why pistol bullets in modern in lines ??? & lead in your venision ???

M

Magnum Wheel Man

New member
I just bought a new full camo Knight KRB7, & am planning on my 1st muzzleloader hunting, either this year or next... I've been deer hunting on & off, with both rifle & handgun, for several years now...

as a metalic cartridge reloader that reloads just over 40 calibers, I have a quite large number of bullets on hand, so I'm planning on buying the sabbots only, & using existing hunting bullets...

I was actually suprised that these rifles that could get charged with "up to" 150 grains of powder would be using pistol bullets :confused: don't all but the best of these have the potential to become over driven in a modern muzzleloader ??? I was expecting to use my 45-70 bullets, but see they are are built for either 44 mag bullets, or 45 Colt bullets... would the plastic be too thin to make them for .458 bullets ???

just seems the newer "magnum grade" rifles could seriously over drive a good portion of the pistol bullets??? one of my favorite 45 Colt Contender loads uses the Hornady XTP designed for the 454 Casull... I assume that would be a better choice than the standard 45 Colt bullet

also, are many of you guys using Barnes or other lead free bullets ??? I'm in the food industry, & one of my buddys is a state inspector, & the state of Minnesota is throwing fits about the lead content in venision ( I think MN & a couple other states destroyed 1000's of pounds of donated to food shelf venision, because of lead contamination ) & he & I have been going round & round on this subject, I always suspected that they could have run that meat through a metal detector, & threw away only the actual contaminated meat containing lead pieces... however it sounds like the last testing they did, shows a lead in the meat content, a long ways away from the bloodshot portion of the deer, so it's likely not just due to poor trimming... so I guess I'm looking at trying a few lead free bullets for my muzzleloader for hunting... any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
 
been hunting for years with jacketed bullets... I probably ate more lead & Mercury as a kid, biting sinkers, & playing with old radio tubes, than I should have... I was only repeating what their new stanards are... "I" would eat my own venision either way, & I don't skimp on the trimming, & would suspect that is good enough... & anyone that visits will either go hungry or live by my standards... just curious what everyone elses thoughts are, but also, I do like the "performance" of several of the Barnes bullets in center fire cartridges, just curious if anyone was using them in the muzzleloaders...
 
It isn't metallic lead that you have to fear, as metallic lead will not poison you because so little or none of it is absorbed.
It is lead oxide that will poison you- because it can be absorbed readily by the body.

Heck, I've carried .22LR's in my mouth before when I was a kid and have been eating meat I have shot (or someone else has) all my life and working with guns too, and after being tested a while back I have lower levels than is common for the population in my area. :D

I just don't understand why people don't become more educated on the lead issue.

As for your 150gr. muzzleloader that throws pistol bullets- there is nothing to worry about- they are riding in a sabot and never touches the rifling. If they are nearly pure lead they will mushroom like no tomorrow or split and cause a massive cavity in your game, but they are a bit less likely to penetrate large bones. If you cast up some hard cast stuff out of some near linotype hardness, the bullet will penetrate the thickest bone and cause and be very effective too.

I've quit using jacketed bullets in 90% of my loads as I see no reason that they are worth the extra costs at all. Now, for .22-250 and other speedy rounds jacketed are a must. As for all copper bullets...I don't see the cost realized unless I had to hunt with them in communist block country of California.

To each their own, but I think throwing away that meat was totally uncalled for without some informed research and consultation with some scientific facts about how lead, and more specifically the type of the lead (lead oxide) that is transferred into the body.

As for the lead in that deer meat...isn't Minnesota known for lead mining and it's vast reserves of metals and minerals in it's soils? Could it possibly be that those deer ingested quantities lead in the natural environment from being downstream/downwind of a lead/iron mine? I've got pictures on the wall of my reloading/hobby room of DM&IR railroad locomotives pulling heavy trains of ore out of some part of your fine state. It is likely that the deer ingested the lead naturally- but this may be something that the state isn't willing to admit, or the landowners where the deer were harvested...at the very least, it might be a possibility.
 
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You are asking some good questions.
I shoot a Savage with smokeless powder. We do, indeed, have problems with these pistol bullets blowing up. Of course, we shoot 'em faster than any other muzzleloader can shoot them.
I have killed several deer with the Hornady 250SST, but, some of the Savage guys have had this bullet blow up with shoulder hits on big deer, and the deer got away. Same thing has happened with the 250XTP.

A lot of the Savage guys are going to the 300 XTP, the regular one, not the bonded one, to get good expansion, yet still it won't blow up.

And a lot of the guys are going to the all copper Barnes bullets, good expansion and they won't blow up even on a big deer. Also the Barnes is good for elk.

I don't know anybody going to copper for fear of lead in the food.
I have serious doubts about those folks in Minnesota who dumped all that deer.

Think about it, even if your bullet explodes, like my 250 SST did last year on a shoulder shot, you have a 1 1/2 inch entrance wound, and a 2 inch exit wound in the far shoulder.
Yes there are fragments of lead and copper in these two shoulders.
I just carefully trimmed all the bloodshot meat and removed all the lead and copper.
This was a big deer that had 80 pounds of meat, I threw away 2 or 3 pounds of meat that had lead in it. But, that meat was all bloodshot anyway, I didn't want it in the first place.

That meat in Minnesota was processed at commercial butcher shops who were not careful enough to trim up the blood shot meat, then, they took a few pounds of lead-contaminated meat and made up a 500 pound batch of hamburger, guess what? Five hundred pounds of lead-contaminated burger.

Plus, the guy who started the drive to toss out all the hunted deer meat is a big dog with the "stop the lead shot to save the birds" group, so he has an axe to grind.
Furthermore, this guy tested the deer meat by having a CAT scan made of the packages. His son is a doctor so he just had his son scan the packages at the hospital.
The CAT scan showed metal fragments.
As far as I know, lead would not look different on the CAT scan from copper.
As far as I know, the guy did no metallurgical testing of the metal fragments.
He found metal in the CAT scan, pronounced it lead, and the s***storm began.
 
The truth is, most of the powder in those 150 grain magnum charges is completely wasted. Baron Von Dreyse figured that out in the 1830s/1840s when he created the needle rifle. what he learned was that the black powder charge burns from the back end to the front end of the powder column under the bullet.
the rear most portion of the load ignites next to the nipple flame, that creates pressure which throws both bullet and the rest of the powder column forward, and as the powder column moves, it is cumbusting and creating more gas. In MOST loads and barrel lengths, you will have a large portion of the powder charge burning and venting in atmosphere wich doesnt do anything to the bullet.
even with 3 50 grain pyrodex bullets in my inline and a 300 grain sabot round, the third powder pellet blows up after leaving the muzzle on a 21 inch barrel.


the pistol bullets..
you can do some very interesting things with these bullets. using the hornady xtp loading chart data, the normal 44 caliber 185 gr xtp leaves the barrel with slightly more energy then the hornady 44 magnum pistol round with this bullet leaves a 16 inch lever gun.
penetration is excellent, and well expansion is just effecient as well out to 150 yards.
the big xtp type bullets in the 200 to 300 grain weight class of 45 cal bullet in 50 cal inline sabot will blow through bone very well. the 300 grain bullet at 30 yards created a hole through the top of the left shoulder, through the spinal column, and out the other shoulder bone that i could fit a quarter through.

however the expansion does work, you still need to take gooooood accurate shots. aim for the heart/chest and youll get good results.
 
i have used successfully many times 2x 50gr pellets under .44cal 300gr rainier ballistics plated fp bullets on deer . i get 3" +/- groups at 100yd. usually passes right thru out to 150 yd.
 
and the state of Minnesota is throwing fits about the lead content in venison
Click to expand...
shows a lead content in the meat, a long ways away from the bloodshot portion of the deer.
Click to expand...
Why wasn`t the bloodshot portion of the deer cut out before processing? Is the Minnesota DNR checking the overall 'living' deer population in the area for lead content? Are they checking deer killed with a bow? Given the number of deer it takes to reap 1000lbs of meat, subtract the # killed with bow and those shot with jacketed bullets that passed through without coming apart or expanding(no lead contact with meat) and roadkills(if they`re donated), whats the chances of this amount of meat having to much lead from the lead bullets the rest was shot with. Something not adding up:rolleyes: These are just a few questions I would have to get answered before I would put the blame of the 'supposed' lead contamination of this meat on a bullet:confused:. Also, as government agencies go, the lead bullet would be the 'most convenient' thing to blame high lead content on while the plant down the road dumps lead toxins into the river at the amount the government deems ok. See, government has issued so many 'pollution credits' to that plant. If plant use`s up it`s credit it can purchase more... oooooh never mind! Way off topic and the whole thing just P`s me off:mad:.
 
when your jacketed bullet expands, the lead core mushrooms out, it will touch meat and particles will shed off into meat.

however there is a big reason for "studies' that show hazardous levels of lead in game meat. if the PETA can get at least one state governement to say that game animals can contain excessive and possibly unsafe levels of lead in it, the peta is given great amunition for use on us.
for example if the state of california says lead is extremely dangerous to humans, and washington state says that game meat can have large amounts of lead in it from being shot(even though the animal may have lived in an old lead mine) then hunting should be stopped because it posses an unacceptable health risk.

same thing that goes with making hunters shoot off the largest antlers every year, it lets peta say that hunters are only going for trophy animals and thus hunting is not needed as we dont need trophies. although peta and other groups push antler size limits on us to "keep us from shooting little baby deer".
 
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