Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Monometal musings

Actually both blood lead levels (BLL) and bone biopsies are used. We use BLLs on our instructors, especially in indoor ranges. One of the main reasons for using BLLs is that there is more than one route of exposure to lead. We have found air monitoring can show below the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) and still have instructors with high BLLs. One of the main routes is ingestion of lead dust from surface contact and then eating and or smoking. One area of lead exposure no talked about is from handling spent brass. Almost all primers contain lead styphnate. I posted a slide on the Image Gallery of lead wipe samples of a recruit pre and post sorting spent brass for recycling. Hand washing helps a ton, but gloves are better.

JB, if you want the slide deck of our study, I can email it.

Alpinecrick

I think your correct in both the effects on raptors and what may happen to lead bullets out West.

Calerveras,

Thanks very much for you input, and would very much like to see your study. Have sent a PM.

John

I used the X bullets when they came out.

In my 7x57,35 Whelen and the 270 Win.

The TSX i tried was in 25 caliber and the first just sucked they would not open unless you shot hard bone.

The newer ones work good but i still like the X bullets,never had a problem with groups.

Mostly these days i use Partitions and regular bullets for deer.

The three rifles I hunt with are all pretty “pedestrian” on velocity, so I don’t use monometals.
- 30-30 using 170 grain partitions or 160 grain ftx’s
- 6.5x55 using 140 grain partitions or 143 grain eldx’s
- 30-06 using 200 grain partitions or 165/168 grain plastic tipped cup and cores

Works for me.

MD & others, I find any hollow point mono metal or cup and core can somehow get clogged and "pencil through" I am not saying it doesn't happen I am just saying it hasn't happened to me, that I could observe. I think I only had to go looking for one deer shot with a Barnes out of quite a few.

As far as lead ingestion this makes me leery of the Berger bullets as meat that cleaned up well still had lead in it. I am already stupid enough and don't need to accelerate this process. If you want to see something impressive try re-heating dove, duck or whatever bird in the micro wave that still have shot in them. To avoid the pyrotechnics and lead hazard I went to larger shot usually 7&1/2 as it is more likely to exit whereas 8s, 8.5s, and 9s may not for dove.
Steel shot still has the pyrotechnic possibility.

John, blood levels do give you some indication of acute exposure. For chronic exposure or body lead load it basicly doesn't tell you much. As for the literature it's much easier to talk someone into a blood sample vs. a bone biopsy. I would as also suggest there isnt a ton of studies on this particular subject.
Vinegar or other acids increasing the amount of lead in cooked meat makes sense.
FWIW I am much less concerned with eating game birds killed with lead.

Montana is looking into lead and raptors. Had a big story on it in Montana Outdoors. A friend went to a seminar where it was brought up. Hem said most of the varmint hunters there would quit if required to only shoot expensive monometal bullets.

The TSX produced inconsistent results and I quit using them.

The TTSX has been 100% reliable and produced DRT results on every deer or pig so far. Shot placement is either the forward point of the shoulder or high shoulder. Meat loss is minimal.

The only exception was an intentional shot to the high lungs with a 100 gr TTSX from a .260 to simulate what would happen with kids I take making a bad shot. That buck ran 30 - 40 yards, which is what I expected.

Deer shot in the heart or lungs are just going to run most of the time until their oxygen is expended. Where I hunt most of the time is very heavy thorn brush with plenty of rattlesnakes. So dropping an animal where it stands reduces the chances of a run in with the Texas earth worms.

My absolute favorite shot placement is a deer quartering towards me, come down 1/3 from the top, aim for the forward edge of the shoulder, exit behind the offside leg. They drop where they stand, and there is zero meat loss.

The TTSX work consistently and extremely well with that placement.

Most shots now are with a .308 Win and a 130 TTSX, though occasionally use a .260 with a 100 TTSX.

A nephew used the 80 TTSX from a .243 on a pig, which is the only Barnes which did not exit. So, it seems a bit light. Sold the .243 and now a single .260 is the light gun for young hunters. I thoroughly tested it on pigs, which are much tougher than all but our largest, most mature bucks. Every other rifle now is a .308 of some description. I really hate tracking animals in the brush.

In every rifle, 3080 - 3100 produces an excellent accuracy node with TTSX’s, even if the bullet can be run much faster. 0.010” of jump is my standard setup.

Just a Hunter,

The choices for varmint hunters are far wider and less expensive than "monometals." Barnes, Hornady and Nosler, for instance, make very accurate, lead-free bullets for varmints that are NOT monometals, but have cores made of powdered, non-toxic metals such as copper. As an example, here's an example from Graf's, a website that sells handloading components, which I order from often:

Nosler Lead-Free 50-grain .224, 100 per box: $28.69
Nosler Ballistic Tip 50-grain .224, 100 per box: $24.49

That relatively small difference in price is pretty typical for lead-free varmint bullets. I have used all three brands for shooting "burrowing rodents," and they're very accurate and highly effective. The major "problem" (if you can call it that) is like all lead-free bullets they're longer for their weight than lead-cores, so need to be lighter (hence shorter) to stabilize in typical rifling twists. However, this is counteracted somewhat by higher muzzle velocity.

As an example I have shot a LOT of prairie dogs with the 24-grain Hornady NTX handloaded to 4400 fps with 31.0 grain of Ramshot TAC from the .204 Ruger, and within the range where every prairie dog shooter I've ever shot with can hit more PD's than they miss (around 300-350 yards) they're at least as effective as lead-core 32- or 40-grain V-Maxes. (Oh, and I have shot PD's with a world-record-setting benchrest competitor, one of the top sniper instructors in the U.S. Army, and various other fine shots. Believe me, the only PD shooters who would be disappointed in the performance of such lead-free varmint bullets are those who feel only shots beyond 500 yards count.

I did an article about 2-3 years ago for RIFLE magazine on lead-free bullets for all kinds of rifle hunting, including rimfire ammo. This year I updated it for a chapter in my new book GUN GACK III.

It would take Legislative action as statutorily the Commission cannot regulate ammunition, including the chemical composition of ammunition used for hunting.

Good to know there are more options than the Nosler.

Yep, and Hornady even started selling their .17 15.5-grain NTX as a component bullet. When I wrote the book they hadn't made any decision on that yet.

It works GREAT in the .17 Hornady Hornet, getting close to 4000 fps with excellent accuracy--and in my CZ shoots to the same POI as their 17-grain V-Max ammo.