recently I have noticed more discussion about bans of lead shot for hunting. Apparently if animals are wounded by lead shot (say from a shotgun), and are not found and removed by the hunter, scavengers consume the lead and suffer lead poisoning. California Condors seem to be in the news recently.
Not being a hunter or shooter, I am not aware of the advantages/disadvantages of lead shot. I seem to remember reading that the harder steel shot erodes barrels more, but don’t remember if that was a significant factor.
So, lead poisoning of non-target animals is one factor. What are others factors in the debate? Or is there a debate? Is lead gone from the market?
Steel shot is harder than lead and can damage some barrels, and steel shot is lighter than lead and loses downrange energy more quickly.
I haven’t seen a lot of talk about ingestion of shot via predators eating wounded animals. I have seen a lot about waterfowl ingesting lead shot when they dabble on the bottom. Most states have lead shot bans in at least some zones when hunting waterfowl and some have a total ban. I’m not familiar with any bans on lead for use on land animals, but I’m not an expert on any state including my own.
I’ve been wondering about this too and would like to hear feedback from hunters.
I know that lead is denser that iron so it makes better bullets and shot for that reason (less wind resistance per ounce). Still, I’d be surprised if that made enough difference to be a deal-breaker. In the olden days, hunters recovered their bullets and remade them into new ones; they could melt lead in their home fireplace but not iron. I doubt anyone does that now. Maybe, as you suggest, the wear in the bore is the deal-breaker.
There are ways to compensate for the lower density of steel. For example, at forty yards a #6 lead pellet might have 2.3 foot pounds of energy, while a #6 steel pellet has only 1.3 foot pounds of energy. But if you increase the pellet size to #4 steel shot you’re up to 2.5 foot pounds. And since each individual pellet is lighter, you have the same number (roughly) of #4 steel shot as you would #6 lead shot in a 1-1/8 ounce load.
Then there are the ballistic considerations of lead, which deforms and will tend to spread, as opposed to steel, which tends to fly truer. Truer? More truely? Whatever, more straight. That would tend to give steel an edge, if you adjust your shot sizes for the difference.
I think barrel damage is the primary concern with the change, but one of our resident gunsmiths is probably about to come in here and hand me my head.
The lighter steel doesn’t retain energy as well, as for a given mass, it has more aerodynamic drag than lead. You can get the same energy at the muzzle, but 40 yards out lead will offer a clear advantage.
Patterns tend to be a bit denser, as the steel does not deform, and thus flies truer. This means that less choking of the barrel is needed, which is what steel damages the most.
Bismuth shot is a more expensive alternative to lead than steel, but is a better option performance wise.
Note that commercial shot products are not pure tungsten, but some sort of alloy/matrix, so the density of various products can differ. Can still come out denser than lead shot by quite a margin, though - for instance, these guys:
18 g/cc is quite a bit more than pure lead (11.3 g/cc). Pure tungsten is about 19.35 g/cc, and probably the densest metal you are going to obtain at a reasonable price. Osmium or Iridium are only about 1.2 times as dense, and are precious metals.
How about depleted uranium? And osmium oxidises on contact with air into a form which is intensely poisonous and water soluble to boot. Not something you want to use as shot.
As I understand, it can cause heavy metal poisoning like lead. Plus, if you think people get upset over lead pellets being left in the environment, just wait until you add the anti-nuke types to the mix.
I also wonder if there’s a political component to it as well. I suspect anti-gunners and anti-hunters would actively support any law that makes ammo more expensive, regardless of whether or not there’s a scientific justification for it.
That sounds just a little paranoid. I’m sure the people who backed the law had no idea that steel shot would cost more than lead. It was also demonstrably a problem in waterfowl, and the ban on lead shot for hunting ducks and geese has been an unqualified success. Cite.
Now as for its application to terrestrial animals, I don’t know about that. There are a lot of people who reflexively think spreading lead indiscriminately is bad for the environment, and I think I’m one of them. I don’t do a lot of small game hunting, and jacketed bullets work fine on deer, so it doesn’t affect me much personally. If I did a lot of squirrel, rabbit, quail, or dove hunting I might be concerned, but as it is if it costs a couple of bucks extra for the ammunition for a $1600 shotgun I’m not losing any sleep over it.
There is certainly a political component to the pro-lead side, also.
Basically, many shooters lean toward a politically libertarian, anti-government stance, and so they object to the regulation of lead shot just from that perspective.
The extra cost for steel shot is pretty minor compared to the cost of their gun, the fancy case for their gun, the special hunting outfits they buy, even the state hunting license. And the additional wear on the gun barrel is pretty minor, for the average person who goes hunting only a few weekend each year. Nor does the decreased velocity after 40 yards matter much, given the inaccuracy of most amateur hunters.
It’s mostly a political reaction to ‘government telling me what to do!’.
I’m doubting that the change in speed of a bullet is so different at the muzzle as at 40 yards distant as to significantly affect the force it has. For instance, here’s a page with a sample table of velocity at various distances. At 40 yards, you would only be losing something like 3.7% of the velocity. Lead might only lose 3.2%, but that’s not a real significant difference. But then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if lead shot is generally traveling slower to start with just because it takes more energy to bring it up to speed.