The demise of lead shot and small bore shot guns

[lancer425]

Just now, rbrowning2 said:

How important is it that the tube is sealed at one end, would a tube and a separate over powder card work?

 

Yes a tube with no base and straight onto a nitro card under it with seal or minimum a op card  works. 

 My thoughts on making card cups is to get a suitable sized cartridge tube, by that i mean if loading a ten for example, 16ga paper cartidge case fit a dowel cut to length to allow a couple of 3mm cork spacers un to the dowel, then a 16ga nitro card , the nitro card wants to be the exact depth with the spacers and dowel, to be a perfect crimping depth. Then crimp start and crimp the scrap 16ga case cut to length and pull the dowel out tip the two 20ga corks out and you have a formed card cup, with a crimp fold to act as a sort of cush, yet a hard solid base nitro card. You could form a similat card cup with a RTO layout, this would have no fold to contend with and the void inside the roll, could be filled pretty much perfectly with a 20ga nitro card, with that method.

New casec powder it up Cork seal, nitro card then your formed card cup add shot charge crimp form crimp you just made a round.

IFF the card cup is up to the task that is. Might be able to make suitable tube from. CARTRIDGE PAPER. Or greaseproof paper. I thought about aluminium fail Too, & laminated aloy foil and card in plys with adhesive male it in full lengths cut to what you need and formed as i described above.

All Untested, but just cut a case in half pull the top off see what you think.

[lancer425]

7 minutes ago, rbrowning2 said:

Reading basc Facebook comments those congratulating basc for the voluntary ban are doing so because they know the government will soon ban lead, in which case that ban will include lead bullets and the shooting organisations have just made that very easy.
we won’t get chance to cherry pick which lead ammunition we can and cannot keep lead for when we have handed any legal ban to them on a plate.

 

 

Not incessantly, there could be no reason up to 9mm anyway.Not 100% how they will interpret or word things obviously but i think you will find You can still use Lead in waterfowl in this country on the foreshores in Guns UNDER 9MM. I am not 100% but think if any Non lad ban was to come such guns would be covered. Rifles under 9mm could fall into this category. There is something about single projectiles too in an act, i think its in the 81 wildlife and countryside act, IMMSMC.

[rbrowning2]

One advantage reloader have is that we don’t use automatic machines that need to rapidly feed the components into the case we can manually manipulate the parts the correct way round and in the correct order regardless of the number of parts.

 

[rbrowning2]

2 minutes ago, lancer425 said:

Not incessantly, there could be no reason up to 9mm anyway.Not 100% how they will interpret or word things obviously but i think you will find You can still use Lead in waterfowl in this country on the foreshores in Guns UNDER 9MM. I am not 100% but think if any Non lad ban was to come such guns would be covered. Rifles under 9mm could fall into this category. There is something about single projectiles too in an act, i think its in the 81 wildlife and countryside act, IMMSMC.

Interesting those that claim the voluntary ban is good all claim to know that the government is to ban lead but then claim it will not be absolute in truth nobody knows if the government was planning to ban lead this year next year or next decade or the scope of the ban. 
They are just making a poor attempt  to justify the voluntary ban.
 

[lancer425]

10 minutes ago, rbrowning2 said:

One advantage reloader have is that we don’t use automatic machines that need to rapidly feed the components into the case we can manually manipulate the parts the correct way round and in the correct order regardless of the number of parts.

 

The winchester supper xx loads were produced on machines, they were fairly complex wrapper buffer in the wadding and card seal etc. still got done just fine. Out cartridge firms are greedy want money given for little input felt loads bang a wad in its done. That is what we got here now. Cut open an old  eley magnum just look at the wads in those. The fibre wad premium is just not earned today.

[rbrowning2]

If we had not surrendered any chance of negotiating any attempt at a legal lead ban we may have ended up with something like New Zealand have or a modified version of it. But now we are likely to have no say.

https://fishandgame.org.nz/game-bird-hunting-in-new-zealand/hunting-regulations/non-toxic-shot-regulations/

 

3 minutes ago, lancer425 said:

The winchester supper xx loads were produced on machines, they were fairly complex wrapper buffer in the wadding and card seal etc. still got done just fine. Out cartridge firms are greedy want money given for little input felt loads bang a wad in its done. That is what we got here now. Cut open an old  eley magnum just look at the wads in those. The fibre wad premium is just not earned today.

Time is money the slower the machines run the more the cartridges will cost us, I wonder what the loading rate was for the Winchester super xx loads. We are talking about millions of cartridges to replace the lead/plastic ones we use today not a niche use small number.

Edited March 4, 2020 by rbrowning2

[lancer425]

8 minutes ago, rbrowning2 said:

If we had not surrendered any chance of negotiating any attempt at a legal lead ban we may have ended up with something like New Zealand have or a modified version of it. But now we are likely to have no say.

https://fishandgame.org.nz/game-bird-hunting-in-new-zealand/hunting-regulations/non-toxic-shot-regulations/

 

Time is money the slower the machines run the more the cartridges will cost us, I wonder what the loading rate was for the Winchester super xx loads. We are talking about millions of cartridges to replace the lead/plastic ones we use today not a niche use small number.

No figures AFAIK but come on they were everywhere foe decades. Not RARE . Brilliant actually. Base all my Bismuth Copper and marix on them, always have.

[lancer425]

11 minutes ago, rbrowning2 said:

If we had not surrendered any chance of negotiating any attempt at a legal lead ban we may have ended up with something like New Zealand have or a modified version of it. But now we are likely to have no say.

https://fishandgame.org.nz/game-bird-hunting-in-new-zealand/hunting-regulations/non-toxic-shot-regulations/

When  i was there. 12 and 10 were non tox even 16s and 20s were all lead.  distance from water etc all played a part, but the small bore were under review more or less from the start. Last i heard they were loosing 20s but not sure about others these days, or how it all ended up. Do not think they got it all easy over there. they have not.

33 minutes ago, rbrowning2 said:

Interesting those that claim the voluntary ban is good all claim to know that the government is to ban lead but then claim it will not be absolute in truth nobody knows if the government was planning to ban lead this year next year or next decade or the scope of the ban. 
They are just making a poor attempt  to justify the voluntary ban.
 

You view it as a poor atempt to justify, and yet   i see it as an educated guess, and i think they got it pretty much spot on.

[rbrowning2]

8 hours ago, lancer425 said:

You view it as a poor atempt to justify, and yet   i see it as an educated guess, and i think they got it pretty much spot on.

So your educated guess is better than my educated guess ? And your educated guess is not a poor attempt  to justify the ban?  But  mine is.   Your in denial!

Why would anybody stake the future of shooting on a guess with an unknown outcome? And if that’s the best reason they had where was their risk assessment to mitigate the guess? And when will they publish the minutes from the meeting/s with the cartridge industry?

Is it not better to have been part of the discussions, if and when a legal lead ban was ever to be introduced, then sitting outside waiting and hopping that we get a few crumbs from the table?  
So far I have not read anything from BASC that honestly and truthfully  justifies what they and the other organisation have just done.
Please do not quote new technology because the water soluble wads have been in use and available since 2013.
The statement from the cartridge manufactures is credible after all they buy and use the components on a daily bases, basc do not.

large commercial game shooting interests will be the death of shooting for the average working person.

[Pushandpull]

lancer425, I see nothing about small bore shotguns in The Environmental Protection (Restriction on Lead Shot) (England) Regulations 1999.

[lancer425]

8 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

lancer425, I see nothing about small bore shotguns in The Environmental Protection (Restriction on Lead Shot) (England) Regulations 1999.

I did not know that and i am unsure as to if the AEWA and Blairs signing it , could have interfered with that or not.

  Have you any thoughts on this.

[Pushandpull]

Not sure off hand when we signed up to AEWA. There were several years of voluntary movement away from lead, initiated by BASC and the wildfowling community before the regulations were enacted in 1999 (Wales 2002 and Scotland 2004 differ). The voluntary "ban" was largely ignored by the reared duck and flight pond people.

There was some talk about exceptions for big old guns etc. but these never made progress.

[mick miller]

3 hours ago, rbrowning2 said:

large commercial game shooting interests will be the death of shooting for the average working person.

Amen!!!

[Pushandpull]

Since posting the above I have done a little reading to get the time-line correct :

With the AEWA looming, BASC and the clubs called for a voluntary moratorium in 1995. HM government signed up to the AEWA in 1996, which essentially pledged them to phase out exposure of waterfowl to lead by 2000. 

BASC pressed for more time very strongly, but the Statutory Instrument was published in 1999. Those intervening years enabled the development of reasonable commercial steel loads (the first steel cartridges were dreadful) and other NTS loads. US cartridges also improved a great deal.

I think it is important to remember that at that time BASC were in full consultation with the wildfowling community via the Wildfowling Liaison Committee (an advisory committee to Council) over the inevitable changes and how best to manage them. I understand that recently WLC were not consulted in any way.

[Scully]

3 hours ago, rbrowning2 said:

 

large commercial game shooting interests will be the death of shooting for the average working person.

Oh please! That’s a ridiculous comment. Think about it. 
I can agree Commercial driven shooting needs to get its house in order via self regulation before it is forced upon it, and mentioned this to my NGO rep’ whom wholeheartedly agreed, with the comment that it is in hand, but to suggest the average working man as a shooter would not only benefit but survive without bug driven shoots is simply ridiculous. An entire industry revolves around shooting as a whole; remove its biggest revenue provider and what do you think would happen?

Are you really so naive as to believe that an entire business would survive on the basis of a few thousand blokes decoying waterfowl, decoying pigeons and rabbiting? Think about it. No pheasants, no partridge, no grouse. You really believe mooching about in the hedgerows with your toxic shot would survive?  Seriously? 
 

[lancer425]

5 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

Not sure off hand when we signed up to AEWA. There were several years of voluntary movement away from lead, initiated by BASC and the wildfowling community before the regulations were enacted in 1999 (Wales 2002 and Scotland 2004 differ). The voluntary "ban" was largely ignored by the reared duck and flight pond people.

There was some talk about exceptions for big old guns etc. but these never made progress.

AS i remember it blair singed to the AEWA in 1999, not sure if it was before or after  The EPA 99. Imagine it will be after but do not remember.

All i remember was there was a trial period if you like, not that we could buy any ammo anywhere. But Talk in the magazines back then, the HUT at BASC the Run up count down to blast off in Robin Scot’s sporting gun. MOLYSHOT. It was "wild". I remember it came in on the first day of the season, will be 21 years this September the 1st.  I had read the advice i had no open choked guns , so i picked the oldest cheapest gun i owned and Reamed out all the choke.  I can remember that gun Now a Remington 1100 TRAP .  I went down the river on the first clutching a box of LYALVALE hunting steel 32gram of 4s.

We had bought a slab the afternoon before first in the shop split it between five of us. I can remember my first shot with steel like it was yesterday, the sky was that deep blue you get just as the sun starts to rise, out of the Myrk i saw a movement, focused in clearly the shape of a mallard  on it bang. it plummets down dog is on it and he is on his way back. Dog gets to me Birds legs are going 20 to the dozen, i despatched it. in the game bag.  Picks the gun back up, cartridge out my pocket feeds it in the mag... WONT GO IN , looks its too dark to see so stands up faces the just emerging sun, and in that light can see the rim of the second cartridge in the mag. It had not cycled the action enough to release the next cartridge never mind eject the case.  Gets lighter ducks everywhere i effectively have a single shot, i dare not load more than the one, i did not want it bumping one out the mag and locking up under the bolt. So emptied the mag, ran it one at a time, it never ejected one of 11 cartridges i shot that morning for 8 ""Limit" Teal and mallard .

 Good news?  Not really i think out my bag that morning roughly 50% were quite alive, i do not mean just twitching a bit needed despatching. I walked off that morning, with the other two and we were all agreed WE HAD A BIG PROBLEM.  I shyed away from steel for about another five months, i had bought ac few kilos of the little 3kg round tubs of Bismuth from eley. Through an eley rep called brian, forget his second name now. That bot loaded up in my sp10 BBs and in duck loads. My first positive experiences with steel were Blue dot and M92S relads and Gamebore supper steel factory loads. We had no real run up, it was just not an option . today the Run up to change has way more options many of them well known and tested already, known quantities if you like very different to our brave new world back then, full of doom gloom doubt and misinformation.

43 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

Since posting the above I have done a little reading to get the time-line correct :

With the AEWA looming, BASC and the clubs called for a voluntary moratorium in 1995. HM government signed up to the AEWA in 1996, which essentially pledged them to phase out exposure of waterfowl to lead by 2000. 

BASC pressed for more time very strongly, but the Statutory Instrument was published in 1999. Those intervening years enabled the development of reasonable commercial steel loads (the first steel cartridges were dreadful) and other NTS loads. US cartridges also improved a great deal.

I think it is important to remember that at that time BASC were in full consultation with the wildfowling community via the Wildfowling Liaison Committee (an advisory committee to Council) over the inevitable changes and how best to manage them. I understand that recently WLC were not consulted in any way.

If you look AEWA was not ratified untill 1999.

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, Scully said:

Oh please! That’s a ridiculous comment. Think about it. 
I can agree Commercial driven shooting needs to get its house in order via self regulation before it is forced upon it, and mentioned this to my NGO rep’ whom wholeheartedly agreed, with the comment that it is in hand, but to suggest the average working man as a shooter would not only benefit but survive without bug driven shoots is simply ridiculous. An entire industry revolves around shooting as a whole; remove its biggest revenue provider and what do you think would happen?

Are you really so naive as to believe that an entire business would survive on the basis of a few thousand blokes decoying waterfowl, decoying pigeons and rabbiting? Think about it. No pheasants, no partridge, no grouse. You really believe mooching about in the hedgerows with your toxic shot would survive?  Seriously? 
 

Agreed.

[mick miller]

22 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Agreed.

Disagreed. I cannot believe that the numbers of individuals that engage (shoot) with large scale commercial shoots outnumbers those that; rabbit shoot, pigeon shoot, deer stalk, fox shoot, wildfowlers, target shoot, clay shoot, practical shotgun shoot, are part of a small syndicate, farm or walked up shoot. Sorry, I think that's for the birds. If anything I think it's a minority within a minority, but I'd love to see the actual numbers to confirm, otherwise it's all just supposition.

Edited March 5, 2020 by mick miller

[Smokersmith]

7 minutes ago, mick miller said:

Disagreed. I cannot believe that the numbers of individuals that engage (shoot) with large scale commercial shoots outnumbers those that; rabbit shoot, pigeon shoot, deer stalk, fox shoot, wildfowlers, target shoot, clay shoot, practical shotgun shoot, are part of a small syndicate, farm or walked up shoot. Sorry, I think that's for the birds. If anything I think it's a minority within a minority, but I'd love to see the actual numbers to confirm, otherwise it's all just supposition.

Number of individuals .. perhaps no.

Where the equation is lost is on money spent ….. sit for 30 minutes at breakfast in the square in Helmsley and see how much money goes in to driven shooting on just that one day, from just that one square.

I doubt that you'll enjoy the fact … but money talks.

[mick miller]

9 minutes ago, Smokersmith said:

Number of individuals .. perhaps no.

Where the equation is lost is on money spent ….. sit for 30 minutes at breakfast in the square in Helmsley and see how much money goes in to driven shooting on just that one day, from just that one square.

I doubt that you'll enjoy the fact … but money talks.

That's a fair point, but again, hard to be definitive. I'll concede though that it's likely not chump change either.

Edited March 5, 2020 by mick miller

[Smokersmith]

The 2017 Game Shooting Census was completed by 12,143 guns. They shot over 138,000 days, of which they purchased 45,000 days and spent £26.6m on their sport.

Just one nugget plucked form the net ….. by all means not the full picture.

[lancer425]

Game shoots big and small are very important in many ways including the  countryside economy and wildlife conservation and habitat. A well run shoot is a real asset to the countryside. Our moorlands heaths and woodland would not be the same without the stewardship of the Game shooters of this country.

 I am a positive thinker and i believe the government know this, and i do not believe they are necessarily for shooting  but certainly not against us. But i do also feel game shooting is  becoming a problem for them.

[rbrowning2]

I did say big commercial shoots not small ones, and I was not just thinking steel shot, but issues like being called barbaric by one council, raptor persecution, heather burning, extreme high bird shooting, grouse driven shooting, releasing millions of non native birds, killing for fun. These all keep causing the whole of shooting pain. They certainly do need to get their act together as WJ does not share your view and with cartridges at £400+  it may well trigger the decline of shooting for the average working person on limited income.

[ClemFandango]

6 hours ago, Scully said:

Oh please! That’s a ridiculous comment. Think about it. 
I can agree Commercial driven shooting needs to get its house in order via self regulation before it is forced upon it, and mentioned this to my NGO rep’ whom wholeheartedly agreed, with the comment that it is in hand, but to suggest the average working man as a shooter would not only benefit but survive without bug driven shoots is simply ridiculous. An entire industry revolves around shooting as a whole; remove its biggest revenue provider and what do you think would happen?

Are you really so naive as to believe that an entire business would survive on the basis of a few thousand blokes decoying waterfowl, decoying pigeons and rabbiting? Think about it. No pheasants, no partridge, no grouse. You really believe mooching about in the hedgerows with your toxic shot would survive?  Seriously? 
 

Amen!

[rbrowning2]

This is WJ view on it, the consensus is shooting will survive changing to steel shot and so it would survive if game shooting was significantly reduced.

The scale of gamebird releases is a particularly UK issue. When measured in spring (standard practice for bird populations) the breeding populations of Pheasant in the UK (ie those birds which have survived the shooting season, and the winter to breed in the spring before further massive releases in the summer) comprise about a half of the whole European population. Other countries have Pheasant shooting but they do not release such vast numbers of farmed birds into the countryside a few weeks before the shooting season as we do in the UK. The Netherlands banned almost all gamebird and game shooting in 2002 on a mixture of animal welfare and conservation grounds.