EU ban on lead ammunition for airguns, shotguns and rifles

I belong to a clay club with an average shoot size of 50 people. We shoot 72 clays, twice a month. Assuming we all use 28g lead cartridges that's more than two and a half tonnes of lead each year. The club has been shooting on the site for 50 years (125 tonnes!). It's a couple of acres of woods and fields.

I first did those sums a couple of years ago out of idle interest. I found the answer pretty shocking. My hobby, my club, is responsible for serious heavy metal contamination of a bit of land. I feel really uncomfortable about this.

I wish we would switch to steel. I genuinely would feel sorry for the couple of guys who shoot beautiful bits of history, who would probably have to switch to something more modern. But continuing to spread tonnes of lead shot every year is not OK.

The above is just my club, my situation. If you shoot somewhere that lead shot can be cleaned up (like the trap and skeet ranges at Bisley) then that's different, in my mind. Also target shooting into butts where the sand can be sifted and the lead recovered.

Lead's dead, man, lead's dead.

U.
 
I belong to a clay club with an average shoot size of 50 people. We shoot 72 clays, twice a month. Assuming we all use 28g lead cartridges that's more than two and a half tonnes of lead each year. The club has been shooting on the site for 50 years (125 tonnes!). It's a couple of acres of woods and fields.

I first did those sums a couple of years ago out of idle interest. I found the answer pretty shocking. My hobby, my club, is responsible for serious heavy metal contamination of a bit of land. I feel really uncomfortable about this.

I wish we would switch to steel. I genuinely would feel sorry for the couple of guys who shoot beautiful bits of history, who would probably have to switch to something more modern. But continuing to spread tonnes of lead shot every year is not OK.

The above is just my club, my situation. If you shoot somewhere that lead shot can be cleaned up (like the trap and skeet ranges at Bisley) then that's different, in my mind. Also target shooting into butts where the sand can be sifted and the lead recovered.

Lead's dead, man, lead's dead.

U.
This is the issue, people are thinking of themselves and their own particular interest, their not thinking of the future and what the future might bring.
 
I belong to a clay club with an average shoot size of 50 people. We shoot 72 clays, twice a month. Assuming we all use 28g lead cartridges that's more than two and a half tonnes of lead each year. The club has been shooting on the site for 50 years (125 tonnes!). It's a couple of acres of woods and fields.

I first did those sums a couple of years ago out of idle interest. I found the answer pretty shocking. My hobby, my club, is responsible for serious heavy metal contamination of a bit of land. I feel really uncomfortable about this.

I wish we would switch to steel. I genuinely would feel sorry for the couple of guys who shoot beautiful bits of history, who would probably have to switch to something more modern. But continuing to spread tonnes of lead shot every year is not OK.

The above is just my club, my situation. If you shoot somewhere that lead shot can be cleaned up (like the trap and skeet ranges at Bisley) then that's different, in my mind. Also target shooting into butts where the sand can be sifted and the lead recovered.

Lead's dead, man, lead's dead.

U.

That lead is in a very confined area and the potential risk to the environment is small, the voluntary move to non toxic is for live quarry shooting not clay pigeon shooting.

Look at it another way that is an investment for who ever owns the land in years to come they may recover the lead and at today price they are sitting on £137,000 of scrap lead, far more than a couple of acres of woods and fields are worth.
 
How can lead from a clay ground be other than like a surface deposit of lead ore?
No one drains the land to public use and lead is almost insoluable in water even with carbonic acid present.
Why does everyone claim the world is dying or more correctly being killed because of lead shot.
Show me the evidence, I cant find it and really really dislike the emotional clap-trap some people spout about lead.
However BASC are the worst, sacrificing a sensible and tenable position about "no evidence-no change" by changing overnight with NO EVIDENCE to support the volte-face.
Shooting has been largely cast into the fire by the ingrates at BASC, their subscribers will need to look at the meaning of INGRATE.
 
I wouldn't want to live on top of a deposit of lead ore. Would you?

Strange line of argument, that. Just because uranium ore exists naturally doesn't seem like a good argument for spreading it around in places where there is currently none.
 
Rather the reverse but it doesn't suit your argument.
Nobody asked you to live on it did they ?
How many people in Australia lived near or on a pitchblende deposit with no ill effects.
In both cases, the concentration has to be enough to affect health.
How many homes in Aberdeen and Cornwall, never mind Dartmoor are subject to Radon Gas - how many die from it.
How many people do you know who have died from lead poisoning.
Shooting with anything other is less humane than lead - unless you are denser.
 
Why does everyone claim the world is dying or more correctly being killed because of lead shot.
Show me the evidence, I cant find it and really really dislike the emotional clap-trap some people spout about lead.

Kes lead is frequently in ore with antimony and arsenic, clearly it is the arsenic some would think we are depositing around 😂
 
Would you both really be happy to live in a property with heavy metal contamination on the ground? What if you wanted to sell it at some stage? I'm guessing it could prove difficult just like some people that have known Radon problems or other issues such as flooding.
 
Lead is inert - we are talking about lead shot and the action of exposure of the pure metal through the action of powerful muscles (the gizzard) which allegedly releases forms of lead which poison the host. So sitting on lead isnt a problem the Romans did it for years and drank the water. There is, in my view very limited evidence if any for poisoning and what we are theoretically talking about - lead shot.
 
Would you both really be happy to live in a property with heavy metal contamination on the ground? What if you wanted to sell it at some stage? I'm guessing it could prove difficult just like some people that have known Radon problems or other issues such as flooding.
Lead isn't radioactive. Radon is.

'Heavy-metal contamination' is also an interesting and value-laden description. Does the lead on my roof mean that my house suffers from 'heavy-metal contamination'? Or has it just got some lead on the roof?
 
Lead isn't radioactive. Radon is.

'Heavy-metal contamination' is also an interesting and value-laden description. Does the lead on my roof mean that my house suffers from 'heavy-metal contamination'? Or has it just got some lead on the roof?
The Radon was just an example. I don't think I would buy a house with lead shot lying around the garden regardless of whether or not it is safe, the next buyer may not be willing to buy it because of that and I don't have the kind of money where I would be prepared to drop the price to a point where greed would overcome their fear. It would be no different if I was buying a house in a potential flood area or as I say a house affected by radon where a simple ventialtion kit could cure the problem.

Not trying to be controversial but just thinking I wouldn't want to jeopardise the biggest investment in my life
 
The Radon was just an example. I don't think I would buy a house with lead shot lying around the garden regardless of whether or not it is safe, the next buyer may not be willing to buy it because of that and I don't have the kind of money where I would be prepared to drop the price to a point where greed would overcome their fear. It would be no different if I was buying a house in a potential flood area or as I say a house affected by radon where a simple ventialtion kit could cure the problem.

Not trying to be controversial but just thinking I wouldn't want to jeopardise the biggest investment in my life
How would that lead shot cause harm to you?
 
Seeing all these comments makes you wonder if lead was that bad for humans and wildlife we surely should have all died out years ago.
 
I'm not actually saying that it would be. But there is a perception and the next buyer may not think the same as you and so it may be difficult to sell on.
Unable to make a medical or health case against clay-shooting with lead shot, we are now resorting to the economic impact on future, imagined, housing developments? Is that really a rational way to inform our society's decisions on how to balance relative harms?
 
Unable to make a medical or health case against clay-shooting with lead shot, we are now resorting to the economic impact on future, imagined, housing developments? Is that really a rational way to inform our society's decisions on how to balance relative harms?
@CarlW I'm not getting into an argument over this with you. I am just saying that from my point of view I wouldn't buy a house with lots of lead shot in the ground as I wouldn't want to take the risk of it loosing value in the future because of a perception from potential buyers that its harmful. Not talking about imagined housing developments or future economic impact other than mine personally and I wouldn't take the risk.
 
@CarlW I'm not getting into an argument over this with you. I am just saying that from my point of view I wouldn't buy a house with lots of lead shot in the ground as I wouldn't want to take the risk of it loosing value in the future because of a perception from potential buyers that its harmful. Not talking about imagined housing developments or future economic impact other than mine personally and I wouldn't take the risk.
That isn't an effective argument against the use of lead in clay-shooting, which was the sub-discussion, raised by @urban, upon which you intervened.

Incidentally, is it correct that Tungsten shot was outlawed in Denmark (in addition to lead)? Someone mentioned it to me recently, and it was the first I knew of it.
 
Back
Top