While surfing, I came across this article about wanting to ban lead in bullets. I’m not particularly interested in debating the politics of the matter, but lead is traditionally the metal used in bullets and I wonder what could be used instead? Depleted uranium?
For reference, there was a somewhat similar brouhaha here in the U.K. over lead in toy figurines. The industry made a lot of noise to no avail, and when the ban went through, came up with an alternative.
The US has a ban on lead in game miniatures, too. They aren’t and weren’t really toys, and I don’t find pewter to be a good substitute. It’s more expensive and harder to alter. Most people took care that kids didn’t play with those miniatures, because they were rather expensive, and usually the owners had spent a bit of time and effort to paint them.
Of course, gun owners are responsible for keeping bullets out of the hands (and mouths) of children, but in shooting, the bullets will be lost, much of the time, lead in bullets WILL get into the environment.
I don’t really know what could be an acceptable substitute, though.
[ul]
[li]Copper[/li][li]Tungsten[/li][li]Bismuth[/li][/ul]
Tungsten, Bismuth or Steel (and alloys or blended sinter thereof) are the usual contenders. Cost is a major issue - Pb is cheap.
Apart from lead shot (used by birds as crop stones) and shooting ranges, I think the risks of lead toxicity from bullets are overstated - lead metal has low bioavailability (gunpowder assisted acceleration notwithstanding, 5th cartoon down).
Si
As far as I know Bismuth is actually used as a substitute for lead in birdshot.
From a purely physical standpoint, gold would be one of the best metals to make bullets from. It’s much denser than lead and has essentially no toxicity.
Thanks, Si_blakely, you just led me into a bottomless pit of geek cartoons from which I’m unlikely ever to emerge…
To the OP, the primary advantage of lead is that it’s got a good amount of mass (for stability and “knock-down power”), is cheap, and… well, it’s just what’s always been used. There are, of course, things like rubber bullets, incendiary bullets, etc…, but I’d be pissed if I had to buy a box of those every time I went to the range. As previously mentioned, the dangers of lead are a bit overstated (it’s after all, a naturally existing element… like arsenic, I suppose). My advice is always just to thoroughly wash one’s hands after handling ammo (loading magazines, reloading cartridges, whatever).
Lead-shot was completely and totally banned in Norway back in '05. Steel, bismuth and tungsten are the replacers.
Bismuth is closest to lead in physical properties - it’s heavy and soft. With the tin alloy (94% tungsten, 6.9% tin) it deforms and doesn’t crack bones. It averages at a marginal better killing power than lead. I’ve had great success with it for both small game hunt and fowl, although I prefer steel for fowl. They’re relatively expensive, but the price is going down and the makers say they’ve got more material than they’ll ever use.
Steel is lighter and less powerful than lead. The big disadvantages is the reduced killing power, increased ricochet risk and that they don’t deform when they hit bone. Some people also say that there’s a risk that it can blow the gun. This is true; steel shouldn’t be used with more than 1/2 choke. As for the killing power, my rule of thumb is to go up two sizes compared to lead shot. That works fine for me.
Tungsten (wolfram powder and plastic or polymer) shot are heavier than lead and, combined with the nickeled surface, this gives shooting properties comparable to lead shot. The advantage over Bismuth shot is the slight reduction in price and that they can be used with pretty much any weapon that can shoot lead shot. (If you’re uncertain, get a gunsmith to pressure-test it for you.) Soft and heavy, they don’t ricochet easily and deform when they hit bone.
Yep, I searched for those cartoons knowing that I might spend far too much time looking at them if I found them.
Si
But isn’t Bismuth pretty rare? I know it’s a by-product of lead production, but starting to use it in the quantities that lead is used would deplete resources very rapidly, right?
Sintered iron has been used by Germany in WW2 as a desperate substitute. No one has taken it up in the postwar era, unlike their other innovations such as steel cases.
English guns [transl: shotguns] traditionally have much thinner barrel walls than US ones and the higher pressures associated with substitutes could well make them unusable.
Here’s an aerial shot of the neighborhood I used to live in. That huge rectangular dirt pit you see is what used to be a shooting range- they’re in the process of cleaning it up so they can build a new subdivision there (although the housing market crash may have derailed these plans).
Anyway, the reason it’s all dug up is they’re having to clean up all the lead left in the ground from all that ammo. This is not to say that this is the first time that shooting range has been cleaned, however- when the range was in operation, they had to do a similar process every three years.
Every three years they’d clean up nine tons of lead and other shooting debris. Frankly, that kinda scares the crap out of me.
The small range I shot at a few times as a teen used jap squares (locally produced 1 ft x 1 ft pine blocks for export) as the stop - every year they replaced the blocks, burned the old ones and collected the lead for scrap. Of course, no handguns or automatic weapons - mostly .22 rimfire, .222 and .303 in those days.
Si
Also, it’s easily cast/formed into desired bullet shapes.
Is this because you dispute the low bioavailability claim, or for another reason?
So the alloy has 100.9% tungsten and tin before the bismuth is added? Methinks these figures aren’t right.
It would serve other purposes as well. Gold bullets would be significantly more expensive. That would provide an economic incentive for people to be more thoughtful about who they choose to shoot.
Make silver the standard and our national lycanthropy epidemic will end within the year!
“You should be flattered, Mr. Bond” said Scaramanga.
(Actually, Scaramanga only used gold bullets in the movie The Man With the Golden Gun. and only in that was the gun really made of gold. In Ian Fleming’s last Bond book, Francisco Scaramanga used a gold-plated revolver, and ordinary lead bullets.
Bullets can be made of any metal that can withstand being fired from a firearm. The issue is cost and effectiveness. Lead is a good compromise because it offers low cost combined with high effectiveness. The plan of the EPA will have no effect on environmental pollution, but will increase the cost of ammunition, which will punish gun owners liberals hate, and reduce sales of ammunition.
One great alternative full steel-jacketed mercury or potassium.