Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Any states soon to follow CA in lead free ammo?

Curious what some of you with ties to the industry see and hear? Do the ammo manufacturers have any insight on what's coming in 5, 10 years? Curious if even the more conservative states will be up against this down the road.

Do you anticipate the communists now running America to slow down their assault on everything traditional conservative Americans hold dear?

Me neither.

I doubt the more conservative states will follow California anytime soon.

One of the reasons so many bullet companies are making lead-free bullets is they also sell bullets in Europe--and have for a long time, both to handloaders (yes, there are plenty in Europe) and to ammo companies. Relatively few European countries require lead-free bullets, but it's still a major market.

I sure as hell hope not.
Sitting here on 50 cal cans full of bullets I like,
Suddenly made worthless, and causing me to need buy high
dollar crap I don't want.




PGC probably would think that makes it a great idea.
Guarandamtee if i see Barnes ads in the rule pamphlet,
I'll be dumping some partitions on the classifieds.


When I saw adverts for in lines, "Why, we can't use them?"
2 years later, it became obvious.

When ads for crossnows appeared,
it was an easy guess. $$$$$$$$$$$$

This is already happening in Utah...........the Utah Fish and Game will harass you endlessly to use copper bullets if you draw certain tags, in some unit's they will give you free copper bullet's to save the "California Fhuqking Condors". and send you e-mails for months after the hunt trying to make you feel guilty if you didn't use copper bullet's

It came up for a vote in the NY legislature last year and was voted down. NY State is a funny place, big city down south and most of the other part of the state rural with a tradition of hunting. BUT, they won't stop until they get their way. They crept it in bit by bit in California. Text book creep. Make it optional, but highly recommended, then only in a few areas like the condor range, expand it to a wider range than the whole state all the while publicizing in articles about the evils of lead in the environment.. We fought it, but in the "Land of Fruits and Nuts" we don't stand a chance. Mountain Lion hunting banned, a few years later bobcat hunting banned, trapping banned no telling what's next.

There has been one guy who will get an article published in WON now and then praising the merits of lead free ammo. Bald Eagles feeding on gut piles and the like displaying lead poisoning.

Read comments where it was asked if the Eagles are displaying lead poisoning, why aren't crows and other critters that feed on guts displaying the same.

Makes me think that the anti-lead bullet proponents are invested in copper futures.

Our doofus.gov in WA State will giddily follow anything Kommiefornia does.

The left, greenies and others been after lead for over 60 years. The young wildlife biologists have had it pushed up their butts and down their throats for 45 years. You wonder why they advocate for it? The left has always believed that if you can get rid of lead you can eliminate inexpensive shooting making it an expensive proposition thereby reducing the amount of it. You 've all got a taste of short ammo supplies over the last 2 years imagine how much there would be if it all was required to be non tox? It's never been about the focking condors but about getting rid of the shooting sports and firearms ownership....mb

Some of the direction they are going is lead free for hunting, but not restricted for range, plinking etc.

personally i hope this never happens , look how years ago these fools pushed steel shot and got that a rule / law , i think more ducks die now from being wounded with steel shot . when my son was 10 years old and we were duck hunting over decoys using steel shot i handed my son 6 - #4 shot lead 3 inch mags he killed 5 ducks then said to me dad steel shot is stupid . that`s the way it will be with copper bullets too just as my young son said : STUPID !

The overwhelming majority of Pa hunters would ignore it...The GC already has to deal with increasing distaste and loathing for much of how they do business.

They have a stamp required to Pheasant hunt....have yet to see a GW ask to see it. In fact have yet to see a GW this entire year. And in the last 10 at least have only seen one. And he didn't bother to say anything.

I hope not, but I see Colorado going to it as we have become more and more liberal. CPW has been advising it for several years now in the Big Game brochure.

Right off the bat this year, three women liberal legislators introduced a bill to ban Mountian Lion, Bobcat and Lynx hunting. The CPW Commissioners are appointed by POS Polis and none of then have any ties to hunting. We have liberal democrat majority in the house and Senate and a liberal democrat governor. So now we will be getting wolves in two years along with more cats

No talk of it here, as far as I know.

One curious new thing though (well maybe not that curious come to think of it) is the range where we hold our Schuetzen matches now requires us to fill out a "lead report" at the end of the match. It records how many shots of X weight bullets, even .22's, that we put into the backstops. Funny thing, it's not required by any gov't agency but is requested by The Nature Conservancy (and acquiesced to by the Fish&Game club) , ostensibly because of the scenic Monocacy River that flows past the range - 2 or 3 hundred feet away. We're starting to cast about for a new venue because "once you let the camel stick his nose in the tent..." A shame, because if it comes to that, the weenies win.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of a bunch of old guys shooting cast bullets at a very leisurely rate out of 120 year old rifles. Gotta make the world safe, clean, and lead free for the snowflakes, don'tcha know.

What I see happening well before a state to state ban is that the goobermint will ban all lead hunting bullets from federal lands. Then the states will follow.

well with a wink of the eye ,we sure will all follow this rule / law right ? just for the snowflakes ? " no grinning or laughing " or swearing

Well Pete whether people follow or not isn’t the point is it. But if like the steel shot rule they put the fine high enough plus maybe loss of weapon and hunting privileges my guess is 80% + will comply. Point is just like steel shot once the gooberment decided, it was adopted in all states.

I don’t much care what the state regs dictate as much as I’m rethinking eating lead chips in my venison. What has given me pause was answering a question yesterday on 180 grain Power Point ammunition down in the Deer Hunting section. A test of 180 grain bullets in Handloader Magazine for penetration and weight retention that I have showed my favorite 180 grain round nose Core-Lokt losing a third of it’s bullet weight in 14” of penetration. The only deer that I’ve ever lost was with a Barnes TSX, so I’m not a fan of that one, but a TTSX sure might be worth a try given what I’ve read here.

Yes, it can happen. In my small, and also prosperous little town (but no longer so conservative with about 10,000 pop), a new state of the art golf course was built on the south edge of the community. What to do with the old 9-hole country golf course several miles out of town.

The city council came up with what I thought was a imaginative idea for both the land use, and social-development growth of the younger generation, but really all of the community. Develop and archery range, a rifle range, a handgun range, and a sporting clays venue. The possibilities included developing a high school trap team for both the boys and the girls (the community was about to embark on a north of $50 mill state-of-the-art high school). Working with the DNR, we even obtained a $100k grant to go to the project.

Well, the city council bubba’d communication with the community all along, and the whole marketing thing to the surrounding area was virtually non-existent. Plus some residents a half mile away complained at the hearings of the terrible sound pollution that would result, and a nearby family doc claimed at the hearings the lead would pollute the ground water and the “river that ran through it (a small creek).” This, in spite of the DNR’s tests showing neither sound nor lead would be a problem. It was voted down. There were some strong voices opposed and not enough in favor, or they were silent.

The old golf course? It still stands idle, weedy, and abandoned. About 6-7 years now. A grand opportunity forever missed.

It's not just the rifle cartridges that require lead-free in California. It's all upland game as well with shotguns.