Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Lead ban in Alaska

Agree it’s about control.

Covid was but a test run.

I’m glad some are working to improve mono bullets, so if and when idiots ban lead, we’ll have some decent choices.

Check out Hammer, Cutting Edge and Lehigh. They have some interesting features, and are challenging Barnes.

Competition is never a bad thing for us consumers. We win.

DF

This here is precisely what I meant:


I've been jailed and paid the financial costs for intentional civil disobedience before. I know how it works. Been there, done that. That was just a tad of the "hundreds of thousands" in lawyer fees I've spent during the course of my life. atse's turn, and I wish him all the best........but I won't be donating to his legal defense fund, because nobody donated to mine. No bad feelings towards him at all. My beef is with paying the political/lawyer class.

The legal fees you paid would have a lasting effect on anyone. I'm glad you came out ok on the other side. But the fact is that if we continue in appeasement, then little by little we will have nothing left. Everybody has to draw their own line in the sand and stand on principle. I'm not shooting copper bullets unless I want to, and I am not paying a lawyer to figure it out for me.

Thanks. I'm lucky. No, actually, blessed. But at my age now, I have to be careful. My earning years are over.

If the feds pull this off (and they will), a violation will be a federal rap. This makes it quite serious. It's the longest arm that the law has. I've been involved in just one federal case, and thankfully, I was just a witness.

I baited bears the very last spring it was legal in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. We were all told they were going to close it off, and ADFG fought them politically, but I had no doubt of the outcome. That was essentially the payback for ADFG conducting a bear survey and scientifically proving that there were more than 700 brown bears on the peninsula while the feds were saying that there were under 300 and trying to close off brown bear hunting there altogether. That's how those zealots roll.

For Joe Sixpack, a federal rap can be painful, and it follows you forever and everywhere. Initial convictions aren't bad at $1000 fine and 6 months in jail, but subsequent offenses are felonies with fines of $5000-$10,000 and 5-10 years in federal incarceration. And bye bye guns.

It might just be better to avoid federal lands like I do now. I like hunting the edges of federal parks. All those protected animals have to go somewhere eventually. Who knows? One day we might see the feds building walls around their parks to keep "their" animals in while ignoring the needed wall to keep military aged invaders out...........

atse, we have seatbelts, catalytic converters, diesel additives, GFI outlets in kitchens and bathroom, there are a lot of regulations we abide by. I'm not going to break the law to make a point that will just get me in trouble, might take away my hunting rights, just because I have to use a different(still effective) bullet. I've been shooting steel and bismuth at waterfowl since the late 1970's it has never affected me in the slightest other than when they mandated steel it was hard to find and no components available but we found enough to keep right on hunting. We didn't quit because of the lead ban as many did. I've had some of my best hunting seasons since the ban, mainly because Im older, smarter and care more about hunting than the shot I have to use.

One of the problems with living in a litigious society is that everybody who hopes to survive must think like like a lawyer to some extent. So as I consider this topic, thoughts come, and the magic of the internet allows research.

My interest in the struggle between ADFG and federal agencies over fish and wildlife management is a subject of great interest to me. I'm not stupid enough to even imagine that my opinion matters, but I'm conniving enough to know that wrenches can cause great damage to the machines I dislike when tossed into the gearbox instead of turning nuts.

Thus the thought came to me: This is Alaska. It is full of bears, the feds want more of them, and federal lands within suitable bear habitats already have the highest densities of bears on Earth. Defensive firearms are and always have been a fact of life in Alaska, even with federal wildlife professionals. Do they carry lead-free ammo in their service weapons? Since firearms can be carried for defensive purposes even for people who are not carrying hunting licenses, the POSSESSION of leaded ammo on federal lands in defensive firearms shouldn't be banned.

Sure enough, I googled up queries using the keywords "possession" "lead" "ammo" "federal lands", and various keywords like those in various combinations. I got no meaningful hits regarding federal lands, and even few official hits regarding lead bird shot violations and penalties (lots of forum discussion by hunters, though), but I did come across hits regarding California's ban on lead ammo for all hunting. My reading revealed that the possession of lead ammo in the field in California, when not hunting, is perfectly legal in most circumstances.

In early August of 2005 I was running north on the Old Man Creek Trail from Eureka with rifle, camp, hunting license, and caribou permit in possession. South of Crooked Creek I came upon a Trooper (blue shirt) "interviewing" a couple of young hunters. He asked me to stop until he was finished with his customers. I did, and enjoyed the interesting show. When they left, it was my turn. First, he asked me for my license. I asked in reply why I needed one. I had no dead animal in my possession, and I had not shot at one.

That's how the exchange went. It was a legal dance the entire way. It was perfectly cordial, too. I learned quite a bit from the dance, and it helped my dance steps for the future. In the end, I showed him my documentation, and gave him my phone number and the description of my rig at the highway (but not my license plate number, because I don't memorize such trivia) after asking wh6 I should give him said information. I then gave him directions, because he was lost!!!

Bottom line? One can be on wild public lands, armed, and anonymous under most circumstances. But I'll always carry some form of official ID, just to prevent being "detained", although I'm tempted to respond to the next officer by speaking in espanol, just for sheets and grins, if I have some time to waste.

Lawfare is a game. I can play, but only for fun, and I don't expect to "win"..........only to to learn, or passively resist when there's no downside.

I've done the same. Especially since, like you, I enjoy shooting older guns. I'll hunt either way. In the bigger picture, though, more restrictions increase cost and decrease participation. That impacts us all. I agree with those who state that the issue is really about control. The Leftists hate you. They'd like you dead. Since they can't do that (yet), they will attempt to tax and regulate you into oblivion. Once you (and me) are out of the picture, controlling the rest will be that much easier.

I hate low flow toilets and low flow blocks in plumbing faucets. I ended up going with residential pressure assist toilets (cuz' I can't easily rebuild toilets) and ripping the low flow blocks out of all my faucets. I'm on a well. The feds are powerless to stop me.

Technically I agree that copper bullets are better. have been for years. But not for a worry of a bit of lead here and there....

Low flow toilets actually work pretty well. IF the drain pipe is the correct size...

Of course its easy to avoid all this... just like you do. We do the same to all of ours.

Just go along, smile, and tell them that you'll be saving your lead for "non-hunting uses". Learn how to generate a gleam in your eye upon desire.

Federal law on steel for waterfowl since the 80s? IIRC. Yet we still have same numbers of waterfowl on average. So I would say the lead shot ban did about nothing.

It certainly helps almost none unless you have hard pan bottom. You can't find lead shot on top with water motion etc... very shortly after it settles to the bottom it sinks.

Guess where I find most lead shot? Trying to pan for gold...... that tells you a LOT

I met Trooper Joe while hunting up there a couple years ago. He flew his blue and yellow floatplane into the lake where we were dropped. I think he may have been the nicest cop I've ever met; and I know a bunch. I would even comply with ammo restrictions if necessary. I do so now for waterfowl. Just the same, I'd actively oppose any widening of lead restrictions. I do not believe they serve any logical purpose and, as stated above, think that they are part of another whole agenda.

Not in my experience, at least with the traditional calibers I've grown up using. I'm sure the technology will get much better, but I'm really not interested in playing along. I've only got a few more years of big game hunting left, and I'm pretty sad that caribou numbers have crashed for a long count. Now I've got to go back to wrestling those damned heavy moose again.

I stopped hunting waterfowl not long after my teens. It wasn't the lead shot ban, but the realization that waterfowl swim in polluted waters regularly. I was involved in the Eagle River Flats deal with the Army, and already knew about the agricultural pollution they swim in on the west coast. But I've always hunted upland birds.........with lead, although my wife hates spitting shot out at the table. I LOVE dove hunting in Arizona, but only after the snakes brumate. I'm renewing interest in duck hunting. When I'm finally too old to wrestle dead moose, I think I'll start again.

Just tell them "We deal in lead friend"

quote by: Steve McQueen The Magnificent Seven

If you haven't had luck with hammer or TTSX then you have other problems using mono bullets but regardless we all get to use whatever we want if its legal.

With all due respect, I am going to break the law to make a point if it becomes necessary. It will be a lead ban today, then something else then something else, then your a serf. I am not going to participate. I am not going to be the frog in the pot.

I actually haven't reloaded any because they're so long per weight, my powder capacity is reduced, and I'm in love with velocity. I've tried manufactured copper bullets in a 30-30 in California at the range. I didn't run them through the chronograph. This was just before California banned lead for hunting. They shot fine, I guess.

Hell, I wasn't even hunting quail in California while down there. We'd drive to Arizona for dove and quail. I guess I'm just happier walking away from a lousy landowner than play his games.

Joe, out of Dillingham?
He very possibly is the nicest and most professional warden I have ever crossed paths with.