SGA lead free ammo survey results

[palmer_mike]

The SGA conducted a survey of deer managers regarding use of lead free ammo.

Public safety fears over Copper bullet switch

Anonymous Survey highlights stalker fears

www.scottishgamekeepers.co.uk

 

[Smellydog]

Thank you very much

 

[nun_hunter]

The same people traumatised by shooting does in March no doubt.

 

[Malxwal]

The same people traumatised by shooting does in March no doubt.

What's public safety got to do with shooting does in March ? "Professionals managing deer at night", not amateurs whose lives are so busy they need to shoot deer with digital scopes.

 

[nun_hunter]

What's public safety got to do with shooting does in March ? "Professionals managing deer at night", not amateurs whose lives are so busy they need to shoot deer with digital scopes.

It would seem that whomever the SGA are polling on deer related matters are unwilling or incapable of adapting to change without kicking up a fuss. Much like the PTSD that would be caused to stalkers in Scotland by shooting does in March whilst the rest of the UK seems to be coping fine.

The examples given of the dangers of copper bullets can and have all occurred with traditional lead bullets.

I would have thought that "professionals shooting at night" would be using thermal spotters, so far more likely to identify rogue members of public wandering around than they would do during the day time.

 

[Heym SR20]

Most of will agree that venison and game is a wonderful wild sourced nutritious food. It is. It provides a resource from non cultivated land that can be used sustainably. And we want the public to consume it.

Yet we still want to shoot it with lead that is regarded by most as highly toxic and harmful. Packaging of game contains warnings of the potential harm it may cause. Indeed so do cartridges.

We stopped using lead in paint, children’s toys and petrol decades ago. There are perfectly good alternatives. Nowadays there perfectly good alternatives to lead for bullets and shot.

Many will disagree with the science and that the earth is flat, and opine all a conspiracy, and it’s against their human rights, but I fully support a ban on lead be used for hunting.

 

[palmer_mike]

I can without a hint of dishonesty say they despite many people I know or have met not eating game meat, not a single one of them mentioned the fear of lead contamination as a reason for not doing so.

 

[HonestJohn]

..

The examples given of the dangers of copper bullets can and have all occurred with traditional lead bullets.

I would have thought that "professionals shooting at night" would be using thermal spotters, so far more likely to identify rogue members of public wandering around than they would do during the day time.

Point 1. - probably, but nowhere to the same extent

Point 2. - daytime spotting with thermals would likely provide a similar heat signature.
However, tall vegetation, esp wet, will
Completely hide a heat signature. Could easily be a guy sleeping in a tent in an area with wet vegetation a Spotter won’t pick up.
Nothing rogue about people using the resources made available to the public, it’s not just a stalkers right to be there, we essentially ‘all’ own it

 

[Edinburgh Rifles]

Everyone is a professional now didnt you know…
The questions are so skewed they wouldn't pass muster in any scientific or data driven methodology

The chairman is so publicly outspoken about ‘his fears’ without fact or data to back them up it is verging on irrational

On a public forum he stated he was worried about non lead bullets “rusting” in the carcasses….

 

[Edinburgh Rifles]

All ammunition used today contains LEAD!

Can you expand on your signature
Am intrigued

 

[David Barker]

The same people traumatised by shooting does in March no doubt.

Its Hinds in March.

 

[ndjfb00]

It would seem that whomever the SGA are polling on deer related matters are unwilling or incapable of adapting to change without kicking up a fuss. Much like the PTSD that would be caused to stalkers in Scotland by shooting does in March whilst the rest of the UK seems to be coping fine.

The examples given of the dangers of copper bullets can and have all occurred with traditional lead bullets.

I would have thought that "professionals shooting at night" would be using thermal spotters, so far more likely to identify rogue members of public wandering around than they would do during the day time.

I think you have written what plenty are thinking but you'll need a tin helmet I feel

 

[RCS Deer Management]

Everyone seems to be very extremist on their views on lead free? Either massively for or massively against.

Surely there are both pros and cos

Pros -
. completely non toxic , better for putting food in for human consumption
. Anti organisations can’t use lead ammo as a lever against the shooting world
. Tidier carcasses due to less violent expansion (unless of course you are having to pin shoulders in order to make the bullet expand)

Against -
. Lead free doesn’t kill as well (people argue that it does till they turn blue in the face but then double it up with a comment about just pinning deer through the shoulders)
. Monolithic bullets do ricochet noticeably worse than a frangiable lead bullet
. Monolithic bullets tend to have lower bc , some people say that it doesn’t make a difference at stalking distances, normally only whilst promoting their favourite monolithic bullet that has the bc of a brick. Like it or loath it, a fair few deer are shot past 250m and bc starts mattering at that distance.

 

[nun_hunter]

Its Hinds in March.

Apologies, I thought it also included roe does in Scotland with the proposed changes.

 

[LuckyEddie]

Everyone seems to be very extremist on their views on lead free? Either massively for or massively against.

Surely there are both pros and cos

Pros -
. completely non toxic , better for putting food in for human consumption
. Anti organisations can’t use lead ammo as a lever against the shooting world
. Tidier carcasses due to less violent expansion (unless of course you are having to pin shoulders in order to make the bullet expand)

I would hesitate to say completely non toxic.
Shoot it over acidic ground often enough and it may well become a problem.

Angry backlash at meeting over Coatbridge 'blue water' schools

A public meeting about health concerns at two High Schools in Coatbridge grew heated as parents quizzed NHS and council officials.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[RCS Deer Management]

I would hesitate to say completely non toxic.
Shoot it over acidic ground often enough and it may well become a problem.

Angry backlash at meeting over Coatbridge 'blue water' schools

A public meeting about health concerns at two High Schools in Coatbridge grew heated as parents quizzed NHS and council officials.

www.bbc.co.uk

Well I don’t think that spreading the fact that copper can be harmful as a defence for lead ammunition is very clever. Lead is on its way out whether we like it or not, At the moment we have an alternative for lead. I’d rather not put that alternative at risk in a futile attempt to prolong the use of lead ammunition

 

[Edinburgh Rifles]

Arent all the majority of pipes in your house made from copper?,.......
why isn't all our water blue?


No such thing as "non toxic" ammunition
Its non lead and in the grand scheme of things they (Cu, Zn, Sn, Bi, W, etc) are inifinitelty less toxic than lead.

To lump them together when it comes to bullets and say "they" all do one thing or another is the same as saying "All lead bullets work well on all deer".... naive

If they ricochet then you have shot into a backstop that promotes ricochet
Only one organisation has done an "independant" study into ricochet risk using the same backstiop substrates with different bullets
The NRA

The report wasn't publicly released, aruably because the results didn't fit the anti"non lead" agenda many of the stakeholders were looking for.
Names redacted to protect the innocent:

 

[Edinburgh Rifles]

Continued:

 

[Heym SR20]

There is an increasing body of work looking at how the body naturally controls mutated proteins and cells that are the basis for many cancers. There is one protein, called p53, that controls these mutations and gets rid of mutated proteins and cellular structures. However the effect of lead in your blood seriously harms the p53 protein’s ability to do its job. It seems as if the p53’s ability to fold around and capture harmful protein’s is adversely affected by the presence of lead in you blood, and even a very few nanograms of lead per litre will cause this effect.

Lead enters your body either through breathing in dust containing lead particles and lead compounds- sanding down old paint surfaces without adequate dust protection, or inadequate airflow on an indoor shooting range, or through eating foodstuffs containing lead particles or lead compounds. Lead build up is cumulative and the effect of the lead on your health may never be directly linked.

Most medicine these days looks at treating the symptoms rather than underlying reasons. The question on cause is simply not even asked, nor recorded. In many cases the causative reason is not wanted to be known as this may bring about major liability claims.

However new drugs that remove lead and other heavy metals for treatments of cancer are going through clinical trials, based on work at a preclinical level that is hugely encouraging.

Plenty will say that eating lead never causes any harm. What they do not state is whether or not they are suffering from any of the conditions that are associated with low levels of lead, nor do we yet know if they will suffer such effects.

There however a number of studies on populations that do eat a lot of game meat and long term effects on health of those eating the meat, and on brain development on unborn.

As far as I know there haven’t yet been studies on UK populations looking at long term effects of lead. The raw data is there - all FAC holders medical records are flagged.

If you want to understand the potential effects of lead just read the warnings on any packet of ammunition.

Now I fully appreciate that many still smoke, despite the “smoking kills” warnings on all packets of cigarettes. But smoking is no longer allowed in public places, nor are we wanting to put tobacco into the food chain.

 

[RCS Deer Management]

Arent all the majority of pipes in your house made from copper?,.......
why isn't all our water blue?


No such thing as "non toxic" ammunition
Its non lead and in the grand scheme of things they (Cu, Zn, Sn, Bi, W, etc) are inifinitelty less toxic than lead.

To lump them together when it comes to bullets and say "they" all do one thing or another is the same as saying "All lead bullets work well on all deer".... naive

If they ricochet then you have shot into a backstop that promotes ricochet
Only one organisation has done an "independant" study into ricochet risk using the same backstiop substrates with different bullets
The NRA

The report wasn't publicly released, aruably because the results didn't fit the anti"non lead" agenda many of the stakeholders were looking for.
Names redacted to protect the innocent:

I don’t 100% agree in my experience. Shooting into a solid hillside in Scotland is one thing but for managing deer on fairly flat arable feilds in some parts of England monolithics do tend to be much more bouncy than frangiable cup and core type bullets (obviously heavily bonded lead core bullets would also be a poor choice). It’s ok saying just choose better backstops but in some areas your only backstop is 500m of gradually sloping up feild, which is perfectly safe with a sst or vmax type bullet as ploughing into the ground at an acute angle is enough to really denature the bullet but makes you think twice with a monolithic. You can lump most non lead bullets into this category as they tend to perform similarly. There are a couple of fragmenting non lead options but so far they are limited and I think there could do with more of a push into this category so that we can choose the bullet on the performance we want, instead of having to choose out of 15 different bullets all that have 99% weight retention.