be flyin' blind.

I've driven the I-90/I-25 corridor between Montana to Denver up to every month from November to April for the past 40+ years. It is rare that I don't see at least one and up to 15 bald eagles either standing on or next to road killed deer and antelope or standing on fence posts nest to those road kills.

I see these birds almost every day around my home. There is also an occupied Red Tailed hawk nest in a cottonwood tree below my house and I often see golden and bald eagles hunting on the hill behind me. Over the years I've killed 5 elk and about that many each deer and coyotes on my place. Two of the elk were killed with Barnes bullets, all the rest were shot with regular copper cup and lead core bullets. I gutted all of the animals where they fell and left the gut piles there.

The only dead birds that I have ever found on my place were the ones that flew into the picture windows of my house and broke their necks.

I have a very hard time believing that only the one bullet that killed an elk would also be the cause of death of an eagle that was later found dead on a New Mexico ranch.