What is in the days ahead

[oldprogger]

Hey Guys, check out ITX nontoxic round balls from Ballistics Products. I currently use their lead buckshot in 8 pound jugs for .32, .45, and .50 cal. Way cheaper than Hornady and shoots fine. I got this info from Toby Bridges. Dave.

 

[Okie Hog]

Massachusetts made great effort and success in working with gun ranges to keep their spent lead shot out of wetlands.

Yep, there was a big cleanup operation at a MA military base where lead from firing ranges got into the ground water. i worked at Fort Devens, MA in 95 and 96 doing cleanup of unexploded ordnance. First year we lived in the Westminster Inn. Second year we lived in Lowell.

In 95 a state trooper stopped me because of my OK license plates and told me to register it in MA. The truck had a peeling paint job. Trooper told me MA had passed a law requiring car companies to re-paint the vehicles with peeling paint jobs. "Don't tell them you just registered it in MA". Soon as truck was registered i got the free paint job, a very good paint job.

 

[muzzleloader48]

Lead is not soluble in water. The eagles and condors ingest the lead pellets or balls from carrion they eat. Their highly caustic gastric juices partially dissolve the lead and it is absorbed into the blood stream until fatal levels are achieved. The number of birds killed by lead poisoning is so low that the idea of banning lead projectiles is ridiculous. Lead has been used for projectiles for over 2 centuries. This is just the tree huggers at work using any method they can to eliminate hunting.

I agree! I believe weapons came in to use around 10th century in China. Therefore, lead was probably in use for well over 700 years. In that case, what these left wing nuts are saying, everything would be ddead by now.

 

[Philgumbo]

Unfortunately the element (Pb) lead has been clearly shown to be highly toxic to our natural environment...particularly with respect to potable drinking water. Massachusetts made great effort and success in working with gun ranges to keep their spent lead shot out of wetlands.

We already have been using steel shot for waterfowl hunting for years now!

 

[tewdogs]

lead was an issue in massachusetts a number of years ago. the massachusetts department of environmental protection started by working with gun ranges to contain and presumably recover lead shot at ranges. the state (fish and wildlife) has since gone on to ban lead fishing sinkers and lures up to a certain size. i think it was loons that drove the fishing tackle ban in massachusetts and other new england states. In california i think it might have been condors that triggered the ammunition ban in califirnia. from what the experts say lead is incredibly toxic to wildlife and humans (children especially). yeah it would be a bummer for anyone who has large amounts of ammunition. hey maybe that's the plan !

the condors was the excuse they used........i think DDT was the real culprit as it hit all birds by causing egg shells to be weak and break in the nest.....i am 70 years young still carry lead balls in my mouth for a fast reload. I also melt lead and make my own ball/maxi balls......been breathing all that for 50 plus years......got concerned about carrying the lead in my mouth went in for tests.....the young doctor when he found out what i was asking laughed out loud and asked me if i had swallowed any? i had not and he told me testing was not needed as it was all horse **** unless you were a child eating paint chips or a idiot adult doing the same....i had him run the tests anyway.....came back zero lead in system......you all make your own decisions....i have made mine

 

[Hanshi]

Even Genghis Khan made use of BP in battle.

 

[Sonny Rich]

Yep us baby boomer never been hurt by it...Wy just the other day in the sports store i heard a couple young guys saying hey look at the old guys over there buying the front loaders with all these modern guns around here!!! By the time they buy the rifle,powder,casters,calipers,barrel cameras,wads and then use a short stick the a long stick to load, we have gone through 500 rounds already for less. BAAAA HAAAA HAAAA That's why they call the baby BOOMERS, BAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAA

 

[bobbythehunter]

Wow, so much cynacism and total disdain for science. It's amazes me. Hell maybe my 37 years working for an environmental protection agency was all for naught. When I was a kid in the 60s, we hardly ever saw Hawks let alone eagles or herons now they are thriving. I guess that's just coincidence?

 

[Buck Conner1]

This is just the tree huggers at work using any method they can to eliminate hunting.

​

 

[Okie Hog]

Yep, the US Army went lead free with 5.56mm and 7.62mm ball ammo:

https://www.army.mil/article/106710/picatinny_ammo_goes_from_regular_to_unleaded

 

[Marty1]

I have read that the type of lead used in ammunition and firearms is not easily soluble in water.......I seriously doubt that any eagles that they have been finding with lead poisoning in them got the lead from bullets. They probably had it build up in their systems via the fish they eat.

You're absolutely correct...elemental lead is not soluble in water. However, organic lead "compounds" can form in acidic environments where they can become soluble and enter into the natural food chain.

 

[Marty1]

Wow, so much cynacism and total disdain for science. It's amazes me. Hell maybe my 37 years working for an environmental protection agency was all for naught. When I was a kid in the 60s, we hardly ever saw Hawks let alone eagles or herons now they are thriving. I guess that's just coincidence?

Amazing X2. With all respect, old-school folks need to seriously wake-up to the reality that we have only one Earth. We all need to consider making changes to protect it for future generations.

 

[RonRC]

As other posters described: Lead is not soluble in water with neutral pH (near pH of 7). However, rain water exposed to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has an acid nature - pH=5.6. The higher the carbon dioxide, the more acidic the atmospheric water. Lead becomes much more soluble at acidic pH.

That said, lead bullets sitting in the shallow soil is not a significant threat unless the water table is just below the surface.

Lead shot sitting in very shallow water in swamps and wetlands is not a threat unless wetland birds pick up the shot while grazing on the bottom. Eagles and other birds of prey hunt the wetland birds and ingest the lead shot picked up in the prey birds. Stomach juices are VERY acidic (pH=1) and can dissolve the lead pellets, sending that lead into the blood stream. As Marty said, several eagle species were near extinction due to lead poisoning (and some other environmental toxins). With controls on lead shot, the eagles have recovered to reasonable population levels.

Lead did impact the baby boomer generation and the effects of lead toxicity has been documented all over the world. During the period of the use of leaded gasoline (1920's to late 1960's), children in communities exposed to high levels of motor vehicle traffic showed concentrations of lead in their blood that cause brain damage, learning disabilities and behavioral problems. Russia built industries that discharged high levels of lead into the air in former countries of the old Soviet Union. Children in cities of Poland with those industries showed toxic levels of lead in their blood as well as elevated incidence of learning disabilities. Up to 80% of children in those lead contaminated areas had asthma.

There is 60 years or more of research on lead toxicity and 1000's of papers in that literature. In 1897, Australian researchers identified lead in paint as the cause of a "Toxicity of Habitation," and the first US. case was reported in 1914. By 1917, U.S. medical authorities had established that childhood lead poisoning from lead paint was a common problem. "A child," wrote a medical commentator in 1924, lives in a lead world." Toxicity of lead was brought up in 1862 in Germany.
Ron

 

[muzzleloader48]

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!"

 

[flashpoint]

Amen to that Ron. Well said! FP

 

[Hanshi]

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!"

....and all the other crap.

 

[muzzleloader48]

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.

 

[clayguy]

Wow, so much cynacism and total disdain for science. It's amazes me. Hell maybe my 37 years working for an environmental protection agency was all for naught. When I was a kid in the 60s, we hardly ever saw Hawks let alone eagles or herons now they are thriving. I guess that's just coincidence?

The reason so many appear to be cynical is because we have been fed so much BS over the years. It's very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to separate fact from fiction. Moreover, to say "total disdain for science" is a bit of an exaggeration.

 

[Squint]

The reason so many appear to be cynical is because we have been fed so much BS over the years. It's very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to separate fact from fiction. Moreover, to say "total disdain for science" is a bit of an exaggeration.

I was raised on a sheep ranch and both Hawks and Eagles were viewed as villains of lambs and especially upland game birds, and we shot them indiscriminately in the 50s. We never ran out of them, and maybe we were wrong, but we quit losing lambs to Eagles and we had lots of game birds. That's all changed now, the sheep are long gone, the Eagles and Hawks are thick, sharp tailed grouse and sage chickens have, in that same area, almost disappeared. One more deciding factor was probably 1080 poison which took care of a large coyote population that also has come back with a vengeance and I doubt the birds appreciate them either. To expect the limiting factor on coyotes to be their starvation when there's no game left to hunt does not play well with sportsmen groups. Same thing can be said for Eagles and Hawks.