Lead shot

[ColinD]

A few people around here will take the lead off the church roof, without the EU telling them too, given half the chance

 

[jwpzx9r]

This is all a conspiracy to get shooting off the agenda completely. Governments want to make shooting a sport that is so complicated to get into and enjoy they are trying to find a way of getting people to say ah F'it I am finished. Lead is an element that is virtually insoluble under normal conditions... and yet they are making it out to be a toxic substance. It would be true if it was finely divided to a molecular level but as a solid metal it is harmless... unless shot from a gun. In short the fewer guns in circulation the happier all governments... and the anti's will be.

If tomorrow lead shot was banned from use I would no longer be able to shoot my Perazzi and that would be me out of the game even though I have a Browning that can shoot steel... I am not going to be forced to shoot that in place of my Perazzi !

 

[Centrepin]

For angling purposes lead was deemed safe to use for wildlife in sizes 8 and smaller and over 1oz. It's now common in sizes 8 to 10, although I couldn't possibly even see to use sizes 10 and below. It was the RSPB that had it banned they deemed birds, especially Swans ate lead in sizes 6, 4, 1, BB, AAA & Swan. PETA and ALF also got in on it along with the green party.

I wonder if it gets banned in shooting, will it stay in 8 and below? If so I can see a sudden emergence in 9 and 10 shot.

Incidentally, don't all pre war houses still have lead pipes underground and many still have them inside too?

I remember all these arguments in the Angling press from the 70s onwards. The truth is, it's easy to sway public opinion by organisations like the RSPB. They just show pictures of pretty dead birds and say, "this is caused by Fishermen/Shooting/wearing underpants" Politicians jump on the band wagon and next thing you know, no underpants.

It's having the power of the organisations to sway public opinion in favour of the view expressed. In the end if its toxic or not is almost irrelevant.

 

[Doctor Lecter]

I consider motor cars extremely dangerous in several ways !   should they be banned or restricted   ?       twelve hour working shifts aint done me much good   ,   but no mention of a ban !    I'm  all bitter and twisted now !   :cheer:  

 

[ColinD]

This is the trouble with governments that pally to groups that come up with these things.

Look at the ruling to make in compulsory to have adblu to diesels, yes the facts say that it's better for the enviroment, but what about the millions of empty 10ltr plastic containers strewn all over the laybys and around, what's the enviromental cost to make and dispose of all those.They jump on a idea without asking what happens to make that happen so to speak.

Edit, anyway where getting away from the OP's original question now sorry

 

[Lloyd]

Lead, like asbestos, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium, doesn’t need to be soluble to  be harmful. 

It takes very little change to make human cells throw a tantrum, say f@&# you and change their behaviour.  I’m not an expert my any means, but I’m fortunate to work with pro who are. Lead is harmful. That’s very well established. 

Also, there are for sure lobbyists that want shooting banned altogether. There are also lobbyists that want shooting to remain as it is. It’s up to the individual organisations to offer up the best scientific, sociological and environmental evidence and a good helping of propagand... err... marketin... we debate as possible. 

Ultimately this is a problem that will not be going away. A much better tactic in my opinion would be for clay target makers, cartridge makers, gun makers and trap makers to come together with BASC and CPSA et.al to collaborate on designing a holistic solution to pointing some tubes and throwing some stuff in the general direction of something breakable. This way, we say “go f@&# yourselves” to the antis. “Have it you way, and we’ll have it our way too”

 

[jwpzx9r]

Lead, like asbestos, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium, doesn’t need to be soluble to  be harmful. 

With reference to the lead part of that statement... can you tell me how the use of lead shot in shotgun cartridges plays any significant part in the ingestion of lead salts by the general public? It is widely recognised that by far the most likely way anybody is going to ingest lead is from lead pipe work in their home which for some reason is undergoing some sort of electrolytic decomposition and thus contaminating the water at the tap. Lead itself is not readily soluble in water at STP and lead shot in soil is very unlikely to cause significant contamination of water courses. It could get into the food chain from crops grown on heavily contaminated soil or if someone for whatever reason goes on a diet of lead shot. You have to remember that this lead shot is not being distributed evenly across the land as say lead from fuel used in leaded petrol was. It is shot at shooting grounds so the contamination of the land as such is very localised and if the correct procedures are followed it can be greatly minimised, see the major shooting grounds in Italy where the lead is reclaimed. The whole lead shot debate is a red herring... there are far worse things going on in this world which really do have significant hazards for the average human... but those are conveniently air brushed out of the picture... for godsakes people daily still insist on smoking cigarettes, drive cars, take flights to go on holiday/ business, buy goods that travel half the way round the world by ship... even switch on electric lights... all of these activities are far more dangerous to the world at large than popping off a million shotgun cartridges a year in very localised areas.

edit

I also do not actually go along with what you say with respect to solubility. Lead has to be dissolved, extremely finely divided or vapourised to cause the toxicity which people fear... how is this going to happen to the lead shot from a shotgun cartridge?

 

[Lloyd]

You hit the nail in the head with “extremely finely divided “. Lead particulate can and does get absorbed by blood as the particulate enters the stomach or lung via airborne lead particulate or lead trace in water. Just as with aluminium or zinc for example.

We might think lead due to its mass would  sink and therefore wouldn’t enter water courses. However, when particulate is of significantly small size (through oxidising/eroding) the effect of mass/gravity is a weaker force the surface tension of the suspension liquid (water).

furhermore, the effects of lead could (it is thought and has been the subject of Nobel prize winning research) pass from one generation to another (two generations) through a process called epigenetiscs. So the consequences can be further reaching than we might assume  

indeed lead has been banned in petrol and that had serious concerns. Similarly with lead pipe. But the concern isn’t simply a shooting red herring. Solder has no longer any lead in it (RoHS limit 0.1% by weight). Brass which typically contains <4% lead is highly likely to be banned in July 2021. Lead, used in steel to make it easier to process is also likely to be eliminated, same with leaded bronze. Lead has been removed from paint.  None of these things are airborne or in soluble state and the steel, copper alloys, paint, plumbing and electronics industries are much more economically significant than shooting and the lobbyists in those industries also failed to prevent the legislation being enacted.

we might not like it, but it’s going to happen.

We can for sure say “people smoke”. It’s hardly the industry it once was either. Doctors used to recommend it. Now Smoking is akin to social leprocy. We learn, we adapt, we improve.  BAT, Philip Morris’s and in fact the entire tobacco industry had to pay a $1/4 trillion in compensation over 25 year period (ten years to go) this along with rapidly declining sales despite growth markets in Africa, India, China, and Eastern Europe  they will either adapt of go out of business and no one will care which except the investors  and laggard smokers.

cars are coming under pressure. 2040 all electric if not sooner. 

Even formula one has been embarrassed into claiming it will be carbon neutral by 2030

Aviation is also facing pressures with carbon offsetting, fuel efficiency (1% improvement = 800,000 gallons of Avgas saved per year). It’s not just social/environmental/legislative  pressures either. It’s also economic. 

Reform is a fact of human development. We reformed the constitution, voting, child labour laws, slavery, thalidomide, education, healthcare, governance, consumer rights, employment rights,  banking (allegedly) and so it continues. 

For sure there here are worse things going on much worse and I would advocate that the worst things are addressed first, but better to address something than do nothing. We really ought to take stock of how far we have come as a species and where we would have been had we not done anything to improve upon what we do. 

So, I stick to my notion that lead will be banned and it’s better we accept that as a good thing on the whole for the many at a small and surmountable sacrifice by a few. Bit like Churchill Battle of Britain type rhetoric 

 

[wynno]

So, to summarise...... we’ll all be banned from using lead in our cartridges, in our pencils and the flashing on our roofs........ only good thing that I can see is that it stops the pikeys from nicking the lead from church roofs.

I’ve just ordered 10,000 hull cartridges , Will I be able to use them I wonder 

 

[Lloyd]

I think you’ll be fine with the pencil

10,000 carts... hmmm. Tell you what, I don’t want to see you struggling. Pass em over to me and I’ll help you dispose of them at Sporting Targets

 

[ChrisPackham]

I broadly don’t see it as a drama, the sport will have to change to suit fibre wadded steel cartridges, ideally paper cases.  For game shooting Bismuth is pretty good and Ive been impressed with the new Eley steel/fibre cartridges on grouse and Partridge, i haven’t shot pheasant on the farm shoot yet and am not convinced on exmoor birds, but I wouldn’t be upset if that practice stopped.

The only real challenge is with subsonic 22 rf as the non tox alternatives don’t carry the energy at sub sonic speeds, but if that’s the only genuine casualty I think we will survive using HMR or similar, will just make vermin control harder.

I have also tried the Gamebore fibre cup steel but all that does is top up my dentists pension fund, maybe they should be used with a mouth guard ...

I do find it odd that we still fire a known poison into food as we head into 2020

 

[Paul120]

The only real challenge is with subsonic 22 rf as the non tox alternatives don’t carry the energy at sub sonic speeds, but if that’s the only genuine casualty I think we will survive using HMR or similar, will just make vermin control harder.

I would think that the vast majority of sub sonic 22LR are shot at ranges where as in the club I go to it is captured and recycled. The amount going into the enviroment would I suspect be negligible alm things considered. 

I personally wouldn't like to see my weekly attempts to punch holes in paper for competition purposes which Ienjoy as much as any other form of shooting dismissed as a  necessary sacrifice to a perceived greater good. 

 

[westley]

So, IF this lead stuff is so harmful,  WHY are we still having our water delivered through it   ?  They stopped the use of solder on lead piping on water supplies some time back, choosing to use BRASS instead, but I suspect it may have something to do with the cost to replace ALL lead service pipes with plastic. You can of course pay,  to have your service pipe replaced with plastic  ?

 

[ColinD]

I don't think you'll find there's much lead if any in the supply chain, that is upto the outside stopcock. They changed the rules a few years ago, your now responsible for the pipe (be it lead or not)from their stopcock into your house or any other building

Now before it was privatised the responsibility was the water companies up to the stopcock in the house, they laid it years before,funny how that got changed and no one in power asked or tried to stop it.

Now it's different for the electric/gas supplys, their responsible up to the meter, strange that a

 

[balltrap]

So, IF this lead stuff is so harmful,  WHY are we still having our water delivered through it   ?  They stopped the use of solder on lead piping on water supplies some time back, choosing to use BRASS instead, but I suspect it may have something to do with the cost to replace ALL lead service pipes with plastic. You can of course pay,  to have your service pipe replaced with plastic  ?

Wes the old lead pipes have a lining on them internally by now and are considered safe for human consumption that is from the water board ! 

 

[MartynB]

In the wrong environment and or uncontrolled process lead is toxic . Leaded Petrol . Paint , for example , little Johnny licking his lead painted toy soldiers . Inhaling oxides when lead is melted , e.g. soldering with a blow torch or melting ingots for casting  . In a 100 year old water supply pipe I’d be pretty certain that there will be so much scale on the pipe walls that you won’t be in any immediate danger . 

 

[balltrap]

In the wrong environment and or uncontrolled process lead is toxic . Leaded Petrol . Paint , for example , little Johnny licking his lead painted toy soldiers . Inhaling oxides when lead is melted , e.g. soldering with a blow torch or melting ingots for casting  . In a 100 year old water supply pipe I’d be pretty certain that there will be so much scale on the pipe walls that you won’t be in any immediate danger . 

that's what said but not in the same words 

If we all end up shooting steel or any replacement to lead the targets will have to change for some disciplines like sporting that's not hard, but for the trap that would be more than interesting ?

 

[Nick Jenkins]

Lead should be permitted at designated shooting grounds if there is very low risk of groundwater contamination and the owners can commit to remove it periodically (which may pay for itself). On a trap layout it's pretty easy to scrape away periodically. What we don't want is decades' worth of lead being shot over farmland, regardless of who owns it. The question is whether anybody will be able to enforce a distinction like that; although people behave pretty well in terms of fibre v plastic in the field.

 

[Wonko the Sane]

With reference to the lead part of that statement... can you tell me how the use of lead shot in shotgun cartridges plays any significant part in the ingestion of lead salts by the general public? It is widely recognised that by far the most likely way anybody is going to ingest lead is from lead pipe work in their home which for some reason is undergoing some sort of electrolytic decomposition and thus contaminating the water at the tap. Lead itself is not readily soluble in water at STP and lead shot in soil is very unlikely to cause significant contamination of water courses. It could get into the food chain from crops grown on heavily contaminated soil or if someone for whatever reason goes on a diet of lead shot. You have to remember that this lead shot is not being distributed evenly across the land as say lead from fuel used in leaded petrol was. It is shot at shooting grounds so the contamination of the land as such is very localised and if the correct procedures are followed it can be greatly minimised, see the major shooting grounds in Italy where the lead is reclaimed. The whole lead shot debate is a red herring... there are far worse things going on in this world which really do have significant hazards for the average human... but those are conveniently air brushed out of the picture... for godsakes people daily still insist on smoking cigarettes, drive cars, take flights to go on holiday/ business, buy goods that travel half the way round the world by ship... even switch on electric lights... all of these activities are far more dangerous to the world at large than popping off a million shotgun cartridges a year in very localised areas.

edit

I also do not actually go along with what you say with respect to solubility. Lead has to be dissolved, extremely finely divided or vapourised to cause the toxicity which people fear... how is this going to happen to the lead shot from a shotgun cartridge?

The truth will get you nowhere.  Personally I take a pragmatic approach - screw the world.  Known elsewhere as the FTW Syndrome.  Screw the world, screw the kids, screw the grandkids, and prolly screw you too ( not you, John haha).  I discard plastic anythings like old skin cells.  Why should I care?  I don't have that much time left anyway!  And about 99% of the rest of the world doesn't GAF either.

Get REAL!!  Get In Touch!! Pollute like a MF'er - it's the thing to do !!

 

[balltrap]

Wonko your NUTS