The Great Lead Free Ammunition Conspiracy

[Roestalker39]

Remind me not to rely on either of you two for any mathematics beyond counting on my fingers...

If you only get £10 worth of meat per carcass you are not doing very well at all...let alone that if non-lead ammunition costs £300, you do not get an extra £300 simply by not using it...unless you truly do kill your deer by shouting at them.

Interestingly, according to Dauntsey guns, the small difference in cost between Federal's factory Nosler BTs and their factory Barnes TTSX is £5 per box and it is the lead-core bullets which are the more expensive!

The cost of the bullet relative to the cost of or return from a stalk is really insignificant I think...but each to their own!

Alan

And out of interest how many deer a year do you shoot ?

 

[Alantoo]

And out of interest how many deer a year do you shoot ?

You didn’t find my post amusing I gather. Pity.

No where near as many as you. In the year before lockdown I shot more with a .410 on a HAD call outs than with a rifle. And I could not quite count those on my fingers.

Alan

 

[Roestalker39]

You didn’t find my post amusing I gather. Pity.

No where near as many as you. In the year before lockdown I shot more with a .410 on a HAD call outs than with a rifle. And I could not quite count those on my fingers.

Alan

Hope it was steel shot

 

[Alantoo]

Hope it was steel shot

Well you anti-lead people are full of hope.

Thinking about it, I did actually use steel for one of my HAD events...a Roe doe that broke its neck careering into a pheasant pen when we were beating last season...my Victorinox multitool.

Alan

Just remembered this one was last year, and that was TTSX and not lead either...

Roe Buck being eaten alive poor tyke

Glad to be able to put this one out of its misery.

www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk

 

[kes]

John Swift, Chairman of the L.A.G. was the Ex - CEO of BASC who siad he was no longer a member when this initially blew up. Now BASC adopts his recommendations without effective consultation and with no change to the 'No new evidence no change'.
Something is very fishy - BASC.
Sorry to repeat myself.

 

[Edinburgh Rifles]

£60 a box!?
Where are you buying it!?

Even Sako Powerhead 2 retails at £52 a box
(£2.50 in case you wanted the maths breakdown..)

Numerous other brands priced between £30-48 in Ammo form.
Same as half the mid to premium lead rounds
Box of Norma .270 130gr for example?

If you shoot a 1000 deer a year it’s not relevant.
(Your contract rate and/or venison volumes cover all that extra cost of approx £1 per round


If you shoot 10 deer a year it’s not relevant..

You dropped £3k on a Blaser, £2k on a Swarovski, £100-300 a day on stalking outings....you really going to tell me this is about the money you spend on Ammo?.....

You can pick up bullets for 40p a pop and reload them if money is tight.
I even give you the recipe so you don’t have to waste half a box learning what we already know.

Like I said....
Don’t want to use them?
Don’t use them.


But as one of, if not THE largest AGHE’s I. The UK sent a letter to all estates and suppliers of carcasses today indicating a priority to Non Lead shot venison.....you can expect it’s going to be really hard to shift any carcasses or venison.

If you don’t sell any venison then you don’t shoot enough for the bullet price to be part of any argument against the Ammo.

This applies only to venison entering the commercial human food chain

 

[User00014]

Remind me not to rely on either of you two for any mathematics beyond counting on my fingers...

If you only get £10 worth of meat per carcass you are not doing very well at all...let alone that if non-lead ammunition costs £300, you do not get an extra £300 simply by not using it...unless you truly do kill your deer by shouting at them.

Interestingly, according to Dauntsey guns, the small difference in cost between Federal's factory Nosler BTs and their factory Barnes TTSX is £5 per box and it is the lead-core bullets which are the more expensive!

The cost of the bullet relative to the cost of or return from a stalk is really insignificant I think...but each to their own!

Alan

One too many sherbets on my behalf

but you are 100% correct the cost of the bullet is irrelevant!

 

[User00033]

I’ll bet that if we didn’t have Internet forums, none of this would even get a mention. We’d be trundling along, blissfully unaware. What hullabaloo? There wouldn’t be any hullabaloo. Same could be said for all sorts of horrible aspects life today. We have become adept at creating problems for ourselves, out of nothing, simply because we can. Daft, eh.

 

[Island]

I find it very strange, bordering on the surreal, the levels of vitriol and intransigence displayed in this thread.

All of the usual contra-arguments have been rolled out, and each dispatched in turn:

It is more expensive - largely inconsequential in the scheme of overall costs...
It is less effective - no, it isn't...
I eat pure lead ingots, from lead plates, using lead cutlery and it has never, in the 400 years I have been doing it, done me any harm - yawn...
It'll be the death of the .243 - not particularly relevant (and not strictly true given that a subsequent recommendation in the Scottish report is for a drop to an 80gr minimum bullet)...
There's loads of lead elsewhere - see above...
Copper is also toxic - read up on how the bullets react on, and in, the target animal...
It is really dangerous because it ricochets - you will of course have taken this into account when deciding on a safe shot, exactly as you would with a lead bullet...

The "there is no scientific link etc" arguments are in this instance as worthless as your opinion or mine. This is not a science based issue, it is at heart a political issue and the consensus seems to be swinging away from lead ammunition for shooting deer.

At its most base it appears that the arguments seem to stem from the premise of "how dare anyone tell me what I should do?" or "it's not fair"; they are therefore nothing more than a petulant whine.

At the moment use whatever pleases you. But do not be surprised if the time comes when that decision is made for you...

 

[C h r i s]

A ban would have much wider reaching consequences than just a slightly increased cost to deer stalkers, there would be a huge impact on the outdoor target shooters, where many ranges completely prohibit the use of monolithic projectiles. Also, subsonic vermin shooting would be a problem, as would getting a clean humane kill on fox. My experience with monolithic bullets has been over penetration, worse than using FMJ ball.

 

[Treedave]

A ban would have much wider reaching consequences than just a slightly increased cost to deer stalkers, there would be a huge impact on the outdoor target shooters, where many ranges completely prohibit the use of monolithic projectiles. Also, subsonic vermin shooting would be a problem, as would getting a clean humane kill on fox. My experience with monolithic bullets has been over penetration, worse than using FMJ ball.

Unless, god forbid, they actually legislate the problem and don’t have a massive unwanted / unintended effects.
The problem I refer to, is the presence of particulate lead in venison going in to the food chain. Not lead bullet fragments in a sandy back stop, military field firing range or a decomposing fox in a farmers midden / hedge bottom / field corner.

 

[Island]

A ban would have much wider reaching consequences than just a slightly increased cost to deer stalkers, there would be a huge impact on the outdoor target shooters, where many ranges completely prohibit the use of monolithic projectiles. Also, subsonic vermin shooting would be a problem, as would getting a clean humane kill on fox. My experience with monolithic bullets has been over penetration, worse than using FMJ ball.

Indeed.

But neither vermin, nor targets, are intended for human consumption. I have yet to see one single recommendation regarding the cessation of lead ammunition use for these practices...

I suspect that, rationally and realistically, there is little drive to move to non-lead alternatives for vermin shooting (given the aforementioned "non human consumption" aspect). Equally, as alluded to by @Edinburgh Rifles previously, no one is exactly sure WHY many ranges will not allow monolithic ammunition (the testing that was carried out previously did not publish the results). However, the good thing about ranges is that they can be redesigned or rebuilt...

 

[C h r i s]

Indeed.
I have yet to see one single recommendation regarding the cessation of lead ammunition use for these practices...

I suspect that, rationally and realistically, there is little drive to move to non-lead alternatives for vermin shooting

I refer you to my previous posts. This is being driven from the EU.

 

[Island]

I refer you to my previous posts. This is being driven from the EU.

And I would further refer you to the post subsequent to yours by @Alantoo

" Those links both refer to the collecting of evidence to frame legislation on a possible restriction as part of REACH and is EU and not UK though ain't it?

And even then not necessarily a ban “For our stakeholders, it is also important to understand that proposing a restriction does not necessarily mean a ban. A restriction can be any kind of condition on the use of a substance that is seen necessary to mitigate the risks,” Mr Logtmeijer says."

The risk of human ingestion of lead from shot targets or foxes is, unarguably, rather small. So small, in fact, that there is no real requirement for mitigation...

 

[C h r i s]

Early recommendations seem to be strongly supporting a ban on ALL lead ammunition for all users other than military. Fingers crossed it wont come to this. There should be more in the press shortly, consider this a 'heads up'.

 

[geoffw]

quite right, and part of that common sense for me is in stopping lead particles from bullets entering the food chain (whether for sale or my family and guests). As you point out, non lead projectiles work effectively, it matters not one bit to me what organisation is involved, or if there are dodgy behind the scenes dealings, to me its a clear decision best made by shooters on a voluntary basis and being proactive rather than obstructive to change. The facts on lead as a poison (to humans and wildlife) are very well publicised with plenty of peer reviewed science to back it up. This website (run by a group of californian hunters who have long been lead free) is illuminating in terms of the sheer number of lead fragments left behind in a carcass. Hunting with Non-lead Ammunition Homepage
Frankly I don't see the problem with change, especially when it seems pretty obvious its for the better.

Thank you for the link, interesting, good to see some science being applied to move the discussion beyond hype.
I would have liked to see the total weights of the distributed fragments rather than the count, maybe I missed it in there, will keep reading.

 

[geoffw]

I find it very strange, bordering on the surreal, the levels of vitriol and intransigence displayed in this thread.

All of the usual contra-arguments have been rolled out, and each dispatched in turn:

It is more expensive - largely inconsequential in the scheme of overall costs...
It is less effective - no, it isn't...
I eat pure lead ingots, from lead plates, using lead cutlery and it has never, in the 400 years I have been doing it, done me any harm - yawn...
It'll be the death of the .243 - not particularly relevant (and not strictly true given that a subsequent recommendation in the Scottish report is for a drop to an 80gr minimum bullet)...
There's loads of lead elsewhere - see above...
Copper is also toxic - read up on how the bullets react on, and in, the target animal...
It is really dangerous because it ricochets - you will of course have taken this into account when deciding on a safe shot, exactly as you would with a lead bullet...

The "there is no scientific link etc" arguments are in this instance as worthless as your opinion or mine. This is not a science based issue, it is at heart a political issue and the consensus seems to be swinging away from lead ammunition for shooting deer.

At its most base it appears that the arguments seem to stem from the premise of "how dare anyone tell me what I should do?" or "it's not fair"; they are therefore nothing more than a petulant whine.

At the moment use whatever pleases you. But do not be surprised if the time comes when that decision is made for you...

I agree with your points, I've followed some of the links here to useful sources of info that were new to me, and yes, there is some petulant whining going on for sure.
I think the/a point being made, is that any change to law should preferably be science led, not be change by Politicians, for political gain (perhaps dressed up under vague terms of benevolence)- and it's on this point that perhaps we should be holding politicians to account.

 

[Island]

I agree with your points, I've followed some of the links here to useful sources of info that were new to me, and yes, there is some petulant whining going on for sure.
I think the/a point being made, is that any change to law should preferably be science led, not be change by Politicians, for political gain (perhaps dressed up under vague terms of benevolence)- and it's on this point that perhaps we should be holding politicians to account.

I could not agree more, but I think it a rather forlorn hope...

 

[geoffw]

I could not agree more, but I think it a rather forlorn hope...

I agree with that point too! ...but I see it as the populace's side of the democracy bargain.

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

John Swift, Chairman of the L.A.G. was the Ex - CEO of BASC who siad he was no longer a member when this initially blew up. Now BASC adopts his recommendations without effective consultation and with no change to the 'No new evidence no change'.
Something is very fishy - BASC.
Sorry to repeat myself.

That is complete nonsense and let's be honest - well you know it.

Your repetitive disingenuous apologies every time you repeatedly comment on BASC and make potentially defamatory personal comments on BASC staff (past or present) after stating you will no longer comment on BASC or its staff merely undermines the otherwise logical and coherent comments you make on shooting matters, that I think are very much appreciated by many forum members.

You have yet to take me up on a meeting at BASC HQ or even a phone call.

You have posted promises on this forum about running for BASC Council and seeking legal advice on medical involvement in firearms licensing and rallied many to your cause. Yet we have heard little more thereafter? Are you merely trolling the good members of this forum for your personal satisfaction?

Please pick up the phone and talk to me at the very least like countless others on this forum and have a conversation, or if you prefer, another BASC staff member, rather than continuing what come across to most on here as rants which only drive disunity in the shooting community.

We have have far more in common than what drives us apart.

As regards lead ammunition BASC has been leading the fight against a ban for 40 years whilst investing in research and development of viable alternatives to lead ammunition. Most recently we have been working with eight other UK organisations encouraging a smooth voluntary transition away from the use of lead shot for live quarry over the next five years.

For more information see:

A joint statement on the future of shotgun ammunition for live quarry shooting

Together we wish to see an end to both lead and single-use plastics in ammunition used by those taking all live quarry with shotguns within five years.

basc.org.uk