3 ms·

Lead or "non toxic" ammunition is a big problem. I only do shotgunning, but for these the empirical evidence is that the lead is a better tool to "kill humanely

Lead or "non toxic" ammunition is a big problem. I only do shotgunning, but for these the empirical evidence is that the lead is a better tool to "kill humanely" than for example, steel. Steel doesn't have that "stopping power" that lead has, and requires a lot more, and bigger, shots, and will also have a shorter range than lead... Also, one of the biggest improvement in hunting cartridges are the 'wads' which used to be plastic, and now are wool or fiber, in any case, biodegradable -- the steel cartridges don't have these as they need a 'cup' to protect the barrels as the shots go out, so you leave big pieces of plastic all over, to be ingested by /other/ wildlife, potentially. So no real perfect solutions so far; Legally you can't shoot lead anywhere near waterways so we have to use steel, but for example last year I shot a duck, fair an square, nowhere near "out of range" -- this was a 'dead duck' -- we looked for it for 20 minutes to discover it had gone to ground and was NOT dead, it had been broadsided, but some pellets had gone thru the poor bird, and some of the pellets were in the feathers, because they didn't have the energy. As much as I like hunting my supper -- and I hunt to fill the freezer so I don't ever have to buy chickens -- I really hate to be in that situation where I inflicted undue pain for no reason other than some city environmentalist (who probably sit at his desk all day) making wide ranging decisions like this. It's going to be difficult to find a metal as "good" as this job as lead; I would love for steel to work really, perhaps we could somehow devise a 'steel shell around a lead pellet' -- that would allow 1) killing power 2) protection for lead leakage and 3) loads of time to use magnets to recover it from pretty much anywhere... I realise a good part of the energy of lead hitting a target it when it splatters, and the steel shot won't do that, but it ought to be better...? Anyway, that evening we had duck, and we toasted the duck; unsuitable apology as it is.

m4rtink 7y ago
Maybe tungsten ? If it works for tanks, it should also work for ducks. ;-)
eternauta3k 7y ago
If you're concerned about suffering, don't you have access to free-range chicken in the US?
_tulpa 7y ago
This whole argument is pretty weaksauce. Learn to use the non-toxic stuff or stop doing it and just buy your meat. Either way don't go spraying a bunch of toxic heavy metal all over the show just because it's "humane" - lead poisoning is pretty inhumane. There's also no practical reason you can't have biodegradable plastic cups for steel shot. I grew up hunting, mostly bigger animals, I never bought meat until I moved away from home. We didn't use shotguns at all, mostly because it's been clear that lead is bad news for ages, and you couldn't really get steel shot where we were. And a bonus of hunting bigger animals is that if you do it right the projectile doesn't exit. The whole post above just sounds like a bunch of entitled whiny "I want to have my cake and eat it too" bullshit.
- buserror 7y ago
  There are no biodegradable plastic cups -- ask McDonalds. No need to respond to the rest of your post, as you didn't bother reading mine anyway. Go back to hunting stationary target with 50mm rounds, it's perfect, you'll never find the carcass anyway.
  - _tulpa 7y ago
    My point is 'out of range' is different when you use steel. The subtext of the OP is that you'd totally use lead if it wasn't illegal. Which exactly the same backwards 'hurr durr desk-sitting city environmentalist ruining everything' mentality that nearly every single 'hunter' I know has now. > There are no biodegradable plastic cups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic - Why not?
cascom 7y ago
Bismuth and Tungsten are non-toxic alternatives with better performance than steel, though definitely more expensive. Stopping the use of lead would is a modest performance trade-off with a potential increase in cost

m4rtink 7y ago

Maybe tungsten ? If it works for tanks, it should also work for ducks. ;-)

eternauta3k 7y ago

If you're concerned about suffering, don't you have access to free-range chicken in the US?

_tulpa 7y ago

This whole argument is pretty weaksauce. Learn to use the non-toxic stuff or stop doing it and just buy your meat. Either way don't go spraying a bunch of toxic heavy metal all over the show just because it's "humane" - lead poisoning is pretty inhumane. There's also no practical reason you can't have biodegradable plastic cups for steel shot. I grew up hunting, mostly bigger animals, I never bought meat until I moved away from home. We didn't use shotguns at all, mostly because it's been clear that lead is bad news for ages, and you couldn't really get steel shot where we were. And a bonus of hunting bigger animals is that if you do it right the projectile doesn't exit. The whole post above just sounds like a bunch of entitled whiny "I want to have my cake and eat it too" bullshit.

buserror 7y ago
There are no biodegradable plastic cups -- ask McDonalds. No need to respond to the rest of your post, as you didn't bother reading mine anyway. Go back to hunting stationary target with 50mm rounds, it's perfect, you'll never find the carcass anyway.
- _tulpa 7y ago
  My point is 'out of range' is different when you use steel. The subtext of the OP is that you'd totally use lead if it wasn't illegal. Which exactly the same backwards 'hurr durr desk-sitting city environmentalist ruining everything' mentality that nearly every single 'hunter' I know has now. > There are no biodegradable plastic cups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic - Why not?

cascom 7y ago

Bismuth and Tungsten are non-toxic alternatives with better performance than steel, though definitely more expensive. Stopping the use of lead would is a modest performance trade-off with a potential increase in cost