lead ammunition HSE report

Status
Not open for further replies.
You’re worse than me, and that’s saying something.

I would dearly love to host you here - your rifle, your ammunition, your dog - and take you up on the hill to shoot our pest deer in our conditions at our ranges. It would be highly informative to see how many days you spend searching for deer, because we’d make you go find every single one of them - that’s the only condition, ok? One thing for sure, you’d go home very fit (and both dog and owner with tails between legs).

Our conclusion from our shooting is that the standard swaged copper bullet design is unethical beyond low medium range. You’ll get lucky with 2-3 in 10 and strike something immediately vital, but for the rest you’ll see far longer runs and more lost, wounded deer. Swaged copper has bad BC and less reliable windage and simply aren’t as good performers in our conditions in terms of accuracy and precision. You can argue with that if you like, and surely will with all the sarkiness and smirks, I couldn’t give a flying fuk. 375 yards? A chip shot. You don’t shoot in those conditions, so you don’t know. Period.

Not that it should really bother you or 95% of UK recreational shooters, who don’t shoot like we do, ever. But for those that do, it’s a critical problem.

Swaged copper bullets are an old design that will one day be obselete. There’s a whole bunch of innovative manufacturers who are delivering a new level of confidence as to what non-lead bullets can do, which is really exciting. You guys should do everything you can to support Yew Tree and Virtus and so on, because that’s where the design philosophy is going. The very idea that you can have a product range that delivers progressively greater expansion / fragmentation to suit different applications, game and conditions is fantastic. Far more flexible and useful than the one size fits all (with attendant bullshcit claims) that Barnes produces.

So how ‘bout it? You can come and have a holiday and be Ruapehu Deer Search for a week. Country so steep your knees will want to stay in Norfolk. And your dog will go on strike. I’ll keep some ELD-X and BTSP aside to help with the inevitable follow up shots (which I’ll do, ok?).
Is NZ proposing to go lead free?
 
I can get them from my local gunshop.

They are perfectly adequate for live quarry.
i do not know one game or pigeon shooter who would consider a size 9 shot suitable for live quarry shooting, it’s a 20yards clay pigeon skeet cartridge size shot, but each to their own.

Recommendation is to go up two sizes in steel shot to maintain the same energy as lead so 7 lead should be 5 in steel.
 
Last edited:
The technology will adapt for rifle bullets. Not swaged but machined.

Precision nuts and bolts can be produced by fully automated lathes fed from copper rod or copper wire. There will be little required to produce such machines to produce copper bullets. Indeed on Accurate Reloading Forum the owner of the site Saeed Al Maktoum already has such a machine in operation.

Using, as Saeed says "Just normal copper and brass, from wholesalers who sell to the building trade. One of then asked to come and see our operation, as we buy thousands of meters from him in varying diameters."

I am very very pro-lead (see my posts on that matter) and against all this move to non-lead but also am a realist.

You play the percentages. I don't like it. But it has served me well many times.



 
Last edited:
Jocker Biosteel Clay= £221/1000


Biosteel game = £369/1000


And they go through a £25 AYA sxs and guess what. They work.
Word of warning on this - 32g Joker Biosteel Game is HP steel, so not suitable in my old AYA. The 28g is fine apparently and seems to work with No. 4 shot. I chose this over the other options, as I thought them less of of choke hazard to cattle.
 
Last edited:
The technology will adapt for rifle bullets. Not swaged but machined.

I am very very pro-lead (see my posts on that matter) and against all this move to non-lead but also am a realist.

You play the percentages. I don't like it. But it has served me well many times.

Precision nuts and bolts can be produced by fully automated lathes fed from copper rod or copper wire. There will be little required to produce such machines to produce copper bullets. Indeed on Accurate Reloading Forum the owner of the site Saeed Al Maktoum already has such a machine in operation.




good but google sliding head CNC if you want real precision and high speeds, no need for the part to stick out of the collet chuck.
 
Is NZ proposing to go lead free?
No. Not yet! Not that it would ever been enforceable. We wouldn’t take the blindest bit of notice.

Our interest in this is because we like “finding out”. We have the ideal conditions to test hypotheses, from subsonic cast lead to extreme range ultra high BC hunting bullets. And its fun. And we also lucked into bucket loads of Barnes from a deceased estate, most of which were sold in the end, for obvious reasons. And both me and my business partners loathe the “minimum expansion” claims made by copper bullet manufacturers and like taking it on.

I’m not actually a long range deer shooter. To you guys maybe, but not in terms of what the proper long range shooters do. Not really into it, too much mucking around. These days my carry rifle needs to be able to shoot deer from 10 to 500m without cocking around with all the tactical gear, and without recourse to a powerful magnum. I have not come across a copper bullet that will reliably deliver from 300m and up within these constraints. But I’m pretty confident one will turn up eventually.

When situations call for longer shooting than normal, then the tacticool rifles come out, and the whole process changes gear. There’s no room for non-lead whatsoever. Soft lead, highest BC, pretty colour tips, that’s all that’s allowed. For good reason.
 
It's brilliant! I got an AYA sxs a few weeks ago for £25. Nothing wrong with it. Fits me a treat and perfectly capable of shooting SP steel.

Again I am angry that this nonsense has been put upon us with, I truly believe, the actual agenda of ending shooting rather than any consideration of either animal welfare or public health. But as said above I play the percentages. I sold my own Boss gun at the end of December 2021 and, yes, took in effect a loss, but I fear that my loss will be far smaller than the loss suffered by those who didn't jump early.

This will destroy the trade in bespoke British guns here in the UK I predict. And what did I get for my Boss? A four figure cash settlement and (with an eye to the percentages) a boxlock ejector AYA No4 in .410" as the "cherry" on top of the deal. And with £55 of the cash settlement a AYA Yeoman Ejector one month later from Holt's. It's a disappointing state of affairs and I greatly object to where we have arrived and how we have arrived.

I'll take the "hit" and use bismuth in may father's gun that he had as a twelfth birthday present in 1919 but I won't use steel in the Boss as if the barrels are degraded the replacement cost is shocking. And I won't pay the cost of bismuth to feed it as it's to me it's a tool it has no emotional connection in that respect. So it has had to go.

My son can make do with a Gunmark Viscount SLE I bought for him (in anticipation of this steel stupidity three years ago) and I've just today bought this long 15 3/4" stock Somerton Guns self-opener SLE for myself.

I would urge others to also grit your teeth and do similar. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. But, if it is to be, look to putting yourself ahead of the collapse in the English bespoke market for such guns here in the UK.

Somerton.jpg
 
Last edited:
i do not know one game or pigeon shooter who would consider a size 9 shot suitable for live quarry shooting, it’s a 20yards clay pigeon skeet cartridge size shot, but each to their own.

Recommendation is to go up two sizes in steel shot to maintain the same energy as lead so 7 lead should be 5 in steel.
I never mentioned using size 9 shot.

Firdtly the recomendation to go two shot sizes larger is out of date. Steel 5's are perfectly adequate for pigeon shooting for example.


You said that you couldn't get biodegradable wad steel cartridges... Well I can.

You said that steel was more expensive than lead... It's not.

You said it's not effective... That's wrong.
 
I never mentioned using size 9 shot.

Firdtly the recomendation to go two shot sizes larger is out of date. Steel 5's are perfectly adequate for pigeon shooting for example.


You said that you couldn't get biodegradable wad steel cartridges... Well I can.

You said that steel was more expensive than lead... It's not.

You said it's not effective... That's wrong.

well as far as I know the link to the cheap £221 jocker cartridges is as it states a steel clay cartridge in steel size 7 shot only.

Jocker​

Bio Steel Clay 12Ga​


hence equivalent to a lead size 9

if you are using their steel game cartridges you will not as you say be using a size 9 equivalent but at £369 then they are more expensive then lead in fibre wads at around £300 for a 32gm 6 shot or £245 for a 28gm 7 shot, so yes are more expensive.

Have you purchased any recently, as again as of a month or so back the U.K. importer had none.

And yes a U.K. lead 7 (2.4mm) is a capable pigeon decoy cartridge within sensible ranges, so a steel 5 (going up two sizes) as you say will do like wise.

These are the Jocker game cartridges again if you can find them.



As for going up two sizes is out of date, then obviously the law of physics must have recently changed, the density of lead has got less and the density of steel more and time travel is now also possible.
Its only out of date if you believe in fake news, or want to shoot at very restricted distances.
 
Last edited:
well as far as I know the link to the cheap £221 jocker cartridges is as it states a steel clay cartridge in steel size 7 shot only.

Jocker​

Bio Steel Clay 12Ga​


hence equivalent to a lead size 9

Have you purchased any recently, as again as of a month or so back the U.K. importer had none.

And yes a U.K. lead 7 (2.4mm) is a capable pigeon decoy cartridge within sensible ranges, so a steel 5 (going up two sizes) as you say will do like wise.

These are the Jocker game cartridges again if you can find them.

Did you read my initial post?

I also posted the link to the biosteel game! And the Price! It wasn't, as you stated over £400 per 1000.

You keep coming up with problems but you don't know what you are talking about. You purport to have inside knowledge of cartridge manufacturing and yet I can go and do things you say can't be done.

I am actually regularly buying these cartridges in real life, using them myself and giving them to people who shoot on my behalf. I speak from actual real experience, these cartridges have accounted for thousands of pigeons on my own land alone not just by me. They are fairly priced, have eco-friendly or whatever you want to call it wads and they perform just the same as any comparable lead cartridge.

You post about all sorts of things that I don't know about but the stuff I do, that I am doing in the real world and not just on a website you get wrong time after time... Leads me to believe that everything you post is tripe.

The vast majority of the posts in favour of lead ammunition on here are so poorly informed it's a joke. You are without exception a bunch of clowns. Open your eyes. If you think a ban on lead ammunition is going to be the end of shooting your are mistaken

Whatever you think about the safety of eating lead shot game or leaving lead shot carcasses in the environment take off your blinkers and realise that the entire educated world understands that lead is poisonous to people and to birds and mammals. Now try and make an argument that persuades someone who is even just on the fence about shooting that it's okay to spray a poison all over the countryside and then eat the stuff you've riddled with a poisonous material!

What are your arguments?

My grandfather only ever ate a diet of scrap lead and he lived until he was 90!

It occurs in rocks!

We used to have lead pipes!

It's never done me any harm!

But there are too many birds of prey!

Where are all the dead ducks!

I really enjoy shooting my obscure gun that actually I'll still be able to shoot with a bit of patience and effort!

I'll have to sell my expensive shotgun and it won't be worth anything but actually you won't, you'll just have to be patient and put in some effort.

You just end up sounding either too stupid to realise that you are clutching at straws or too stubborn to realise that lead has had it's day.

I'm a farmer. My industry has used all sorts of horrible chemicals to produce food, increase yields etc, they got banned, guess what? Britain is still farming, sensible people change and evolve with the times.

Get real. Shooters are a minority by far. Nobody cares about your "sport." The overwhelming majority of the general public are either agains shooting or couldn't give two hoots about it's continuation. If you can't see that and anticipate the change, put a little bit of effort in to move with the times you are dead in the water - it's not rocket science. People like Norfolk Deer Search have been doing it for years! Longer than I have and NDS isn't alone.

Non-lead is the future of shooting.

Shooters are going to be the end of shooting.
 
Did you read my initial post?

I also posted the link to the biosteel game! And the Price! It wasn't, as you stated over £400 per 1000.

You keep coming up with problems but you don't know what you are talking about. You purport to have inside knowledge of cartridge manufacturing and yet I can go and do things you say can't be done.

I am actually regularly buying these cartridges in real life, using them myself and giving them to people who shoot on my behalf. I speak from actual real experience, these cartridges have accounted for thousands of pigeons on my own land alone not just by me. They are fairly priced, have eco-friendly or whatever you want to call it wads and they perform just the same as any comparable lead cartridge.

You post about all sorts of things that I don't know about but the stuff I do, that I am doing in the real world and not just on a website you get wrong time after time... Leads me to believe that everything you post is tripe.

The vast majority of the posts in favour of lead ammunition on here are so poorly informed it's a joke. You are without exception a bunch of clowns. Open your eyes. If you think a ban on lead ammunition is going to be the end of shooting your are mistaken

Whatever you think about the safety of eating lead shot game or leaving lead shot carcasses in the environment take off your blinkers and realise that the entire educated world understands that lead is poisonous to people and to birds and mammals. Now try and make an argument that persuades someone who is even just on the fence about shooting that it's okay to spray a poison all over the countryside and then eat the stuff you've riddled with a poisonous material!

What are your arguments?

My grandfather only ever ate a diet of scrap lead and he lived until he was 90!

It occurs in rocks!

We used to have lead pipes!

It's never done me any harm!

But there are too many birds of prey!

Where are all the dead ducks!

I really enjoy shooting my obscure gun that actually I'll still be able to shoot with a bit of patience and effort!

I'll have to sell my expensive shotgun and it won't be worth anything but actually you won't, you'll just have to be patient and put in some effort.

You just end up sounding either too stupid to realise that you are clutching at straws or too stubborn to realise that lead has had it's day.

I'm a farmer. My industry has used all sorts of horrible chemicals to produce food, increase yields etc, they got banned, guess what? Britain is still farming, sensible people change and evolve with the times.

Get real. Shooters are a minority by far. Nobody cares about your "sport." The overwhelming majority of the general public are either agains shooting or couldn't give two hoots about it's continuation. If you can't see that and anticipate the change, put a little bit of effort in to move with the times you are dead in the water - it's not rocket science. People like Norfolk Deer Search have been doing it for years! Longer than I have and NDS isn't alone.

Non-lead is the future of shooting.

Shooters are going to be the end of shooting.

if you are using the jocker steel game then I total agree with you, if you want to argue over £369 vs £400 then so be it, but you will not get steel shot cartridges in biodegradable wads for the same price as fibre wad lead cartridges so I stand by my statement that they are more expensive.
My experience of them is that the recoil is very firm and will not be to everybody's liking.

If the next lot imported stay at £369 then I will be pleasantly surprised as every other make has increased prices recently.

You will have one advantage as a farmer in that you probably claim the VAT back on cartridges you purchase and use.

as for non-lead is the future of shooting, I don’t think I have disagreed with that, just what the future will look like Is the question.
 
I have killed more deer with copper than most can ever dream of killing with lead.

Out of 4000 copper rounds 4 have penciled in 15 years thats not too bad average is it?

Everything i say on this subject is 100% fact from experience and not listening to others who think they know.

You sir are a sheep 🐑 how about being a big boy and finding out for yourself without listening to all the bollocks.

I will even pass my wisdom of you wish
You just can't educate some people on copper I'm afraid. They have their heads buried firmly in the sand
 
Last edited:
You just can't educate some people
People don't want to listen, its as simple as that!

Those who have listened have found a solution and are now cracking on!

I am not anti lead in any way, all i have said is the ban is coming and get ready for it!

Now there is a heap of flapping going on from some very grumpy shooters who didn’t read the writing on the wall.

It is a very sad event in the history of shooting but as i have said all along

Find a solution, adapt and crack on!
 
People don't want to listen, its as simple as that!

Those who have listened have found a solution and are now cracking on!

I am not anti lead in any way, all i have said is the ban is coming and get ready for it!

Now there is a heap of flapping going on from some very grumpy shooters who didn’t read the writing on the wall.

It is a very sad event in the history of shooting but as i have said all along

Find a solution, adapt and crack on!
I agree its getting boring now. Copper kills just as quick and out to distances most couldn't shoot. I was happy shooting lead now im just as happy shooting copper. My gamedealer is happy. My private customers are happy. Even better I've found some copper I can load myself made here in the UK 👍
 
I've read with with intrigue. For my own personal situation, I am interested to see:

Good lead free alternative for .243 (I don't know what people are using for roe. I'm not really a fox shooter)
Good lead free alternative air rifle pellets. I have a .20 FAC and cant find any. I'll either have to sell it now or hang on until something turns up
Good lead free alternative .22 rf bullets. The .22 rf question. A lot of us have one because it is sub sonic. So far, I cant see a sub sonic lead alternative.
 
I have been personally insulted on this thread and by Hendrix and previously by Hayduke, so not zero tolerence really.
Try administering this site if you want to be insulted:)

People have two choices on this site, stay or go. Frankly I get rather tired of the petty squabbles between people. There are more important things in life. This lead business, along with a few other issues beggars belief with how some people behave and start to resort to name calling, and calling into question peoples judgement. And that because they have suddenly used copper bullets, the whole stalking world is wrong in their opinion, and they are right.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top