Meateater Podcast episode #155: Guns - Lead study in ND

Yea I think the whole complaint about copper bullets is just a convenient excuse for "I didn't get my deer." Kinda like steel shot with waterfowl. I always get a kick out of the guys who give the whole "I quit duck hunting after they banned lead shot." Really?? If that's the case then you were just looking for an excuse to quit. I also get a chuckle about the "expense" of non toxic shot or bullets. With all the crap and gadgets hunters run around with I cannot believe hunters whine about this. I have a friend who always complains about price of steel shot yet he runs around with a 2018 Tundra, top of the line Benelli shotguns, and a complete arsenal of decoys, new bow every year.....
 
Northwoods Labs said:
Yea I think the whole complaint about copper bullets is just a convenient excuse for "I didn't get my deer." Kinda like steel shot with waterfowl. I always get a kick out of the guys who give the whole "I quit duck hunting after they banned lead shot." Really?? If that's the case then you were just looking for an excuse to quit. I also get a chuckle about the "expense" of non toxic shot or bullets. With all the crap and gadgets hunters run around with I cannot believe hunters whine about this. I have a friend who always complains about price of steel shot yet he runs around with a 2018 Tundra, top of the line Benelli shotguns, and a complete arsenal of decoys, new bow every year.....
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Early steel shot was garbage. But anybody complaining today needs more trigger time. Your average duck hunter doesn't have the shooting chops to even maximize the performance of regular ol' blue box Federals these days. Steel will straight mash em if you put it on em. And yeah, I wonder about folks that buy new shotguns and decoys, but are buying ammo one box at a time. Lotta deals online when you buy a case.
 
mottlet said:
Early steel shot was garbage. But anybody complaining today needs more trigger time. Your average duck hunter doesn't have the shooting chops to even maximize the performance of regular ol' blue box Federals these days. Steel will straight mash em if you put it on em. And yeah, I wonder about folks that buy new shotguns and decoys, but are buying ammo one box at a time. Lotta deals online when you buy a case.
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This is a big one. This time of year is when I would purchase a case of Hevi-metal for the following waterfowl season. The per box cost would roughly equal steel shot.
 
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Environmental Research 109 (2009) 952–959

This may be what he was talking about.....but to really emphasize the conclusions can only be drawn based on the sampled population and any general claims like "hunters have higher PbB" are not universally true. I would also stress that these studies are very focused and we should avoid the temptation to make large, grandiose statements. Anyone commenting on this article should really take the time to read the free article before commenting. Notice also the CDC level of concern is >10ug/dl !!!

102588
Environmental Research 109 (2009) 952–959

If you look at the overall results, people consuming wild game had lower PbB on average than people living in houses constructed before 1977. Also notice the higher PbB levels of the sampled men compared to women and separately, the strong correlation between PbB and age. The researchers also took these factors into consideration and reprocessed the data using multivariate generalized estimating equations (GEEs) to try and isolate the effect being a hunter had on PbB (excluding age of house, gender etc....). If you only read the abstract, you are missing out on the very important details of how the research was conducted, interpreted and reported.

I do remember the MeatEater podcast and to the best of my vague recollection, nothing that was said is a gross misrepresentation of the results although it is nearly impossible to accurately convey all of the nuance in this study over the Podcast format so that may be where the discrepancy lies.

Enjoy!
 
Blood pb levels dont tell the whole story as lead likes to hide put in tissues and bones.
 
Finally found a picture of my hunting area. This is on VAFB and is pretty typical of the vegitation. That's Chuck with a better than average buck about 200 yards off a paved road...in a shotgun only area. If you imagine that deer standing, there's not much to aim in the brush, usually the neck and up. If you don't drop it where it stands, you're never going to track it in that stuff. The season is in August, so the last rain was probably in March. You've got five months of tracks in the sand, no telling which is yours. There are rifle areas as well, but they get hammered early and are a bit more up and down. Same problem, if you don't anchor the animal, you're liable to go rappelling.
We stomped a little clearing to get the picture.
CIMG1727.JPG
 
Northwoods Labs said:
Yea I think the whole complaint about copper bullets is just a convenient excuse for "I didn't get my deer." Kinda like steel shot with waterfowl. I always get a kick out of the guys who give the whole "I quit duck hunting after they banned lead shot." Really?? If that's the case then you were just looking for an excuse to quit. I also get a chuckle about the "expense" of non toxic shot or bullets. With all the crap and gadgets hunters run around with I cannot believe hunters whine about this. I have a friend who always complains about price of steel shot yet he runs around with a 2018 Tundra, top of the line Benelli shotguns, and a complete arsenal of decoys, new bow every year.....
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I've been using copper bullets for years now and in my opinion this rings true.
 
ltdann said:
Finally found a picture of my hunting area. This is on VAFB and is pretty typical of the vegitation. That's Chuck with a better than average buck about 200 yards off a paved road...in a shotgun only area. If you imagine that deer standing, there's not much to aim in the brush, usually the neck and up. If you don't drop it where it stands, you're never going to track it in that stuff. The season is in August, so the last rain was probably in March. You've got five months of tracks in the sand, no telling which is yours. There are rifle areas as well, but they get hammered early and are a bit more up and down. Same problem, if you don't anchor the animal, you're liable to go rappelling.
We stomped a little clearing to get the picture.
View attachment 102677
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I shot an elk, a muley and a antelope all with Barnes TTSX bullets this year. My brother also shot an elk with the same load. Both elk and the deer where shot with 175gr LRX out of a 300wsm. One never took a step, the other staggered for a few steps and rolled down a steep slope. The deer was shot with the same bullet out of a 300 ultra and never even flinched. The antelope was shot with a 100gr ttsx out of a 25-06AI and staggered and stumbled for maybe 25 yards.
Shot placement trumps bullet composition everytime assuming the bullet is of proper construction.
 
Northwoods Labs said:
Yea I think the whole complaint about copper bullets is just a convenient excuse for "I didn't get my deer." Kinda like steel shot with waterfowl. I always get a kick out of the guys who give the whole "I quit duck hunting after they banned lead shot." Really?? If that's the case then you were just looking for an excuse to quit. I also get a chuckle about the "expense" of non toxic shot or bullets. With all the crap and gadgets hunters run around with I cannot believe hunters whine about this. I have a friend who always complains about price of steel shot yet he runs around with a 2018 Tundra, top of the line Benelli shotguns, and a complete arsenal of decoys, new bow every year.....
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I thought the lead vs non-toxic issue had more to do with target practice than hunting. I definitely practice with cheaper bullets than ones I hunt with. The basis for the fear being government bans on lead bullets for all uses, including target practice. Maybe that fear increases negative confirmation bias about non-toxic ammo in general since it appears to work well on game. But I'm just speculating.
 
I thought about it last night some. I hunted 14 years with lead, exclusively with Nosler partition, both in 30-06 and 12 Ga and I believe I lost one animal to a bad shot, totally my fault. The lead ban went into effect in my area in 2006 so I have 13 years using lead free. My success rate was 97.5% up until 2006. I didn't always fill both tags, but I got at least one. With the partitions, they'd rarely take more than a step or two, even if it was less than ideal shot placement.
After 2006, my success rated dropped to somewhere in the high 80%'s. What I did notice was a lot more incidents of deer continuing to run after being shot. What changed? The bullet.

Will the lead free kill? Absolutely. I just believe it's less forgiving then lead. With the lead-free mono's, I believe shot placement is more critical. If you back to those famous X-rays from the SD lead study, you see little bits of broken bullet throughout the animals body cavity. The bullet performed as designed, causing wide spread damage. You won't see that kind of bullet disintegration with the lead free bullets/slugs.

I remember when the uproar when they ban just started and there where very few people that thought the lead-free was a better bullet. It either worked for you or it didn't and you had to make the best of a bad situation. Fast forward to 2019 and folks that don't need to use it, just love it.

After the total CA ban goes into effect in July, it'll be interesting to see how the it affects hunting in this state and whether the manufacturer's can keep up with the demand.
 
ltdann said:
Sure, that's true..but then you want get many people lining up to give bone and tissue samples.
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But simply testing lead blood levels could lead to a false negative, or misleading results especially in adults as the half life if 15 days. In children the half life is significantly longer, so a blood test will yield a far more consistent result.
 
ltdann said:
I thought about it last night some. I hunted 14 years with lead, exclusively with Nosler partition, both in 30-06 and 12 Ga and I believe I lost one animal to a bad shot, totally my fault. The lead ban went into effect in my area in 2006 so I have 13 years using lead free. My success rate was 97.5% up until 2006. I didn't always fill both tags, but I got at least one. With the partitions, they'd rarely take more than a step or two, even if it was less than ideal shot placement.
After 2006, my success rated dropped to somewhere in the high 80%'s. What I did notice was a lot more incidents of deer continuing to run after being shot. What changed? The bullet.

Will the lead free kill? Absolutely. I just believe it's less forgiving then lead. With the lead-free mono's, I believe shot placement is more critical. If you back to those famous X-rays from the SD lead study, you see little bits of broken bullet throughout the animals body cavity. The bullet performed as designed, causing wide spread damage. You won't see that kind of bullet disintegration with the lead free bullets/slugs.

I remember when the uproar when they ban just started and there where very few people that thought the lead-free was a better bullet. It either worked for you or it didn't and you had to make the best of a bad situation. Fast forward to 2019 and folks that don't need to use it, just love it.

After the total CA ban goes into effect in July, it'll be interesting to see how the it affects hunting in this state and whether the manufacturer's can keep up with the demand.
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If your losing game shot with lead free bullets the bullet isnt the problem. IMO.
 
ltdann said:
That was the case here in CA. After the original lead ban went into effect, the game wardens reported 3000 hunter-warden contacts yeilded 99.97% compliance with the law (just 3 hunters using lead), and it zero effect on the lead poisoning rate. Just before the final 3 year study on effectiveness of the ban came out, Perigrine, CBD and HSUS pushed a statewide ban and got it passed. The final study became moot, but if I recall, it show no impact on the poisoning.

The method I've witnessed in the lead-free drive is to change the reasons for the ban, a moving target, if you will. First it was for big game only, because the condors only eat large mammal gut piles. Then it was small game after awhile. Then it was " it only takes one bullet to poison family groups" and on to "the condor range is expanding, we need to go statewide"

Then I began to see the same people and orginzations pop up trying the same thing in other states. I saw the exact same x-rays used to panic people in ND, pushed by the same dermatoligist from the Peregrine falcon fund. ND was smart, they got CDC to look into it.

Now if you look at the USA today article above and then the response


It's a moving target, keep expanding the ban, thats the only answer.... when you know what to look for, the pattern of these organzations are the same, from the same playbook.

The fact is, the birds eat a ton of microtrash. They have to be taught not to fly into power lines, not to eat spilled antifreeze etc. etc. They're sporting a number badge, some GPS, and they get captured and tested periodically. I read a report from Audobon (I think) that broke down the costs. It was something like 40-50 $k per bird, per year. Funding comes from private, state and federal funds. Audubon called the condor program "little more than an outdoor petting zoo."

I can't count how many deer I've lost after switching to lead-free. It works differently, it impacts differently, it's more finicky to use and reload....and its much more expensive, and there's not much of it available. E-tips are currently not in production, but slated for a production run sometime this year,according to Winchester. Wait till CA goes totally lead free in July, supplies of lead-free will be non-existent.

I certainly can't afford to shoot, say 100 of them, at range session. Not at $2 a shot.
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That right there is their plan.
 
The debate over lead vs copper carries on.. It can easily be settled by going to YouTube and searching “Barnes TTSX kill shots” pages of videos of 100 lb white tails does among other animals being hit with perfect broadside shots and running off to die. Then go to search “Berger VLD kill shots” and you find pages of animals that look like they got struck in the head with a bolt of lightning....

I have been eating lead shot game over half of my life, can’t even tell you how many lead sinkers I put on a line with my teeth.. besides the occasional twitch and some people telling me I am cross eyed I’m perfectly normal..

Carry on... just stirring the pot..
 
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