Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
Fair point well made.
However, shooting is seen as optional, workplace exposure is not
Lead update.
- Thread starter gixer1
- Start date
However, shooting is seen as optional, workplace exposure is not
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
BASC has clearly outlined its arguments, including for target shooting, since the HSE review initiated in 2021 - a call for evidence and two consultations. In all the years I have been dealing with policy issues at BASC not once has 'commercial game shooting', as you put it, been a subject of discussion or influence on consultation responses or political lobbying against moves to ban lead ammunition. I would hope that I have invested sufficient time on this forum since 2012 to gain some degree of credibility and trust that I am being honest in stating that.
I have a couple of boxes of Nosler BT 243 bullets. I only measured a few, but none were more than 6.12mm. A different caliper might come up with something different!
Yes i agree to some extent - but it is us that use it in the "real world"
I wonder if going back to a shot cup helps patterns ?
SD interested to see what you call gluttonous - is it 100 / 200 / 300 bird day ? Or does it relate to the benefit thats may or may not occur ? Being wondering where i myself draw the line actually
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
There are shoots that care and horror story shoots.
On the whole part time keepers, or family owned shoots on private estates tend to be genuine.
It's the commercial boys that cater for the city bankers and such like.
I just believe the purity is lost by commercialisation. A family shoot or even a volunteer shoot selling a day to support it's costs is fine in my opinion.
I see the BBC reports, today, this
www.bbc.co.uk
When the law was introduced, the UK government suggested there were about 10,000 XL bully dogs in England and Wales, but that was a vast underestimate - there are now more than 57,000 of the dogs registered with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
Given that when handguns were prohibited the civil servants who then advised the government said the cost of the ban would be a fraction of the near £198 million it did cost I have to ask if we should trust ANY of the figures given to us in the proposal to now ban lead.
For I cynically believe that there are those within the civil service now...as with the handgun ban...who will skew the figures presented to their elected masters in order to further their own personal opinion on what they hope the outcome of showing such numbers to be.
Are we seeing the same with the supposed presented figures for bird deaths from ingestion apparently as a result of their ingesting lead shot as "grit"? Selective use of "worst possible case" projections? So to steer elected ministers to direction of what those with an axe to grind wish to see achieved?
XL bully victim calls ban ‘useless’ as 100 dogs a month destroyed
Cost of kennelling seized dogs soars and in many areas attacks continue to rise, forces tell the BBC.
www.bbc.co.uk
When the law was introduced, the UK government suggested there were about 10,000 XL bully dogs in England and Wales, but that was a vast underestimate - there are now more than 57,000 of the dogs registered with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
Given that when handguns were prohibited the civil servants who then advised the government said the cost of the ban would be a fraction of the near £198 million it did cost I have to ask if we should trust ANY of the figures given to us in the proposal to now ban lead.
For I cynically believe that there are those within the civil service now...as with the handgun ban...who will skew the figures presented to their elected masters in order to further their own personal opinion on what they hope the outcome of showing such numbers to be.
Are we seeing the same with the supposed presented figures for bird deaths from ingestion apparently as a result of their ingesting lead shot as "grit"? Selective use of "worst possible case" projections? So to steer elected ministers to direction of what those with an axe to grind wish to see achieved?
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Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
The forestry companies didn’t like steel shot in their timber, same thing in Sweden.If the science is correct how come Norway switched back to lead??
I wonder if their ministers are into hunting more than ours
Plus the hunting in Scandinavia is low density over large areas and they don’t usually sell game, the hunters lobbied and their governments told the EU to go away. There was no problem with lead so they saw no reason to ban it.
The Hungarians and Poles did something similar ( I think, there may have been others).
The proposed EU wide ban is stalled as a result and now they have more important things to poke their noses into with the war in Ukraine and the collapse of the German auto industry.
We implemented a partial ban that is completely impractical and impossible to enforce, but what else would you expect from the Green Party?
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Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
The proposal’s from HSE are just that - proposals. They need to go to parliament and be debated and then transitioned into law.
There is and will be plenty of whining about loss of freedom’s etc but if passed, then we can be confident that any game meat going into the market is lead free and that should help with consumer uptake.
I am disappointed that HSE still are happy for sub 6mms to use lead to shoot vermin. This makes little sense, most shot vermin will be left in the field where they will be consumed by birds of prey and other critters, and thus get poisoned by lead contamination.
There are lead free options in centre fire 22 and in 17 HMR. There are options being developed in other small cartridges.
I spent yesterday on a small phaesant shoot with a 100 year old 16 bore Webley using a Lyalvale 65mm (2 1/2”) 26gram of No 4 steel shot. I shot three phaesants that came off the top of a high bank and were as high up as I would ever want to shoot a bird. All three folded and dropped dead 50 yards down the bank. On an earlier drive I shot two birds. One dropped dead, the other was hit and went on stiff wing glide over the boundary but then collapsed. I clean missed two others. I fired 12 shots. This was nothing more or less than I expected.
16 bore has a couple of options for steel - they work. At current point in time 28 and 410’s do not, but steel shot loaded cartridges are available overseas, so should become available in the UK.
Those 16 bore cartridges were £5 more for 250 than a slab of lyalvale 28gram lead.
If I was using Bismuth my cartridge cost would still have less that a meal at pub afterwards.
What I do know is that the bird I didn’t pick will not poison anything when into goes into the wild food chain.
Copper bullets work on deer - my own experience is that a good monolithic bullet is the most effective. Kills cleanly, minimal carcass damage. You do need to adjust point impact and a well behind shoulder into the lungs will not be as effective. Put it tight into the shoulder or into the HILAR it drops dead on the spot.
Target shooting with rifles. Many ranges - Bisely and our own club range have butts with the ability to capture bullets. The HSE proposal is that lead target bullets will still be available for purchase and use where the range operator can ensure and document that the lead is captured and not going into the wider environment.
There is and will be plenty of whining about loss of freedom’s etc but if passed, then we can be confident that any game meat going into the market is lead free and that should help with consumer uptake.
I am disappointed that HSE still are happy for sub 6mms to use lead to shoot vermin. This makes little sense, most shot vermin will be left in the field where they will be consumed by birds of prey and other critters, and thus get poisoned by lead contamination.
There are lead free options in centre fire 22 and in 17 HMR. There are options being developed in other small cartridges.
I spent yesterday on a small phaesant shoot with a 100 year old 16 bore Webley using a Lyalvale 65mm (2 1/2”) 26gram of No 4 steel shot. I shot three phaesants that came off the top of a high bank and were as high up as I would ever want to shoot a bird. All three folded and dropped dead 50 yards down the bank. On an earlier drive I shot two birds. One dropped dead, the other was hit and went on stiff wing glide over the boundary but then collapsed. I clean missed two others. I fired 12 shots. This was nothing more or less than I expected.
16 bore has a couple of options for steel - they work. At current point in time 28 and 410’s do not, but steel shot loaded cartridges are available overseas, so should become available in the UK.
Those 16 bore cartridges were £5 more for 250 than a slab of lyalvale 28gram lead.
If I was using Bismuth my cartridge cost would still have less that a meal at pub afterwards.
What I do know is that the bird I didn’t pick will not poison anything when into goes into the wild food chain.
Copper bullets work on deer - my own experience is that a good monolithic bullet is the most effective. Kills cleanly, minimal carcass damage. You do need to adjust point impact and a well behind shoulder into the lungs will not be as effective. Put it tight into the shoulder or into the HILAR it drops dead on the spot.
Target shooting with rifles. Many ranges - Bisely and our own club range have butts with the ability to capture bullets. The HSE proposal is that lead target bullets will still be available for purchase and use where the range operator can ensure and document that the lead is captured and not going into the wider environment.
Morkai
Well-Known Member
Im not sure that the reason for low consumer uptake is because deer are shot with lead. More like the general public see them as Bambi and a lot of the public are very disconnected from and closed minded regarding food.
Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
Presence of lead will put a lot of commercial buyers and consumers off. If you are a restauranter, buyer for supermarket, school or hospital, many will not take risk when the Food Standard Agency’s warning to consumers is:
People in the UK are risk adverse. If you were a buyer buying meat to be served as part of a school menu, would you buy phaesant or venison given the FSA advice. If you were a governor or a trustee of a school would you allow game to be served to children. Most would not take the risk of going against Government guidance.
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It says “minimise” which indicates they are aware that removing it altogether is impossible.
Unlike stopping smoking where people are still allowed to smoke just not in certain environments.
Or with highly processed foods. I personally don’t like them and know that they are not good for my long term health, but if other people want to eat them and have health problems then that is their option.
I’m sorry but I’m still coming back to section 4.7 when they admit they don’t actually have much in the way of real evidence for a ban.
The issue here is two fold in my view:
1) That it’s apparently acceptable to enact legislation on one’s citizens without any evidence supporting the need to do so.
2) That our politicians aren’t going back to the HSE and saying “look, we see where you’re going with this but you don’t have any actual evidence - how about you go away and conduct some studies and then come back to us when you do?”
And then on a related topic I also find it highly concerning how many people seem to be ok with the above status quo.
I’m not ideologically wedded to lead and if there’s an alternative that works as well for the same money then cool, I’ll use it. But I’m not going to switch (unless forced to) when there is literally no evidence that I need to do so and the people recommending I be forced to do so have been unable to find any evidence despite a window of years of looking for it.
The issue here is two fold in my view:
1) That it’s apparently acceptable to enact legislation on one’s citizens without any evidence supporting the need to do so.
2) That our politicians aren’t going back to the HSE and saying “look, we see where you’re going with this but you don’t have any actual evidence - how about you go away and conduct some studies and then come back to us when you do?”
And then on a related topic I also find it highly concerning how many people seem to be ok with the above status quo.
I’m not ideologically wedded to lead and if there’s an alternative that works as well for the same money then cool, I’ll use it. But I’m not going to switch (unless forced to) when there is literally no evidence that I need to do so and the people recommending I be forced to do so have been unable to find any evidence despite a window of years of looking for it.
But is copper not toxic too
And yet thousands upon thousands of people die from alcohol each year
Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
There is plenty of good scientific evidence that demonstrates very clearly that:
1) lead and other heavy metals can have major negative effects on the immune system and in particular on p53 protein. Medical professionals know and understand dangers of lead, so do the military (look at the design of range orders and ventilation requirements), and lead is no longer used in water pipes, solder joints, paints, petrol etc. etc.
Medical professions consider that no level of lead exposure is safe.
2) there is plenty of good research demonstrating the bioavailability of lead and how it can transported into organisms through ingestion. Lead is readily dissolved in weak acids and being transported into the body through the gut or within the lungs.
Much of this evidence is still with Scientific literature and thus not easily understood by many.
There are plenty of good alternatives to lead for vast majority of guns. When leaded petrol was banned from use there was huge concern about engines not being able to use unleaded petrol. There are plenty of petrol engine cars on the roads. Older vintage cars - series landrovers, MGs etc run perfectly well on unleaded fuel with the addition of Redex. Those sorts of engines need rebuilding every 50 to 100k miles and adding valves suitable for unleaded is normal rebuild procedure.
Leaded petrol can still be obtained for use in old vintage cars of historic value. Its expensive, but if you are running a 1920’s Bentley or Aston it’s what is used.
Hopefully there will be derogation allowing use of lead in vintage guns and fir target shooting where there is a means for capturing the lead.
toaster
Well-Known Member
Lots of very interesting arguments and observations to be read in this thread.
I’m no expert on any of this but it appears to me that the current UK government are attempting to move towards more alignment with the EU on standards and regulations - what’s the chances that they just implement whatever the EU implements whenever the EU implements it?
I’m no expert on any of this but it appears to me that the current UK government are attempting to move towards more alignment with the EU on standards and regulations - what’s the chances that they just implement whatever the EU implements whenever the EU implements it?
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