STEEL V LEAD

[Towngun]

Once shooting organisation said no lead ban without new evidence. There is no new evidence and yet we now face a ban on lead. I have watched with a degree of scepticism the pro steel lobby but felt this to be rather one sided. I wish I was wrong. I have found this from an American gunsmith:  

Long-term use means you will likely have to buy a barrel.  When you use steel (today’s steel loads are normally Chinese made) you are using a product that is harder than old barrels and nearly as hard as modern barrels. Eventually, you will get some scoring and scuffing in your bore. Ammunition manufacturers have fought to try to find ways from keeping steel and other very hard nontoxic products from embedding themselves into the wad and contacting the bore through wad slits. Their success has been limited. Buffering helps, reducing velocity helps, lowering shot size helps. Large non-compressible pellets slamming into your choke at 1200 – 1500 fps is a huge amount of stress to expect your barrel to absorb over time. 

Steel is so much less dense than lead that larger shot sizes and higher velocities are the only way to get it to perform acceptably. This is the exact thing to which we don’t want to subject our barrels. The problem is more pronounced with good stack barrel and side-by-side shotguns, which use thin wall barrels to save weight.

Steel is not a huge safety issue, but there are some concerns. Steel rusts and attempting to shoot a welded together mass of pellets through your gun could mean a ringed barrel. Steel is also a problem if you bite into a pellet at mealtime, a boon to dentistry. Steel pellets embedded in trees have not found great favor with the timber industry, either.

Browning has this to day about steel shot damage:

“DAMAGE: In not all, but a number of instances a very slight ring will develop about 1-1/2" to 3" rearward of the muzzle. This ring is about .005 of an inch above the plane of the barrel, completely encircling the barrel. From our tests, we could determine no adverse effect on pattern or shot velocity because of this ring. Our conclusion is that the most significant objection, the slight ring, is entirely cosmetic. This 'ring' effect does not affect the function or safety of the firearm.”

I cannot speak for other individuals, but I know I have no interest in buying or shooting a shotgun with a ringed barrel, cosmetic or not. Steel and fine shotguns do not mix well; steel and vintage shotguns do not mix at all, as far as I’m concerned.

With the intermittent, unreliable availability of bismuth, there are only two viable choices for those seeking to protect vintage barrels while using no-tox shot today. They are Kent Tungsten-Matrix shotshells and the recently introduced Hevi-Shot “Classic Doubles” loads. Of the two, the Kent loads are closer to lead in density, 10.8 g/cc (lead considered 11.0 g/cc, showing as 11.35 g/cc on the periodic table). Both shotshell types are reviewed elsewhere, with the Kent shells being the current best of breed.

This is not meant to dissuade you from steel shotshells in modern screw-choked shotguns specifically designed for their use. Hopefully, it should give you a little food for thought before stuffing steel shotshells into an older, fixed choke shotgun that you want to keep in top condition.

[Scully]

Welcome back to planet earth. It’s not about ‘new evidence’, it’s about the saleability of lead shot game. 

[Fellside]

51 minutes ago, Towngun said:

There is no new evidence and yet we now face a ban on lead.

Hi Towngun,

I’m afraid there definitely is now a plethora of evidence - demonstrating terrestrial lead shot impacts.  

Like you I was initially sceptical and didn’t want lead prized out of our hands - especially since BASC were initially trotting out wildfowl data and poor quality at that. However, having read / reviewed some pretty robust papers re terrestrial, I have to admit I’ve accepted that the change is reasonable. Actually it was Conor O’Gorman from BASC who recently sent me some fairly decisive material. 

Thanks for the info about fixed choke guns - interesting to read Browning’s comments. Perhaps we are heading towards more practical cheaper gun ownership in the future.....? 
 

 

[Fellside]

P.S Scully makes a good point re sale of game. This has become very important. 

[Vince Green]

At Cupid Green in Hertfordshire the farmer built a clay layout which he would rent out to clubs. It was a good sporting layout and it was used practically every day. We used it one Sunday a month. When it wasn't being used and to keep down the grass he grazed his herd on the fields where the shot would land. We regularly shot with cows on the fields 

The milk marketing board knew about this and were always twitchy about the amount of lead going on the fields. They regularly tested his milk for lead levels and were quite threatening about what would happen if they found the milk was contaminated.

I reckon (ball park) our club alone must have put a ton of lead down on those fields every year and we shot there for twenty years. We were just one of many clubs that shot there.

But the point of the story is this, the milk marketing board never ever found a trace of lead in the milk, not even a bit. Much to their disappointment  

[Vince Green]

22 minutes ago, Fellside said:

P.S Scully makes a good point re sale of game. This has become very important. 

Its very hard to sell game now no matter whether its shot with lead or steel. The game market has collapsed more or less. 

[Fellside]

3 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

Its very hard to sell game now no matter whether its shot with lead or steel. The game market has collapsed more or less. 

One of our major markets was France.....?! 

20 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

At Cupid Green in Hertfordshire the farmer built a clay layout which he would rent out to clubs. It was a good sporting layout and it was used practically every day. We used it one Sunday a month. When it wasn't being used and to keep down the grass he grazed his herd on the fields where the shot would land. We regularly shot with cows on the fields 

The milk marketing board knew about this and were always twitchy about the amount of lead going on the fields. They regularly tested his milk for lead levels and were quite threatening about what would happen if they found the milk was contaminated.

I reckon (ball park) our club alone must have put a ton of lead down on those fields every year and we shot there for twenty years. We were just one of many clubs that shot there.

But the point of the story is this, the milk marketing board never ever found a trace of lead in the milk, not even a bit. Much to their disappointment  

Mammals aren’t as badly effected as birds - which grind pellets in their gizzards.  Anyway cattle have a g.i tract like a drainpipe. Just about anything will pass through it. 

[Centrepin]

Best stock up on lead now.

Last year my son went to shoot pigeon in Scotland as he does several times a year, (he also deer stalks) we have family with land and perms. 

This was between lockdowns for those that are picky.

He was told without warning he could only use steel which doubled his outlay as he'd only taken lead. The reason being the landowner had agreed a sale in advance of all pigeon shot to a large hotel. Daft thing is they take lead shot game from the same land.

Big money paying customers tend to decide for themselves what they will or will not use.

He had just 2 days before the government announced a new lockdown so had to return. Best day, dawn to dusk was 60 picked. Compared with an average 200 - 250 a day in previous years. Nowt to do with lead, just saying.

All I see is steel is a commercial decision to pacify certain sections and has nothing to do with toxicity.

[Fellside]

Interesting. Our domestic market appears to be following the French / continental picture. 

[Towngun]

23 hours ago, Fellside said:

Hi Towngun,

I’m afraid there definitely is now a plethora of evidence - demonstrating terrestrial lead shot impacts.  

Like you I was initially sceptical and didn’t want lead prized out of our hands - especially since BASC were initially trotting out wildfowl data and poor quality at that. However, having read / reviewed some pretty robust papers re terrestrial, I have to admit I’ve accepted that the change is reasonable. Actually it was Conor O’Gorman from BASC who recently sent me some fairly decisive material. 

Thanks for the info about fixed choke guns - interesting to read Browning’s comments. Perhaps we are heading towards more practical cheaper gun ownership in the future.....? 
 

 

I'm sure technology will offer up a solution. I'm not defending lead rather sceptical over steel which is being pushed by the shooting organisations perhaps in compensation for their shameful lack of consultation with cartridge manufacturers.

I have found several plastic wads with a steel shot embedded deep in the wad and deep enough to contact the barrel. This is especially a risk at the separation of the wad petal which is where the wad is at its weakest. Gamebore have developed an approach by cutting their wad at a 45 degree angle so the wad petal overlaps at this point.      

[Towngun]

5 minutes ago, Towngun said:

I'm sure technology will offer up a solution. I'm not defending lead rather sceptical over steel which is being pushed by the shooting organisations perhaps in compensation for their shameful lack of consultation with cartridge manufacturers.

I have found several plastic wads with a steel shot embedded deep in the wad and deep enough to contact the barrel. This is especially a risk at the separation of the wad petal which is where the wad is at its weakest. Gamebore have developed an approach by cutting their wad at a 45 degree angle so the wad petal overlaps at this point.      

Sadly lead is dead but I would like to offer up this eulogy at its funeral:

there is no UK evidence that spent Lead shot pellets are available to the natural feeding patterns of UK wildfowl, other than by human intervention by the researcher’s engaged by the UK conservation bodies. There is however, evidence of concerted attempts to subvert the scientific process.

No evidence that would stand up in court has been presented to support the claim that wildfowl pick up spent lead shot pellets in the wild in the UK.

Not a penny of the £20m annual funds flowing to our representatives has been spent on forensic investigations of the false claims against Lead.

BASC (around 1998) pledged to the WWT, the RSPB and DEFRA, that it would adopt the recommendations of the AEWA and together they urged the government of the day to sign up. The implementation of the AEWA banned lead ammunition over wetlands.

This is where a bond of compliant allegiance, between our representatives, a dutiful shooting press, and the Conservation industry, has led us. The nods and winks between the consenting parties have been largely covert. But together they have placed shooting in a political cul-de-sac at the government’s pleasure.

Implicit in the acceptance of the AEWA protocol was, that over a period of 20 years or so, BASC would endeavour to promote non-lead ammunition alternatives with a view to completely replacing lead by around now. Their performance (especially) over the last 7 years have underwritten this intention.

Is this the reason being that such research has not been conducted in the UK?

The architect of this pledge was the recently retired CEO of BASC who tireless laboured behind the scenes for 30 years to bring the pledge to fruition. He has retired to FACE EU to continue his ‘international’ work. He is now embedded in the EU via his position as treasurer of FACE EU. The pledge will now be pursued in secret within the EU Commission. He and they will not give up.

The entire debate over Lead ammunition in the UK has been conducted under a shadowy haze of political manipulation conducted by the Conservation industry. Unfortunately, a section of the UK shooting representative class has acted as surrogate to the conservation lobby in the matter. They have never called for the research programme described above.

Until professional, disciplined, transparent, independent, protocols are determined in order to commission UK research, any imposition of controls over lead ammunition must be viewed as simply dishonest.

The shooting public are fully aware of the deception. The message to the representatives classes is ‘get it right or go away, you are a danger to us all’. The abject failure of the ‘Pledge’ gambit has made this plain. It has made equally plain that the 'cry' for unity and forming one body is pure rhetoric. Each time the shooting bodies have acted in unity in the recent past it was in secrecy and wrong. I am thinking in particular of the FACE UK debacle.

We assume that our representatives are intelligent people, yet what they are doing does not make sense, begging the question; what are they not telling us?

Worst of all, perhaps they do not know themselves. Until complete openness displaces the back room machinations of the last 30 years any cry of ‘unity is strength’, will be seen as cover-up tactics leaving the individual shooter with nowhere to turn.

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTATION OF INTEREST No 1

Quote from: -

DEFRA First report period 1999 and 2002 - Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds.

“The UK, through BASC, supported the AEWA/Federation of Associations for Hunting and Conservation of the EU east European workshop (October 2001) on lead shot replacement, through participation, advice and demonstration.”

*Management of Human Activities (4) - Page (28) 30 – (top)

*See the attached DEFRA AWEA report Pdf. File.

BASC have been an active participant in the group-think against lead lending uncritical support for the AEWA and implicit support for the eventual ‘phasing’ out of any use of lead ammunition and its replacement with steel.

THE BRISTOL CLUB

 Over the last 30 years or so, a rather stealthy club has coalesced. Its group think formed the anti-lead agenda and anointed the junk science that favours its objectives. They work together and socialise together.

They have worked un-molested on the fringe of mainstream Government policy, seen only as bottom feeders in strategic terms. Useful nevertheless as 'feel good' fodder for voters. The have a triple-lock on DEFRA’s wildlife policy and are the gatekeepers to the decisions for conducting research and the flow of grant money.

There are some thousands employed in administration and supervision roles, and if you include the grants paid to fellow travelling NGO's this is a very significant cost to taxpayers.  I call it the Bristol Club.

Its members are: -

Tim Andrews/DEFRA - Temple Quay House, Bristol, Wildlife division. He is also official DEFRA observer of the Lead Ammunition Group

The other main members are: – AWEA – BASC – RSPB – WWT

Natural England is of course a welcomed resource it can rely upon when in need of support to protect against any 3^rd party threat on the flanks.

 Also in the frame is the BBC Wildlife dept. Bristol. Most useful in presentational matters.

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTATION OF INTEREST No 2

By Bert Lenten, Executive Secretary – AWEA – opening Address [AEWA – HARRADINE Pdf.

 

“However, an important - I would even say - the most important, step in this development is moreover the agreement that has been reached with the hunting community on the need of phasing out the use of lead shot in wetlands, an issue which used to be opposed by most hunters and regarded as a threat for hunting in the past, and which is meanwhile considered as the hunters’ contribution to conservation. Much awareness is raised by the hunting organisations themselves, which are active in the process of phasing out the use of lead shot in wetlands; thus hunters in several countries have accepted the change towards using lead-free ammunition”

 

The quote above is reflective of John Swift’s and John Harradine’s UK policy and indeed, they have both worked consistently and unchallenged in their quest to eliminate Lead Ammunition. Those who take the trouble to read the entire document will get the message.

 

 Arnold Chapkis Sept. 2013

 

This email is sent privately to a number of receipiants, however do feel free to pass this on to those of like mind. Please send your email address if you wish to be added the mail list.

 

   

[Towngun]

22 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Its very hard to sell game now no matter whether its shot with lead or steel. The game market has collapsed more or less. 

The sale of game has never been high - my belief is large bags are obscene and guns should each take a quota for their own distribution. T

 

On 20/05/2021 at 19:54, Towngun said:

Once shooting organisation said no lead ban without new evidence. There is no new evidence and yet we now face a ban on lead. I have watched with a degree of scepticism the pro steel lobby but felt this to be rather one sided. I wish I was wrong. I have found this from an American gunsmith:  

Long-term use means you will likely have to buy a barrel.  When you use steel (today’s steel loads are normally Chinese made) you are using a product that is harder than old barrels and nearly as hard as modern barrels. Eventually, you will get some scoring and scuffing in your bore. Ammunition manufacturers have fought to try to find ways from keeping steel and other very hard nontoxic products from embedding themselves into the wad and contacting the bore through wad slits. Their success has been limited. Buffering helps, reducing velocity helps, lowering shot size helps. Large non-compressible pellets slamming into your choke at 1200 – 1500 fps is a huge amount of stress to expect your barrel to absorb over time. 

Steel is so much less dense than lead that larger shot sizes and higher velocities are the only way to get it to perform acceptably. This is the exact thing to which we don’t want to subject our barrels. The problem is more pronounced with good stack barrel and side-by-side shotguns, which use thin wall barrels to save weight.

Steel is not a huge safety issue, but there are some concerns. Steel rusts and attempting to shoot a welded together mass of pellets through your gun could mean a ringed barrel. Steel is also a problem if you bite into a pellet at mealtime, a boon to dentistry. Steel pellets embedded in trees have not found great favor with the timber industry, either.

Browning has this to day about steel shot damage:

“DAMAGE: In not all, but a number of instances a very slight ring will develop about 1-1/2" to 3" rearward of the muzzle. This ring is about .005 of an inch above the plane of the barrel, completely encircling the barrel. From our tests, we could determine no adverse effect on pattern or shot velocity because of this ring. Our conclusion is that the most significant objection, the slight ring, is entirely cosmetic. This 'ring' effect does not affect the function or safety of the firearm.”

I cannot speak for other individuals, but I know I have no interest in buying or shooting a shotgun with a ringed barrel, cosmetic or not. Steel and fine shotguns do not mix well; steel and vintage shotguns do not mix at all, as far as I’m concerned.

With the intermittent, unreliable availability of bismuth, there are only two viable choices for those seeking to protect vintage barrels while using no-tox shot today. They are Kent Tungsten-Matrix shotshells and the recently introduced Hevi-Shot “Classic Doubles” loads. Of the two, the Kent loads are closer to lead in density, 10.8 g/cc (lead considered 11.0 g/cc, showing as 11.35 g/cc on the periodic table). Both shotshell types are reviewed elsewhere, with the Kent shells being the current best of breed.

This is not meant to dissuade you from steel shotshells in modern screw-choked shotguns specifically designed for their use. Hopefully, it should give you a little food for thought before stuffing steel shotshells into an older, fixed choke shotgun that you want to keep in top condition.

SO YOU WANT SCIENCE?

Here is a story worthy of note. You could headline it: “Ducks health of greater importance than humans”.

There is so little science surrounding lead and steel shot that the following real evidence issue jumped out. I read a letter in the shooting press about a Dr warning a patient that they picked up some lead shot following an MRI scan but had it been steel shot ingested from game meat then the MRI scan may well have killed him! The “magnetic” field from the scan affects steel and some metals (not lead) and therefore can cause any metal inside your body to move as it is attracted to the “magnetic” field, with potentially fatal consequences! This is why it's important to tell your radiographer (a health professional trained to perform imaging procedures) if you have any metal in your body. Of course anyone who has eaten wildfowl and ingested steel shot would be unaware of this and so would not be able to disclose this fact and avoid this potentially fatal health risk.  

 

Thus is it better for a duck to ingest lead or a human to ingest steel?

 

[clangerman]

25 minutes ago, Towngun said:

 

Thus is it better for a duck to ingest lead or a human to ingest steel?

 

with plastic micro beads releasing toxins once eaten from the food chain last of our worries is going to be a duck always knew steel shouting toxic toxic non stop was going to back fire lucky my fibre lead pile is so high! 

[marsh man]

23 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Its very hard to sell game now no matter whether its shot with lead or steel. The game market has collapsed more or less. 

Have any member sold Pigeons to a game dealer over the last few months , or enquired about the price being paid for fresh or frozen Pigeons ?

[redial]

23 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Its very hard to sell game now no matter whether its shot with lead or steel. The game market has collapsed more or less. 

Agreed, it's difficult to give away. Which is such a pity.

 I know of some shoots who pay game dealers to collect the birds.

Edited May 21, 2021 by redial
Error

[Fellside]

2 hours ago, redial said:

Agreed, it's difficult to give away. Which is such a pity.

 I know of some shoots who pay game dealers to collect the birds.

As above in this thread, one of the main reasons for low demand - is that Europe doesn’t want lead contaminated game now. 

[clangerman]

so for mths on end those behind steel to rubbish lead have been using the words contaminated and toxic every time they mention game anyone care to guess why nobody wants to eat it? that’s right STEEL has destroyed the market congratulations steel! 

[Fellside]

2 hours ago, clangerman said:

so for mths on end those behind steel to rubbish lead have been using the words contaminated and toxic every time they mention game anyone care to guess why nobody wants to eat it? that’s right STEEL has destroyed the market congratulations steel! 

Yes I agree Clangerman - ‘contaminated’ isn’t a very appetising word. It’s their language not mine. We are where we are. I’m just hoping the export market picks up again if/when game is shot with steel. 

[8 shot]

Right then, I had a play about yesterday patterning with some Eley VIP #3 32g Eco Wad against some Eley Pigeon HV #6 32g through a Teague half choke, not overly scientific, more like you would find in the field, I only used some metre square brown cardboard boxes as that's all i had. I have taken some pictures of the patterns but they don't really show the pattern that well. So my field patterning feeling, Steel pattern beautifully out 35y, probarly better than the Eley Lead equivlent used. But from 35y to 40y getting a very sparse pattern. 40y to 50y av.10 pellets in the sq.m from 3 shots. Went to roughly 60y and didn't even hit the sq. from 2 shots. So i asumed it was dropping short so shot over a puddle in another field and it dropped 1/2 to 1  metres short as a guess, so shot at the top of the board and registered 3 or 4 hits. I'm going to try and get some proper Hull pattern board.and do it properly if i can. As a positive the Eco Wads do degrade very quickly in moist condtions, Gone in less than 24hr in a glass of water as advertised, the one on the lawn still as is, but quite sticky and slowly degrading. My humble conclusion is will do the job find out to 30y, 35y at a push no more. Will try some clay or pigeons when we get some. Price wise, not impressed about £80\£100 Per 1000 more than the Pigeon HV. And not sure that a 20 bore is worth the both.

[clangerman]

35yrds at a PUSH three cheers for the lead ban hip hip hang on why is nobody cheering? 

[Scully]

On 21/05/2021 at 20:50, Towngun said:

The sale of game has never been high - my belief is large bags are obscene and guns should each take a quota for their own distribution. T

 

SO YOU WANT SCIENCE?

Here is a story worthy of note. You could headline it: “Ducks health of greater importance than humans”.

There is so little science surrounding lead and steel shot that the following real evidence issue jumped out. I read a letter in the shooting press about a Dr warning a patient that they picked up some lead shot following an MRI scan but had it been steel shot ingested from game meat then the MRI scan may well have killed him! The “magnetic” field from the scan affects steel and some metals (not lead) and therefore can cause any metal inside your body to move as it is attracted to the “magnetic” field, with potentially fatal consequences! This is why it's important to tell your radiographer (a health professional trained to perform imaging procedures) if you have any metal in your body. Of course anyone who has eaten wildfowl and ingested steel shot would be unaware of this and so would not be able to disclose this fact and avoid this potentially fatal health risk.  

 

Thus is it better for a duck to ingest lead or a human to ingest steel?

 

I have no idea what quantities of game are sold, but all our birds ( other than those the guns take ) on our commercial shoot are collected by a dealer, so they’re going somewhere. 
I don’t know what in your belief constitutes a ‘large bag’, but struggle to see the difference between one shoot bagging 500 or ten shoots bagging 50.
What this has to do with lead or steel I have no idea, but hey Ho. 🤷‍♂️
Anyhow, to get back on topic, it’s not about the evidence, but all about perception.
BASC was concerned about evidence which showed the eating of game containing lead shot posed little risk, when it opposed the lead shot ban, but all that has changed now that it is BASC itself which is advocating a ban. 
It isn’t even the environment that is of concern either, really, as it will still be perfectly acceptable to litter the earth with lead shot and plastic wads whilst shooting clays....for now. 
It’s all about the saleability of game ( allegedly ) and if people believe that eating lead shot game is dangerous, then they won’t buy it, despite there being no cases  ( that I’m aware of anyhow ) of anyone dying or being made seriously....or even slightly ill from doing so. 🤷‍♂️
If buyers won’t buy it from outlets because of this then dealers won’t buy it from shoots. 
It’s not about ducks or humans, or even about LEAD v STEEL either, because no one outside of shooting gives a fig whether you think one isn’t as good as the other, or that one allegedly kills better than the other, nor that there are those worried about the alleged effects of steel on your gun. You can bang on about it all you want, but no one cares. 
Perception is everything, and if the perception eventually pursued is one of shooters doing more wounding than killing ( aided and abetting by shooters themselves ) then given the new ‘sentient being’ agenda under proposal, we’ll end up with no shooting at all. 
I wouldn’t mind shooters claiming this really, if they killed cleanly everything they shot with lead, but they don’t. We wound with lead and will continue to do so with steel. 
Remember, we start off any debate on the back foot, because we’re killing things not because we need to eat, but for sport. It’s all about perception. 🤔

My apologies for the ramble, but it’s a tad wearing trying to justify or defend shooting, to other shooters. 

 

[enfieldspares]

“DAMAGE: In not all, but a number of instances a very slight ring will develop about 1-1/2" to 3" rearward of the muzzle. This ring is about .005 of an inch above the plane of the barrel, completely encircling the barrel. From our tests, we could determine no adverse effect on pattern or shot velocity because of this ring. Our conclusion is that the most significant objection, the slight ring, is entirely cosmetic. This 'ring' effect does not affect the function or safety of the firearm.”

Hmm. And its secondhand saleability is what?

[8 shot]

25 minutes ago, Scully said:

I have no idea what quantities of game are sold, but all our birds ( other than those the guns take ) on our commercial shoot are collected by a dealer, so they’re going somewhere. 
I don’t know what in your belief constitutes a ‘large bag’, but struggle to see the difference between one shoot bagging 500 or ten shoots bagging 50.
What this has to do with lead or steel I have no idea, but hey Ho. 🤷‍♂️
Anyhow, to get back on topic, it’s not about the evidence, but all about perception.
BASC was concerned about evidence which showed the eating of game containing lead shot posed little risk, when it opposed the lead shot ban, but all that has changed now that it is BASC itself which is advocating a ban. 
It isn’t even the environment that is of concern either, really, as it will still be perfectly acceptable to litter the earth with lead shot and plastic wads whilst shooting clays....for now. 
It’s all about the saleability of game ( allegedly ) and if people believe that eating lead shot game is dangerous, then they won’t buy it, despite there being no cases  ( that I’m aware of anyhow ) of anyone dying or being made seriously....or even slightly ill from doing so. 🤷‍♂️
If buyers won’t buy it from outlets because of this then dealers won’t buy it from shoots. 
It’s not about ducks or humans, or even about LEAD v STEEL either, because no one outside of shooting gives a fig whether you think one isn’t as good as the other, or that one allegedly kills better than the other, nor that there are those worried about the alleged effects of steel on your gun. You can bang on about it all you want, but no one cares. 
Perception is everything, and if the perception eventually pursued is one of shooters doing more wounding than killing ( aided and abetting by shooters themselves ) then given the new ‘sentient being’ agenda under proposal, we’ll end up with no shooting at all. 
I wouldn’t mind shooters claiming this really, if they killed cleanly everything they shot with lead, but they don’t. We wound with lead and will continue to do so with steel. 
Remember, we start off any debate on the back foot, because we’re killing things not because we need to eat, but for sport. It’s all about perception. 🤔

My apologies for the ramble, but it’s a tad wearing trying to justify or defend shooting, to other shooters. 

 

You may well be right on some or maybe all of the above, but for those relying on pest control to protect there livelihood banning lead has serious repercussions. Having now, and granted only against cardboard, so far, seen the limitation of steel. A friend has recently tried copper rifle bullets with very variable results. My opinion for what it's worth game shooting as we know it has no more than 3 years. All brought about from within, we seem to be running as fast as we can towards the cliff edge instead of going kicking and screaming.

[Scully]

1 minute ago, 8 shot said:

You may well be right on some or maybe all of the above, but for those relying on pest control to protect there livelihood banning lead has serious repercussions. Having now, and granted only against cardboard, so far, seen the limitation of steel. A friend has recently tried copper rifle bullets with very variable results. My opinion for what it's worth game shooting as we know it has no more than 3 years. All brought about from within, we seem to be running as fast as we can towards the cliff edge instead of going kicking and screaming.

I have no idea how the lead ban will affect pest control as far as that done with rifles is concerned, but that done with shotguns can carry on with steel. 

[8 shot]

Leadfree 22LR ammo absolute SH!T, my understanding is that rifle calibres of .243 or less won't stablise at all and lack energy, and 17hmr not sure they can change much. Most maybe 80% of our rabbits went to the butcher so i assume that has to change. Shooting Crows, Rooks Jackdaws etc. is hard enough with lead, so i don't hold huge hopes with steel, BUT will give it ago. The ideal scenario is to have lead for anything NOT going to the food chain 

Edited May 23, 2021 by 8 shot