The Lesser of Two Evils

[johnnytheboy]

I usually buy 2000 clay cartridges for the year and looking at prices the Gamebore steel are as cheap as it gets! Obviously I’m not shooting any great competitions but it did have me wondering, ethically what’s best

Steel shot with plastic wad

Lead shot with fibre wad

 

Do I want to leave plastic wads or heavy metals in the environment? 

 

[Ultrastu]

Its easier to pick up the plaswads 

 

[Fen tiger]

 I am mulling this over myself have been for some time, but at the moment i think i would go Steel despite the plastic issue, I am so geared up for steel now in wildfowling i use it on pigeons too, i do sell to a hawker though so it has to be steel anyway. But i would go steel and try and clear up what wads you can, a lot of people are wanting a reliable safe fibre / card shot cup for steel the sooner viable non plastic steel wading becomes available the better.

The stories of card cups pin holing do concern me though i saw it mentioned on here a wile ago trouble with steel in card wads , biodegradable plastic is still plastic , so i do not know what the answer is for steel non plas wads at the moment.

They are just not quite there with card cup steel yet better gas sealing inverted card cup should work,.  Good input here from danish shooter.

 Lead and fibre is the other option, lead is toxic but some scandinavian nation has returned to steel i was told if right or wrong i am not sure, but Plastic as it grinds up in the environment is not a good thing for the environment. Totaly impractical answer right now  Bismuth fibre covers it all but way out there on price.

 My vote is for steel and do as ultrastu says pick your wads up with your cases good thing about steel wads biggish and can be found provided ground is low in foliage, you wont get them all but your being responsible what more can you do at this stage.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Fen tiger

[TIGHTCHOKE]

8 hours ago, Ultrastu said:

Its easier to pick up the plaswads 

 

Best answer of the year so far! 

[Walker570]

Even on driven game days I pick up any plastic wads I come across as well as cases. Your not going to get them all but at least your making and effort.

[Smokersmith]

Difficult one ... what causes more damage to wildlife?

Heavy metals occur naturally, plastic does not.

Having seen the Attenborough documentary it's difficult to ignore the damage plastic does.

[Tford]

I see that inland plastic wads do little damage, although I’d prefer not to scatter them across the fields. Again I pick them up when seen. Lead does more environmental damage but is superior in performance.

ultimately neither is reigning supreme ethically 

I’d use lead with fibre by choice but not on ethical grounds - just on not leaving visible wads that some farmers may not like. However I was offered 3000 very cheap steel carts and couldn’t turn that down so I’m plugging my way through them very slowly. 

[Dave at kelton]

Not all clay grounds allow steel. I go fibre and lead

[dougall]

5 minutes ago, Dave at kelton said:

Not all clay grounds allow steel. I go fibre and lead

same,does your clay ground allow steel?

[Fen tiger]

Quote

What is the reason some clay grounds wont alow steel?

 

[Scully]

1 hour ago, Smokersmith said:

Difficult one ... what causes more damage to wildlife?

 

That’ll be either steel or lead ripping through soft flesh I would think. Just a thought. 

If some are so concerned about the damage it is claimed they are doing to the environment perhaps it’s time they considered a change of sport? 

I would imagine some clay grounds don’t like steel because of the increased risk of ricochets? 

[dougall]

I am not certain,some say ricochets more likely with steel but I am pretty sure Royal Berkshire/Bisley/Southdown do not allow Steel as a policy.

[wymberley]

6 minutes ago, Fen tiger said:

 

I would  guess that it's the ricochet hazard but don't do clays and am not sure, but when steel shot first appeared I was a chief range warden on an MoD range complex and the splash back distance for the ranges where shotgun was permitted was immediately doubled from that for lead if steel was to be used for that very reason.

[Dazza9t9]

For me it has to be fibre wads. I get picking up the wads, however it’s not always possible. 

I pick as many as I can wild fowling, however I find them all year around 

the damage plastic does cannot be ignored 

[Dave at kelton]

Problems with steel are ricochets and damage to woodland. I used to rent woodland for a game shoot and steel shot was banned.

[Vince Green]

Some clay grounds can salvage the lead. Especially on DTL all the shot lands in a very small area. I've seen it at bisley as a crust up to an inch or more deep on the ground at the end of a prolonged period of shooting.  A hundred cartridges contains approx. 3 kg of lead so do the maths.

[grrclark]

For all those that are earnestly advocating on banning plastic wads for environmental pollution reasons, do you wear any microfibre clothing, such as the ubiquitous Schoffel gilet? A single wash of microfibre clothing will put more micro polymer fibres into the environment than months worth of shooting plastic wads.

Also most of the farmland that you shoot over, if it is cultivated, is likely to have had tons of micro polymer fibres introduced into the ground as part of soil conditioning, either for better moisture retention, for improved drainage or to stabilise things like organic fertilisers so they stay cake and not slurry.  The plastic wads scattered on the top of that and ploughed into the ground is like adding a cup full of water into an olympic swimming pool.

Globally we introduce tens of millions of tons of micro polymers every year to stabilise ground for construction, we put it in road substrates for better surface drainage and improved wear, we use it in agricultural land for soil conditioning, we use it in mortar, plasters and paints. Go into a carpet store and you'll find that at least 90% of all carpets are artificial polymer fibre and every time you walk across those you liberate microscopic micro polymers fibres into the environment.

 Where a picture of a turtle wrapped in plastic waste or a washed up dead whale that has ingested plastic debris makes the big impact news headlines, the real problem is micro fibres that are ingested and make their way into the food chain, that accumulate in the bodies vital organs.

If you don't want to shoot plastic wads then exercise your choice not to, but don't advocate a total ban for environmental reasons when it is utterly inconsequential to the scale of plastics being introduced into the environment every single day.

I agree that if genuinely environmentally biodegradable and effective wads can be developed and used affordably then great, but let's not volunteer to sacrifice ourselves at the alter of inconsequence for the sake of false virtue.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

3 minutes ago, grrclark said:

For all those that are earnestly advocating on banning plastic wads for environmental pollution reasons, do you wear any microfibre clothing, such as the ubiquitous Schoffel gilet? A single wash of microfibre clothing will put more micro polymer fibres into the environment than months worth of shooting plastic wads.

Also most of the farmland that you shoot over, if it is cultivated, is likely to have had tons of micro polymer fibres introduced into the ground as part of soil conditioning, either for better moisture retention, for improved drainage or to stabilise things like organic fertilisers so they stay cake and not slurry.  The plastic wads scattered on the top of that and ploughed into the ground is like adding a cup full of water into an olympic swimming pool.

Globally we introduce tens of millions of tons of micro polymers every year to stabilise ground for construction, we put it in road substrates for better surface drainage and improved wear, we use it in agricultural land for soil conditioning, we use it in mortar, plasters and paints. Go into a carpet store and you'll find that at least 90% of all carpets are artificial polymer fibre and every time you walk across those you liberate microscopic micro polymers fibres into the environment.

 Where a picture of a turtle wrapped in plastic waste or a washed up dead whale that has ingested plastic debris makes the big impact news headlines, the real problem is micro fibres that are ingested and make their way into the food chain, that accumulate in the bodies vital organs.

If you don't want to shoot plastic wads then exercise your choice not to, but don't advocate a total ban for environmental reasons when it is utterly inconsequential to the scale of plastics being introduced into the environment every single day.

I agree that if genuinely environmentally biodegradable and effective wads can be developed and used affordably then great, but let's not volunteer to sacrifice ourselves at the alter of inconsequence for the sake of false virtue.

Graham, please stop being so eminently sensible.

If people wish to appease their collective consciences by stopping using plastic wads, let them feel superior, whilst still firing lead in to the environment.

Somewhere along the process it all has to be brought in to the great mix. The environment is suffering from our influence, but to return to the dark ages and hope to reverse the millennia of damage is at best short sighted and rather pointless.

Change will come but it will have to be far more structured than a few sanctimonious "revolutionaries" changing over to fibre wads!

[Fen tiger]

8 minutes ago, grrclark said:

For all those that are earnestly advocating on banning plastic wads for environmental pollution reasons, do you wear any microfibre clothing, such as the ubiquitous Schoffel gilet? A single wash of microfibre clothing will put more micro polymer fibres into the environment than months worth of shooting plastic wads.

Also most of the farmland that you shoot over, if it is cultivated, is likely to have had tons of micro polymer fibres introduced into the ground as part of soil conditioning, either for better moisture retention, for improved drainage or to stabilise things like organic fertilisers so they stay cake and not slurry.  The plastic wads scattered on the top of that and ploughed into the ground is like adding a cup full of water into an olympic swimming pool.

Globally we introduce tens of millions of tons of micro polymers every year to stabilise ground for construction, we put it in road substrates for better surface drainage and improved wear, we use it in agricultural land for soil conditioning, we use it in mortar, plasters and paints. Go into a carpet store and you'll find that at least 90% of all carpets are artificial polymer fibre and every time you walk across those you liberate microscopic micro polymers fibres into the environment.

 Where a picture of a turtle wrapped in plastic waste or a washed up dead whale that has ingested plastic debris makes the big impact news headlines, the real problem is micro fibres that are ingested and make their way into the food chain, that accumulate in the bodies vital organs.

If you don't want to shoot plastic wads then exercise your choice not to, but don't advocate a total ban for environmental reasons when it is utterly inconsequential to the scale of plastics being introduced into the environment every single day.

I agree that if genuinely environmentally biodegradable and effective wads can be developed and used affordably then great, but let's not volunteer to sacrifice ourselves at the alter of inconsequence for the sake of false virtue.

Good post and thank you for the imformation, reading what you say puts things more into perspective.

[Rst1990]

19 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Graham, please stop being so eminently sensible.

If people wish to appease their collective consciences by stopping using plastic wads, let them feel superior, whilst still firing lead in to the environment.

Somewhere along the process it all has to be brought in to the great mix. The environment is suffering from our influence, but to return to the dark ages and hope to reverse the millennia of damage is at best short sighted and rather pointless.

Change will come but it will have to be far more structured than a few sanctimonious "revolutionaries" changing over to fibre wads!

To be fair it’s a start.