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Lead bullet alternatives

gunguy

gunguy

.22LR
Hey guys so we bought some rural acres and setup a nice shooting range. I've always shot only lead bullets and shot shells. The company who drilled our water well said the lead can absorb into the ground and poison us, our pets and wild animals. Looks like the most common lead alteratives are steel and copper. Our HD ammo will remain lead, but I need a good afordable/fairly acurate bullet/shot shell alternative for shooting thousands of practice rounds. Any ideas? Thanks!
 
You could rebuild your range and lline your berm with thick plastic to avoid the imaginary leaching... Then "clean" the soil of bullets and shot once a year or so.
 
I see Kent http://kentgamebore.com
makes a full line of non-lead non-toxic shotshells:
steel (average price) , and their more expensive tungsten and bismuth pellets. Midway carries Kent. No point in poisoning all the wildlife critters and our pets around our property, especially just for target practice. I will get some of their 12 ga steel boxes and try them out.

Regarding non-toxic handgun choices like 9mm, not a lot out there, and the few there are not available.
 
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Your choice. But you ain't toxifying anything shooting lead.

Did you read the article I posted?
 
The sky is falling.

And the "some states" you're referring to would like nothing more than to stop hunting altogether and banning ammunition is just a means to the end.

bismuth is a common alternative to lead shotshells.

Though bismuth too, is a heavy metal, like lead, but one thing you don't hear much, bismuth is also radioactive.

I'll take my chances with lead.

I assume that you had the water professionally tested before drinking it. There are no guarantees that there aren't lead deposits at or above your water table naturally.

And by water table, I mean just that. Not just your well itself, but the water table as a whole that is part of your well. This can include creeks, streams, lakes, swamps, drainage ditches and even cave systems and sewers miles away from the physical location of your well.
 
Here in western Texas folks are real laid back about this stuff but the wife is from california and all that enviornmental stuff so she wanted me to look into this since we do a ton of target shooting on the ranch here. Thanks for your input.
 
Were you or previous property owners shooting on the property prior to drilling the well?

Here is my humble suggestion. Test the water and see what heavy metals and other un-desirables show up in the sample and how many parts per million come back in it. That's something I think should be done anyway to see just what you are drinking.

A year from now, do the same again and compare the two numbers.

That makes more sense to me than reading a bunch of hooey on the internet.
 
If lead from old bullets was a real problem, people in most states contested during the Civil War would have all died from lead poison decades ago. We find civil war bullets in Virginia with great regularity.
 
Many areas where ducks , etc are hunted they have found high
Levels of lead in the birds. They say to only eat one or two birds a year. This is not only california. So other states are restricting areas were lead can be used.
 
Were they carrying any lead bird shot (old wounds) or did they ingest the shot while feeding?
 
Ducks often land and eat on waterways, which are notorioius for where people fish.

I know I've never lost a sinker or spinner bait while fishing.
 
Those are bigger objects and most likely spit out. But also in most cases you are fishing in deeper waters than ducks normal feed at. But shot is very small and easily ingested.
 
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