Non-lead ammunition

Sorry for the lack of pictures - I do not do the take a picture of the dead animal thing.

I figured I would come back to this thread after using copper ammo this year. I had settled on the Federal Powershock 85 grain copper out of a .243. I was overly impressed with how the ammo grouped out of my rifle. I did not get out a lot this year and was moving through the woods on the property on a fairly windy day Saturday about 10:00AM. I had a group of approach me and selected one of the smaller bucks out of the group - I did not have them weigh it after field dressed but guess in the 100 to 110lb area. It was, frankly, the best shot that would not involve going through brush and the group had paused and was looking at me.

I did what I swore I would not do with a .243 and took what was a less than ideal shot at about 40 yards. I knew it afterwards but I took the shot anyways. The buck was facing towards me with just a slight hint of quartering. In hindsight I should not have taken that shot and when I saw the flags moving away from me I thought I was in for a long track. There was some brush as I was not in my cleared out stand area due to the wind and I was hoping for a clean miss. I walked up quickly as I had two tags and have seen deer stop after a shot to start looking and the deer lay there very much dead.

The round had entered from the front towards the left shoulder and caused a lot of havoc in that area. It had then entered the chest cavity, taken out a portion of the heart where it had just hit (no I did not measure damage) and must have been fairly in-tact still because it was a fairly hemi-spherical damage. One lung was unidentifiable and there was some minimal damage to the small intestines (though not the stomach so I might have nicked it dressing it - I will confess to not looking closely there). There was no discernable exit wound and not a lot of external bleeding but it was also a pretty quick kill.

Overall considering it was a poor shot for the caliber chosen and I was kicking myself for moving away from the .270 as I walked up with visions of a long track in front of me I was impressed. I think luck likely played some role in it and would not recommend taking the same shot again with the same rifle. Still the ammunition, which really was the point of this thread, performed as advertised. Do I think it performed better than a quality lead bullet would have? No. But I think it performed just as well and don't see myself moving away from the copper ammo because of my experience.
 
I like them in the fast cartridges when I have to worry about unexpected game closer than anticipated. Cup and core and even bonded bullets can really come apart at close range and high speeds. I had a 200gr accubond come unglued at 40yards on a bear out of a 300rum. Now I use 180gr tsx when hunting with that rifle.
 
The amount of lead put into the atmosphere by bullets is negligible, but if banning lead cored bullet makes hunting and/or getting into hunting a nuisance and more expensive, that'll do.
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It has to do with ground water I believe. In theory pure lead should be pretty stable in freshwater. A pellet left in a pond or lake today should pretty much be there in 100 years. Some of the Roman aqueducts have been carrying flowing water for much longer and the lead pipes are still working.
The problem is much of our waterways are now polluted. Some of the older cities with combined sewer overflow, areas with industrial run-off, or factory farm run-off have some pretty nasty water. There are many places the PH level is not so god and impure lead will then get compounds into the water and into animals systems.


Also, if an animal is injured with a lead shot, the shot is then in ingested by a scavenger or carnivore eating the original animal, the lead is then subject to strong acids in the digestive system and may poison the animal.

I have not seen any evidence that either of these possibilities actually has a measurable effect on wildlife, but it is feasible.
 
Metallic lead is not a problem, at least for humans. Our digestive tract can't get the lead into serum for it to do any damage. Birds have stones in their gullet which grinds up their food but if the lead can't oxidize then it can't get into their system. Lead salts are where the danger lies. Lead sulfate, Lead oxides, and lead nitrates are the dangerous forms of lead. They are readily absorbed into the blood and the toxins attack the CNS. In order for lead to form into those salts it has to be exposed to sulfuric or nitric acids,(the digestive process uses hydrochloric acid which doesn't effect lead readily) not something normally found in nature. In areas that are affected by acid rain or where the soil is naturally acidic (like cranberry bogs) then the lead would begin to break down - not so much when the bullet is lodged into an animal. The only reason it affected the California Condors was that they live for 60 or more years in the wild. You can pick up a lot of lead over that span, a lot more than if it lived a tenth of that time.
There was a lot of "twisted" science in the lead danger myth where bullets are concerned. The condors got most of their lead poisoning from tetra-ethyl lead deposited along the highways by the hundreds of thousands of cars that were pushing lead oxides out the exhaust pipe. The same lead was found on grocery shelves, sidewalks, and everyplace that people could track. All from the exhaust of the nations cars.
Now we burn alcohol in the cars and shoot copper bullets and the animals are dying from "copper" poisoning. :)
 
I'm not interested in raining on anybody's parade; those who like copper bullets should stay with the game.

I have too many one-shot kills over a twenty-five year period of active deer hunting with mostly Sierra bullets in my '06 and .243 to consider changing to copper. No point to doing that. Granted, I'm not in an anti-lead state.
 
I have too many one-shot kills over a twenty-five year period of active deer hunting with mostly Sierra bullets in my '06 and .243 to consider changing to copper. No point to doing that. Granted, I'm not in an anti-lead state.
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I've been thinking about your reply. I have never run into a particular ammo that I have not been satisfied with the performance of for deer. I have always hunted deer with a .270 in the past* and, to the best of memory, lead ammunition. Considering the ranges I hunt at it's likely over kill. I have never felt "I need ______ ammo" nor really paid attention to exactly what I had been using. If I had I would not have changed and maybe had I not bought a .243 I may have never entertained the idea.

The funny thing, now that I think about it, is how one judges success. As you note you have success so why change and its a good point. I don't think the advantages of copper ammunition are certain enough or even alleged to be large enough for one hunter to matter. I tried it more on a "why not". Had I failed to take this deer, or had a long track, I probably would be in the "stupid .243 is too small for deer and copper ammo sucks" camp though I did not put the rifle or ammo in the best scenario for success. I'm surprised how well it did in this case but assume traditional lead ammo would have had the same success. My only concern is a total lack of exit wound but its explainable.


*I once failed to take a deer with a 30-30 when I was 14 - not the rifles fault. I have taken my .375 Holland and Holland hunting and passed on a smallish deer because I felt it was ridiculous.
 
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