A recent thread on substitutes for lead bullets was in danger of becoming a thread on whether or not lead bullets are bad for the environment. To avoid derailing that thread I started this one. The questions are: How bad are lead bullets for the environment, and does the environmental cost justify banning lead bullets?
I’m not sure how big of a problem this is, but lead is a heavy metal that causes severe toxicity in birds and other animals that ingest it (heck, even humans). Animals that are not killed with the bullets, but find and eat the remains, may get sick and die of lead poisoning. This is specially important for smaller animals.
Personally, I think it is unfair that you’re killing bystanders that are not part of the hunting season. Want to hunt? Fine, but why use lead, which remains will cause damage to animals that ingest it, whether they’re in or out of hunting season, or even if they’re specifically NOT supposed to be hunted.
Lead bullets are pretty damn bad if you get one lodged in your skull.
Yeah but I bet the cause of death wouldn’t be lead poisoning!
Metallic lead (as distinct from compounds of it) presents virtually no hazard to us. It’s virtually insoluble in most common solvents.
Lead is vaporized when a round is fired. Full metal jacket bullets have a bare lead base along with cast bullets which are bare lead all around. This is a problem at indoor ranges.
If it’s indoor it’s contained. We don’t need a universal ban to deal with it.
Most of the lead vapor comes from the primer. Using non-lead primers and jacketed ammo along with good ventilation and filtration systems and mopping the floor takes care of the problem, and since it’s indoors, there isn’t much difficulty in cleaning up.
In outside ranges, the amount of lead vapor is so small it’s not even worth considering.
(Also full metal jacketed rounds do not always or even most of the time have a bare base, and cast bullets are relatively scarce in comparison to jacketed ammo.)
The EPA has rejected the petition by environmental groupsto ban lead ammunition.
Aren’t most .22 LR bullets—IIRC, by far the most shot type of bullet—non-jacketed lead? Sure seemed that way when I did a lot of smallbore shooting.
Also, at my old range, the backstop had bullet traps. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there was appreciable lead vapor formation when the bullet struck the trap. Agreed that the problem is negligible with a decent ventilation system, not that I ever tested the ranges I shot at for lead. The next time I go to the major indoor range in town, I’ll ask them how they handle the problem.
Glad the petition to ban lead was struck down. Surprised, but glad.
I am a metalsmith who learned a procedure of making niello almost 20 years ago. Here are some images of what it looks like.
The process for making the alloy is to melt measured amounts of copper, sterling silver, and lead and then add in powdered sulpher. I used to teach classes in the procedure and haven’t been able to for several years because of numerous EPA regulations within certain cities.
Do you have a cite for that?
I think MkVII is incorrect. Here is the MSDS for lead (bolding mine):
Soluble or not, the use of lead in bullets still spreads it around the environment.
Lead present in the form of tetraethyl lead in gasoline, in the form of lead carbonate in paint, in metallic form in pipes, and in solder (especially when joining copper plumbing) are all much bigger concerns, which is why the attention up to now was focused on eliminating these uses. Now that the use of lead in these applications has been essentially eliminated, the attention has been directed toward other applications for lead that tend to spread it around the environment indiscriminately, such as the use of metallic lead in bullets and fishing weights.
If a safer replacement for these uses can be found, why not use them?
Indeed, contained for the inhalation pleasure of the shooter. :dubious:
In any event, guns fired in the course of hunting are not fired indoors, and shotguns for skeet and trap ranges are not usually fired indoors.
Because we don’t feel it’s economically worthwhile.
We could easily make cars that were completely, 100% safe. We could also make cars that get 100MPG+ for low cost. The reason we don’t is because those cars would be either expensive or unsafe. The same goes for lead bullets – they are inexpensive and work well. The fact is, we make tradeoffs, and right now, the envorinmental impact of lead bullets is far less of an incentive than the cost or por performance of alternatives.
Whether or not you agree with the particular set of tradeoffs is beside the point; we won’t use anything else until the externalities are such that moving to a new material is economically desirable.
Who’s “we,” exactly? 
There’s only one way we could “easily make cars that were completely, 100% safe” and that’s to restrict their speed to 2 mph. 
Even, then someone could drive one off a cliff, so that’s out, too.
In any event, I understand your point, and there is already a process in place with the EPA and state Departments of Environmental Protection who are tasked with evaluating the cost/benefit ratios are for things like the use of lead in bullets and fishing weights.
This is why lead has already been banned in gasoline, in paint, in plumbing, etc. In each and every case, industry fought the ban, saying that to do so would not be “economically desirable,” and in each of these cases, the industry in question was overruled.
The writing is on the wall for lead fishing weights. From this website:
[quote]
[ul]
[li]New Hampshire has banned the use and sale of lead fishing sinkers that weigh less than an ounce and lead jigs smaller than an inch.[/li][li]Maine and New York have banned the sale of lead sinkers weighing a half-ounce or less.[/li][li]In 2004, the Vermont Legislature passed a bill banning the sale (January 2006) of lead sinkers weighing 1/2 ounce or less, and then the use (January 2007) of those lead sinkers in the state.[/li][li]In June 2000, the Massachusetts Fisheries & Wildlife Board voted to prohibit the use of all lead sinkers for the taking of fish in Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs, the two bodies of water that support the core of that state’s loon population.[/li][li]The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has banned lead sinkers in two national wildlife refuges and Yellowstone National Park; restrictions have been discussed on the use of lead sinkers and jigs at other national wildlife refuges where loons and trumpeter swans breed.[/ul][/li][/quote]
With lead fishing weights, there are easy, relatively cheap alternatives. This may not necessarily be the case with ammunition, but I would not be surprised if the use of lead in ammunition was phased out and eventually banned.
He is correct. Metallic lead is pretty harmless. It is the oxides of lead that allow it to enter into your system and kill you dead. Lead exposed to the air will oxidize over the years to become dangerous, but things usually don’t eat old rocks. Save for birds. Getting a bullet in the craw is certain death by lead poisoning. The other rocks will grind the lead into duct and make it much more easy to enter the system.
:smack: Thanks, Una. You know, I remember reading that back in 2004, too.
From your well-researched Staff Report: