Condors or Lead Ammunition? (2015)

https://theecologist.org/2015/jan/21/condors-or-lead-ammunition-we-cant-have-both

by brudgers • 7 years ago

26 29 7 years ago

harimau777• 7 years ago

It seems questionable to me that the article doesn't discuss differences in performance or other drawbacks of non-lead bullets.

I'm not an expert, but a quick Google search suggests that they may be more expensive, less easy to find, and more likely to pass through targets. I found at least one article that claimed they may have greater stopping power since they do not break up in the target as easily. However, I have heard anecdotes about steel shot having less stopping power than lead.

gregimba2• 7 years ago

In regards to steel shot having less stopping power its due to the density differential between steel and lead. Generally when people say stopping power they are describing the amount of force exerted and more mass equals more force (assuming the same velocity).

Lead Free ammunition exists in various forms and the terminal ballistics can be different than lead ammunition. So many compositions are possible and this is a massive topic that is quite hotly debated and studied in the firearms community.

edoo• 7 years ago

It is not just mass. Hollow points are considered to have more stopping power because they mushroom to a greater diameter and impart more energy to the target. A steel round of greater mass can pass through the target with greater ease imparting much less energy.

PeterisP• 7 years ago

For shot the problem is that each piece is very small, so air resistance slows it down meaningfully if the density isn't there (e.g. steel vs lead); so the exact same power at the muzzle will have very different power when hitting the bird if a less dense material is used.

bradleyy2• 7 years ago

Honestly, there are differences. Do they matter? IMHO, no.

Most "stopping power" debates are talking about rifles that are vastly capable with or without lead bullets, and with the bans that have happened, the tech has moved forward. e.g. Barnes Bullets (which are copper) are considered a premium round, not just a premium non-lead round. And they aren't really overpriced.

WRT shotguns, I don't know this end as well, but the ammo market could use some forced innovation (the firearms market in general lacks innovation).

gregimba2• 7 years ago

This is specifically in regards to shotgun ammunition as steel shot vs lead shot have large differences due to the density differential.

Source: https://www.hunter-ed.com/alaska/studyGuide/Two-Major-Differ...

wl• 7 years ago

(the firearms market in general lacks innovation)

As someone who is subject to the California Safe Handgun Roster[0], the amount of innovation in the handgun space in six years is frustrating.

[0] tl;dr: normal people can't buy a handgun released after 2013 new from an FFL.

pps43• 7 years ago

The article talks about use of lead-based ammunition for wildlife hunting. I see no problem with it. Sure, solid copper rifle bullets are expensive, but you only need one of them per hunting season. Ok, a box to zero the rifle.

As long as lead remains legal to use at the shooting range (where the vast majority of rounds is spent, and most lead is subsequently recovered and reprocessed), it's not a big deal.

slacka• 7 years ago

Hunter here. For big game like deer and moose, I actually prefer copper ammo. With lead shot, if I hit the shoulders or haunches and my family or I eat that meat, there's a very good chance we're eating bits of lead. Most Lead bullets disintegrate on impact, while copper bullets rarely fragment and penetrate deeper.

If I wasn't eating the meat, I could see the argument for lead, but it's a weak one at best. In my own experience copper bullets do not go all the way through large game. And I don't believe in hunting for purely for sport.

heelix• 7 years ago

Deer hunter as well, who eats the meat. I really don't think the large game rounds are a factor. I think I've shot 5 round in the last 8 years, and there are no edible bits in the chest cavity. The lead bullets mushroom out, but...a non-factor for a deer. 270, 30-06, and 300 mag lead ammunition will liquify the chest cavity, but does not go through it.

Shotgun rounds are a different thing. Here in Minnesota, they eliminated lead for waterfowl hunting -- which is a fair thing to do. I'll shoot many, many more rounds at birds - and cleaning the shot out can be tricky. Best not to be spraying the land and/or lakes with lead bbs.

dfsegoat• 7 years ago

No input on the article - I’m just stoked to see the hunting public well represented here on HN.

That is very cool to me as a fellow outdoorsman.

eadmund• 7 years ago

For big game like deer and moose, I actually prefer copper ammo.

Surely you mean copper-jacketed lead, right? I don’t think that solid copper bullets would travel very far or carry much of a punch …

StacyRoberts• 7 years ago

Steel shot is required by law to hunt water fowl in U.S.A. The lead shot falls in the water. It's eaten by fish then eaten by eagles or waterfowl that are then eaten by people, so it's easy to find in any gun sport shop.

Rifle bullets are mostly either lead, which leaves lead residue on the machines parts and causes jams as the tolerances decline. Thus lead coated with copper is superior technology and more reliable but more expensive to boot. It doesn't mushroom as much but the velocities are higher. Plus rifles aren't used around water do they are much less likely to end up in the food supply and this legal for hunting.

FireForce• 7 years ago

It's worth noting that steel core bullets are often banned as "armor piercing" rounds, despite that fact that most worthwhile hunting cartridges can pierce body armor.

bradleyy2• 7 years ago

While I advocate for non-lead ammunition, the story is a little more complex:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/2/lead-ammunit...

buserror2• 7 years ago

Lead or "non toxic" ammunition is a big problem. I only do shotgunning, but for these the empirical evidence is that the lead is a better tool to "kill humanely" than for example, steel. Steel doesn't have that "stopping power" that lead has, and requires a lot more, and bigger, shots, and will also have a shorter range than lead...

Also, one of the biggest improvement in hunting cartridges are the 'wads' which used to be plastic, and now are wool or fiber, in any case, biodegradable -- the steel cartridges don't have these as they need a 'cup' to protect the barrels as the shots go out, so you leave big pieces of plastic all over, to be ingested by /other/ wildlife, potentially.

So no real perfect solutions so far; Legally you can't shoot lead anywhere near waterways so we have to use steel, but for example last year I shot a duck, fair an square, nowhere near "out of range" -- this was a 'dead duck' -- we looked for it for 20 minutes to discover it had gone to ground and was NOT dead, it had been broadsided, but some pellets had gone thru the poor bird, and some of the pellets were in the feathers, because they didn't have the energy.

As much as I like hunting my supper -- and I hunt to fill the freezer so I don't ever have to buy chickens -- I really hate to be in that situation where I inflicted undue pain for no reason other than some city environmentalist (who probably sit at his desk all day) making wide ranging decisions like this.

It's going to be difficult to find a metal as "good" as this job as lead; I would love for steel to work really, perhaps we could somehow devise a 'steel shell around a lead pellet' -- that would allow 1) killing power 2) protection for lead leakage and 3) loads of time to use magnets to recover it from pretty much anywhere... I realise a good part of the energy of lead hitting a target it when it splatters, and the steel shot won't do that, but it ought to be better...?

Anyway, that evening we had duck, and we toasted the duck; unsuitable apology as it is.

m4rtink• 7 years ago

Maybe tungsten ? If it works for tanks, it should also work for ducks. ;-)

eternauta3k• 7 years ago

If you're concerned about suffering, don't you have access to free-range chicken in the US?

_tulpa2• 7 years ago

This whole argument is pretty weaksauce. Learn to use the non-toxic stuff or stop doing it and just buy your meat. Either way don't go spraying a bunch of toxic heavy metal all over the show just because it's "humane" - lead poisoning is pretty inhumane.

There's also no practical reason you can't have biodegradable plastic cups for steel shot.

I grew up hunting, mostly bigger animals, I never bought meat until I moved away from home. We didn't use shotguns at all, mostly because it's been clear that lead is bad news for ages, and you couldn't really get steel shot where we were. And a bonus of hunting bigger animals is that if you do it right the projectile doesn't exit. The whole post above just sounds like a bunch of entitled whiny "I want to have my cake and eat it too" bullshit.

buserror2• 7 years ago

There are no biodegradable plastic cups -- ask McDonalds.

No need to respond to the rest of your post, as you didn't bother reading mine anyway. Go back to hunting stationary target with 50mm rounds, it's perfect, you'll never find the carcass anyway.

cascom• 7 years ago

Bismuth and Tungsten are non-toxic alternatives with better performance than steel, though definitely more expensive. Stopping the use of lead would is a modest performance trade-off with a potential increase in cost

emilfihlman• 7 years ago

This lead ammo ban, especially the European one, is a thinly veiled attempt at blocking guns ownership, which somewhat failed two years back. Lead ammo is already prohibited in wetlands in Yurop (at least in Finland it is) and the EU ammo ban would have banned lead ammo pretty much everywhere even though lead does not enter the wildlife from a shooting range.

mistrial9• 7 years ago

One Big Topic -> IS A <- Second Bigger Topic .. typically is a logical fallacy.. no substantiation given, check.

mopsi• 7 years ago

There's more than wildlife.

In Finland, shooting ranges are among the most common activities causing soil contamination. According to our study based on questionnaires and previous regional surveys, the total number of Finnish outdoor shooting ranges is between 2000 and 2500. Most of the ranges are small and only ca. 5% exceed 20 ha. Almost a third of the ranges can cause a groundwater pollution risk, while only few cause an immediate health risk. In the first instance, 50-60 shooting ranges identified as being high-risk areas should be investigated in detail. At present, the risk management options at Finnish shooting ranges are very limited. Hence, soil excavation combined with disposal is the most common remediation technique. Some of the remediation methods used in other countries have been proven unsuitable in Finnish conditions. Therefore, new, feasible, cost-effective and economical remediation technologies are needed. To exclude future contamination, a total ban of lead shot would be the most effective way.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16458952

sunkenvicar• 7 years ago

Gun owners love condors too. But we fear this issue will be used as political cover to restrict our rights.

nkurz2• 7 years ago

If you live in the California condor range, and are concerned about the cost of non-lead ammunition, you might want to know about this program: https://www.ventanaws.org/ammunition.html.

They offer residents in the area with one free 20-cartridge box of condor safe ammunition per year.

blarg1• 7 years ago

just use depleted uranium

Condors or Lead Ammunition? (2015)

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