MachIVshooter said:
That said, California went a little nuts with the concept (as they do). A few lead bullets driven into the dirt when a game animal is missed really poses no threat to any critter, unless you happen to be a worm who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Actually the logic in California has nothing to do with missed rounds, but in fact the rounds that hit the animal. The primary danger was not to most animals as even when they eat pieces of lead little is deposited in the body. Unless in a powder or high surface area form (like in lead paint) most of it passes through the body unabsorbed.
The danger was to carrion birds or more specifically the California Condor, which have stomach acids strong enough to dissolve bone. Those same incredibly strong stomach acids also dissolve solid lead.
Hunters would clean the animals in the field and leave the guts in the wilderness. These guts often contained the bullets, and these gut piles would then be eaten by scavengers like the condor, vultures, and coyotes, and other opportunists.
Or when hunters shot an animal that got away and went and died someplace else. That animal including any bullets lodged in its body would be eaten by the same scavengers.
remo223 said:
If they want to go lead free they need to go with tungsten.
They tried this before I believe to satisfy the MA environmentalists. It was found that the tungsten is actually more toxic than lead.
So not only is tungsten more expensive as a material, hard and so more expensive to process, but it is also quite toxic.
Here is a story on it from a few years ago:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/04/toxic-tungste-1/
Concerns over depleted uranium (DU) resulted in new procedures to deal with the possible risks, as seen in a 2004 DoD Memorandum on Medical Management of Army Personnel Exposed to DU; the argument over how safe or dangerous DU really is shows no sign of subsiding, and this may spread to tungsten. It’s already been shown that embedded tungsten fragments can cause tumors, but discovering that tungsten in the environment is also hazardous may escalate things to a new level — possibly putting tungsten on a par with DU.
“Over the past years, soil and groundwater samples collected at certain small arms ranges have demonstrated that tungsten is very mobile and soluble once it is released into the environment.
Owen Sparks said:
Lead is heavy and tends to settle out of the ground water very rapidly and return to the Earth. That is why heavy metals like lead, gold and uranium are not naturally found on the surface.
Actually lead is one of the safest of the heavy metals, certainly of one found in abundance (and thus inexpensive) but it is not simply because it is heavy.
Many seriously dangerous substances are about as heavy as lead. Mercury is two spots away from it on the periodic table and is quite toxic, the term mad as a hatter comes from the fact that mercury was once used in part of the hat making process and many manufacturers suffered brain and nerve damage. You should see the birth defects women can cause to their babies just from eating fish that has too much mercury regularly.
Thallium next to lead is quite toxic, and has often been used as a poison to kill everything from rodents to people.
In fact Saddam Hussein's secret police often assassinated people with small amounts of thallium. Water wells of rebels were also poisoned with thallium.
It could even be slow acting, killing them after they fled the country. Small amounts in the body continuing to destroy it over time.
Polonium on the other side of Bismuth is extremely toxic, also used by spies to assassinate in very tiny amounts. Like Alexander Litvinenko in the infamous case :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112400410.html
Of course it is also radioactive.
Heavy metals are generally bad in the human body.
The big danger with lead restrictions is lead is not only inexpensive making ammo affordable, but it is easily shaped and has a low melting point. You can't cast your own copper bullets with a burner or simple fire.
Legislation that restricted lead would not only dramatically increase the price of ammo, but it would give a monopoly of production to companies and remove production capability of ammo at a decent rate from the commoners.
