EU ban on lead ammunition for airguns, shotguns and rifles

[25 Sharps]

If we as the shooting fraternity acknowledge this information, and accept legislation that affords the public more confidence to eat game, then the resultant publicity can only be good for shooters and the viability of selling quality venison to a wider audience.

I

I get so bloody frustrated with these threads, I do wish people would look beyond their own noses and interests!!

Yes you can shoot deer with lead free so the new rules (that will arrive even if we are out of the EU) great!! What about the rest oif us who do a lot of predator and pest control as well as deer stalking, it will cause us lots of issues and ultimately lead to more animal suffering! But at least stalking will be ok so lets all signs our souls away!!

Divide and conquer springs to mind, except we don't need to be divided as different shooting disciplines are already so bloody isolationist!!! Pull the ladder up Jack, I'm alright . . . .

(not a rant at you personally Z so don't take it that way)

 

[CarlW]

I get so bloody frustrated with these threads, I do wish people would look beyond their own noses and interests!!

Yes you can shoot deer with lead free so the new rules (that will arrive even if we are out of the EU) great!! What about the rest oif us who do a lot of predator and pest control as well as deer stalking, it will cause us lots of issues and ultimately lead to more animal suffering! But at least stalking will be ok so lets all signs our souls away!!

Divide and conquer springs to mind, except we don't need to be divided as different shooting disciplines are already so bloody isolationist!!! Pull the ladder up Jack, I'm alright . . . .

(not a rant at you personally Z so don't take it that way)

Stalking won't be OK, @25 Sharps. There will be significantly more wounded animals.

 

[andyk]

Copper is also toxic but nobody seems fussed about that

Please stop with this argument, there is a gulf of difference between lead being toxic and copper.

Copper can be toxic in excess quantities but it’s also essential in small quantities. In consequence of their design, copper bullets also leave far less metal in the carcass then lead ones do.

Lead is toxic and there is no reason you’d want it in your body.

There is a separate argument to be made about whether lead bullet fragments in game lead to lead build up in the body and that’s my reason for having no problem with eating lead shot game. However, if forced, I’d much sooner eat powdered copper than lead.

 

[Apthorpe]

Copper is also toxic but nobody seems fussed about that

That's a non-starter of an argument. Copper is far less toxic than lead. There are good reasons for opposing lead ammunition bans, and this is not one of them. It only makes the proponent's other arguments look weak by association.

The indisputable facts are that there is no documented example of any person ever having been harmed by lead ammunition in food at any time or anywhere in the world; there is an excessive risk to waterfowl from lead shot, but lead shot is illegal already in those environments. Beyond that, there is unsupported and wild extrapolation of ridiculous and unverified claims put about by the usual suspects seeking to ban shooting or civilian firearms ownership for discreditable political reasons.

Sorry AndyK beat me to it.

 

[stubear]

Copper is also toxic but nobody seems fussed about that

Exactly! And too much of it will give you Wilsons disease.

Additionally copper is way more toxic to trees and plants than lead is. A lead bullet going into a tree wont kill the tree, but a copper one will. Clearly I'm going to have to add a "Trees & AOLQ" condition to my ticket as I'm going to be killing them fairly often it sounds like.

And then theres the issue that once said tree has died the estate staff will be out with a chainsaw to cut the tree down, and I'm sure they will REALLY appreciate the embedded bullet being thrown back at them at high speed or at the very least knackering their saw.

Also worth considering where does lead come from? The ground. All I'm doing is putting it back.

Theres no actual evidence presented anywhere for this ban. Its all just "possibility of...", "might be exposed to..." and "at risk of...". If they came back with concrete proof of something then I would be more inclined to believe it, and even then they're allowing the military (who probably get through more ammo in 6 months then the entire of civvy street in a year) to keep using it. Why is me going clay shooting going to poison millions of children and kittens but the military shooting next door isnt? Or is it suddenly not poisonous when the gubment do it?

And if the adage of "well if it saves one life" is going to become our mantra then we might as well give up now and stay in lockdown forever. Ban fast food, ban cars, motorbikes, choccy and junk food, ban tobacco, booze, no kichen knives, everyone has to have a tracker in their neck so no one can fall down a mountain ravine, we all have to do a mandatory 30 mins exercise daily or we get fined... Its going to be a really boring boring world.

 

[Pete1774]

Copper is also toxic but nobody seems fussed about that

Copper is toxic but the quantites required to produce symptoms (mainly liver and G.I. tract) are much greater than those for lead and the effects are generally reversible. Lead is far more dangerous because it is a cumulative poison. It also affects more of the organs, including the nervous system and will stay in the body for decades.

 

[Roestalker39]

A question for all the lead free mob , have you gone tee total ? It’s just that alcohol is harmful and there’s no reason to have it in your body and it causes a lot of deaths so have you gone tee total ? I see no reason not to !

 

[purdey24]

A question for all the lead free mob , have you gone tee total ? It’s just that alcohol is harmful and there’s no reason to have it in your body and it causes a lot of deaths so have you gone tee total ? I see no reason not to !

Yes, I have.

 

[merlin]

.....the BASC briefing note refers to the voluntary transition for lead shot - what I can't see anywhere is any reference to what air rifle shooters (full disclosure: I am one, as well as a user of rifles and shotguns) are supposed to use as an alternative to lead? Very expensive and limited range tin? Copper? What about FAC air rifles, where the very light weight of tin projectiles is going to be an issue? (full disclosure: I own one)

Grey squirrels are going to be rejoicing.....

 

[palmer_mike]

I would beg to differ here. It is well known that lead in all forms is poisonous / toxic and harmful. It's why we no longer use lead in petrol, plumbing and paint. And there is a growing body of scientific literature that is showing very clear links between lead and other heavy metals in your blood and likelihood of developing many of the very nasty and as yet untreatable cancers.

The trouble with modern medicine is that define threshold levels and for lead the level to considered Toxic is really quite high. Taking a scale of 1 being lead level in stone age man, most of us now have a level of 1,000 and toxic level is 4,000 - ie you are suffering from accute lead poisoning.

Early forms of Chemotherapy actually used chelating drugs to remove heavy metals from the blood, but all the excitement and value of new chemo drugs rather superceeded all he early work and not much work has been done in this area until the last few years. One of my clients is working in this area so I have an inside knowledge of what is going on and how they are establishing a causal link between lead in the blood, blood cancers and treatment regimes on reducing. This article was published in 2017, my clients are working on the results of this work Pioneering Ground-Breaking Cancer Research | Cancer Recovery Foundation.

The results were published in early 2020 - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajh.25731 - you can download the full text of the article.

The worrying thing is, is the low concentration of metals that are causing issues. On the above scale we are talking levels of 1,500 to 2,000 causing major issues. Or put it another way, how many of your friends and family who shoot are suffering or have died from some form of blood or lung cancers?

The positive is that early pre-clinical studies are showing good results - if anybody is seriously interested in finding out more drop me a PM.

Given that there is now published scientific literature in major journals (such as the American Journal of Haematology) it will be very difficult, if not totally irresponsible for regulators to ignore such evidence.

So are you suggesting that a total ban on lead ammunition is desirable?

I seem to remember your thread about the 300 year old muzzle loading rifle in which you are regretting the fact that it can’t be used legally for shooting deer in Scotland land......

of course a lead ban would prevent it being shot anywhere for anything as non-lead projectiles just won’t work in such a rifle

 

[zambezi]

And if the adage of "well if it saves one life" is going to become our mantra then we might as well give up now and stay in lockdown forever. Ban fast food, ban cars, motorbikes, choccy and junk food, ban tobacco, booze, no kichen knives, everyone has to have a tracker in their neck so no one can fall down a mountain ravine, we all have to do a mandatory 30 mins exercise daily or we get fined... Its going to be a really boring boring world.

That seems to be the present age's most devastating malaise: snowflake wokery that usurp's individual freedom to engage in the world fully. It curtails thought, speech and action in all spheres of life. It is corrosive to the human condition.

Resisting the insanities of nanny-state/woke legislation is a moral imperative.

But stoic resistance to any accommodation ultimately leads to enclaves in society of diminishing dimension.

We need to swell our numbers. I would that hunting culture in the U.K. were as intrinsic as it is in Finland. How can we ever aspire to fraternity enrolment or public support if we are perceived to be bricking up the doorway?

 

[JockStalk]

I’m thinking of starting a free disposal service for 105Amax. Europe wide. All you have to do is pay the postage. We might be out of the EU but we are still jolly old neighbours.

 

[andyk]

I get so bloody frustrated with these threads, I do wish people would look beyond their own noses and interests!!

Yes you can shoot deer with lead free so the new rules (that will arrive even if we are out of the EU) great!! What about the rest oif us who do a lot of predator and pest control as well as deer stalking, it will cause us lots of issues and ultimately lead to more animal suffering! But at least stalking will be ok so lets all signs our souls away!!

Divide and conquer springs to mind, except we don't need to be divided as different shooting disciplines are already so bloody isolationist!!! Pull the ladder up Jack, I'm alright . . . .

(not a rant at you personally Z so don't take it that way)

I'm certainly not, and nor do I think @zambezi is, suggesting that we pull up the drawbridge on other disciplines to protect stalking.

I think we have a fundamental disagreement between the likes of myself and Zambezi on one side, and @CarlW, @stubear etc on the other, about how best to protect shooting as a whole.

Were it left to me, I would certainly not ban lead ammo at all. However, I'm not looking at it from that perspective, I'm looking at it from the perspective of how best to minimise the impact of proposed lead bans on shooting as a whole. This is precisely because I fear for disciplines such as air gunning, rimfire and target shooting (to name a few) being hit worse by a lead ban as the alternatives are even less developed there than they are for shotguns or stalking rifles.

The current disagreement between the camps I speak of is whether we can keep using more lead for longer by holding the line and objecting to any regulation or reluctantly conceding some regulation to either prevent, or stall, regulation of those disciplines which would struggle to survive it with current offerings.

 

[CarlW]

I’m thinking of starting a free disposal service for 105Amax. Europe wide. All you have to do is pay the postage. We might be out of the EU but we are still jolly old neighbours.

Never mind the postage; we'll fire them at you...

 

[TomDeer]

I'm not certain where I stand on this. I can understand the consuming lead = health risk position. There would also seem to be the potential greater ricochet risk from non-lead projectiles perspective (if that is the case) as well to be considered.

From a stalking perspective I am probably not spraying enough lead around the place to make much, if any, difference to background lead levels. Actually, on recent trips I haven't sprayed any lead around - but that's a separate problem!

From a risk perspective, does using non-lead bullets pose a greater immediate risk (associated with ricochet etc) than the longer term risks of potentially increased background lead levels that might be ascoated with continuing with lead?

I accept we are already ensuring safe backstops etc to mitigate ricochet risk. If however there is an inherent increased risk of ricochet from non-lead (and I say "if" because I don't know the answer) do we have to reconsider what a safe shot is and does that potentially mean that an area of land suitable for shooting a particular calibre is no longer suitable for that calibre?

At the entry end for rifle shooting, non-lead air rifle and RF ammunition would seem to carry both an increased richochet risk and potential financial cost and may significantly restrict new entrants to shooting (when it's already hard enough to get into the sport). With the known ricochet risk of .22LR, what land would be safe to shoot one on unless any non-lead replacement mirrored (or was better than) current lead performance? Any arguments about fast frangible .17HMR rounds being 'safer' would also seem to go out the window if any non-lead replacment did not mirror the claimed performance of existing rounds (and I've already had the brown pant moment of a .17HMR ricochet to know they do ricochet!).

What is the objective evidence for all the 'pros and cons' either way?

Whatever the pros and cons are, we can probably rest comfortable in the knowledge that, whether in or out of the EU, politicians will do that which is politically expedient rather than sensible. If they make shooting beyond the financial reach of even more people, they probably won't be too bothered because most politicians fundamentally do not appear to like the idea of private gun ownership.

 

[25 Sharps]

Stalking won't be OK, @25 Sharps. There will be significantly more wounded animals.

Yes the animal welfare argument is the one that often gets forgotten. But what I meant was stalkers will be able to just carry on as they are

 

[25 Sharps]

Please stop with this argument, there is a gulf of difference between lead being toxic and copper.

Copper can be toxic in excess quantities but it’s also essential in small quantities. In consequence of their design, copper bullets also leave far less metal in the carcass then lead ones do.

Lead is toxic and there is no reason you’d want it in your body.

There is a separate argument to be made about whether lead bullet fragments in game lead to lead build up in the body and that’s my reason for having no problem with eating lead shot game. However, if forced, I’d much sooner eat powdered copper than lead.

Not want lead in your body? I pride myself on having plenty of lead in my pencil

 

[timbrayford]

Not necessarily so. While some military ammunition has a hardened steel penetrator core there are other similar bullets that are not actually designated as armour piercing. Then there are steel jacketed bullets with lead or other material cores. If these become more common place it's going to be fun in the future working out which is legal for target shooting and which isn't and almost impossible to police. It will give us plenty to debate and argue over for years to come.

You and I might appreciate that but will the HO & police?

 

[timbrayford]

Just out of interest, any of you that shoot a fox or rat with a lead bullet rimfire. How may of you eat or put the carcass into the human food chain?

 

[25 Sharps]

I'm certainly not, and nor do I think @zambezi is, suggesting that we pull up the drawbridge on other disciplines to protect stalking.

I think we have a fundamental disagreement between the likes of myself and Zambezi on one side, and @CarlW, @stubear etc on the other, about how best to protect shooting as a whole.

Were it left to me, I would certainly not ban lead ammo at all. However, I'm not looking at it from that perspective, I'm looking at it from the perspective of how best to minimise the impact of proposed lead bans on shooting as a whole. This is precisely because I fear for disciplines such as air gunning, rimfire and target shooting (to name a few) being hit worse by a lead ban as the alternatives are even less developed there than they are for shotguns or stalking rifles.

The current disagreement between the camps I speak of is whether we can keep using more lead for longer by holding the line and objecting to any regulation or reluctantly conceding some regulation to either prevent, or stall, regulation of those disciplines which would struggle to survive it with current offerings.

Where did I say anything about Zambezi pulling the drawbridge on other disciplines to protect shooting.

What Zambezi said was

If we as the shooting fraternity acknowledge this information, and accept legislation that affords the public more confidence to eat game, then the resultant publicity can only be good for shooters and the viability of selling quality venison to a wider audience.

This is a very shortsighted and deerstalking-centric, point of view IMO.

Firstly there is more of the the shooting fraternity that does not get involved with deer stalking than does so why should the majority give 2 hoots about the saleability of venison.

Secondly by accepting that the lead is harmful for humans in the food chain to the extent that is a problem we have to accept it is a problem in the bodies of quarry species that get eaten in the environment. So we are accepting a lead ban for quarry shooting in general and non lead bullets and pellets for predator and pest control and they are simply not as efficient ballistically or for killing.

If we accept it for stalking we have to accept it everywhere