Discussion on Lead in Meat

[2Lazy2P]

I got 99 problems, but worried about consuming too much lead in wild game isn’t one of them. Beer and wild game do a body good!!

[mrc]

I'm pretty sure you get more lead from the municipal water supply than you do from a lead bullet. Yes I agree lead is a hazard but to me it is a non issue in meat.

[dustoffer]

I thinks its a solution looking for a problem. If you guys want to worry about, more power to you. It's not hurting anything to switch to all copper but I think you would be better off spending you time worrying about polar bears breaking into your South Texas deer cabin.

Yep--I'm 73 and no telling how much lead I have ingested.

[Cantcatch5]

It isn’t something I have ever really worried about. I do regret the thousands of hours I spent as a kid hunting with a pellet gun with my next shot pellet waiting in my mouth for a quick reload and the thousands of times I have clamped down or released a split shot by biting it while fishing.

[100%TtId]

Lead ain't harmless:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4961898/#S2000p3title

Long-term exposure of adults can result in decreased performance in some tests of cognitive performance that measure functions of the nervous system. Infants and young children are especially sensitive to even low levels of lead, which may contribute to behavioural problems, learning deficits and lowered IQ (Rubin & Strayer, 2008). Long-time exposure to lead has been reported to cause anaemia, along with an increase in blood pressure, and that mainly in old and middle aged people. Severe damage to the brain and kidneys, both in adults and children, were found to be linked to exposure to heavy lead levels resulting in death. In pregnant women, high exposure to lead may cause miscarriage. Chronic lead exposure was found to reduce fertility in males (Sokol & Berman, 1991). Blood disorders and damage to the nervous system have a high occurrence in lead toxicity.

However there is no threshold value below which lead exposure can be considered safe. It has been found to impair development and have harmful effects even at lower levels (Rossi, 2008; Barbosa et al., 200

[Jspradley]

I suspect the more we study hunters and people who eat a lot of wild game the more we will see very dramatic long term outcomes between people who use lead vs mono ammo.

Mono bullets have been around long enough to generate a long term study but I bet the differences will be shocking and we'll see that while folks who consume lead may be " all right" they are far from where they should be long term.

[Briar Friar]

The potential problem is the pieces you don't see.

Check out some of the xrays of animals shot with lead vs mono


https://www.nps.gov/pinn/learn/nature/leadinfo.htm

Keep up the good fight against lead and thanks for posting the articles Spradley. Im sold. Im making a move to get the lead out completely.

[BULL21]

I'm guessing you mean small game, it's usually pretty hard to mix up who shot a big critter

With small game it's harder to tell but less important because shotgun pellets generally pass right through the digestive system without being absorbed, the potential problem seems to be from rifle rounds because their velocities can cause little micro pieces of lead to spread around in the meat that can potentially be absorbed.

I'm not too worried about it either way but lead free is pretty much all pro and no cons for rifle ammo.

I was referring to all animals. I guess that you have never killed a deer or pig that had been previously wounded and recovered. How long had that lead been in that animal? Would you discard the whole animal if you found an old bullet lodged somewhere inside?

You said shotgun pellets pass through the digestive system of birds and don’t get absorbed, but we are talking about pellets lodged in the breast/legs.

Not doubting your concerns, but there are other variables out of your control.

[Jspradley]

I was referring to all animals. I guess that you have never killed a deer or pig that had been previously wounded and recovered. How long had that lead been in that animal? Would you discard the whole animal if you found an old bullet lodged somewhere inside?

You said shotgun pellets pass through the digestive system of birds and don’t get absorbed, but we are talking about pellets lodged in the breast/legs.

Not doubting your concerns, but there are other variables out of your control.

Ah, I see. I've never shot a big game animal that had been shot before but it can and does happen.

I wouldn't likely discard it unless it had some nasty infection or something like that. Eating one critter that had been shot with lead isn't likely to be the end of the world but at least half of the meat I eat is wild game so I try to do the best I can and not inject known toxins into my food.

Sorry I meant the intact lead pellets pass through the human digestive system, not the bird's. The lead in intact pellets seems to be less bioavailable from what I've heard than fragments from rifle rounds.

[Tbar]

I got more lead exposer bite/crimping lead weights on fishing line for decades than minor exposure to bullet exposed meat.

I say this is is being blowing waaaaay out of proportion.

[BuckSmasher]

I found some good videos on the subject. They even talk about and compare bonded vs non-bonded bullets. These videos are not well done visually, but the content is good. These guys are wildlife biologist and hunters.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZJXderphCM"]Copper vs Lead Bullet Study pt 1 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4Wbj41j67A"]Copper vs Lead Bullet Fragmentation Study pt 2 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdKlubTRkk8"]Copper vs Lead Bullet Fragmentation Study pt 3 - YouTube[/ame]

[Artos]

I've been shooting solid copper barnes in my 280ai for a long time & killed many many whitetail with them over the years...one thing I would recommend is trying the lighter available bullet first vs the traditional weight the gun currently likes. My findings is the longer bullet for same weight increases the bearing surface so much that it affects accuracy. Where most 140's shoot well in this gun, it hated the barnes. Once I went to 120's, she came together & I gained 200+fps.

Pros / Cons on the tsx...pros is it kills very well & never had a deer go more than 25 yards after a shot through the boiler room. Cons are blood trails can be fantastic or very minimal in those 25 yards. Likely not an issue for most the brush out there you guys hunt. It just gets frustrating finding them in the thick nasty bunch prickers when they do run a little. I would say good vs bad trails are 50/50 & seems if you hit bone on the entrance, the solids open up immediately & perform better vs hitting soft entrance. Just a theory anyway & looking at gutted deer.

~~~~~~~~

Having said all that, I'm not worried about the lead issue & guess I'll be spitting shot out of doves & whitewing for the rest of my days.

[Bort]

I have mixed feelings about this issue.

Although it wouldn't cost a fortune to switch from lead to copper rifle bullets for the average hunter that goes through a box of ammunition every few years, it still does add to the cost.

Furthermore, steel shot is usually twice the cost of lead, and upland hunters shoot a lot more shotgun shells than rifle bullets each year. This additional cost hurts. Ask any waterfowl hunter. All of these "little" costs add up to make the sport of hunting more expensive and less accessible, which has played a role in the sport's decline.

With that being said, you can't be too careful with your health. The additional cost of paying for steel shot or some other alternative to lead would be a drop in the bucket to the cost of your medical bills. However, I would want to see a definitive causation that hunters that use lead bullets suffer health issues caused by lead exposure.

That's my 2 cents. However, if I ever do switch, I will be sure to tell everyone how great I am!

[huntandfishguy6]

As long as they keep making Remington corlok's I will keep shooting them. I'm surprised California doesn't shoot rubber bullets, so there deer don't get hurt.

[TxAg]

I found some good videos on the subject. They even talk about and compare bonded vs non-bonded bullets. These videos are not well done visually, but the content is good. These guys are wildlife biologist and hunters.


Copper vs Lead Bullet Study pt 1 - YouTube

Copper vs Lead Bullet Fragmentation Study pt 2 - YouTube

Copper vs Lead Bullet Fragmentation Study pt 3 - YouTube

That is consistent with the podcast info I referenced on page one. I agree that CA is full of wackadoodles, but there's no arguing that the Condors are getting lead poisoning from bullet fragments in gut piles.