Lead Poisoning

[Ucsdryder]

1. Public personal attacks between board members will not be tolerated. Fight via e-mail if you wish but not in public.
2. Troublesome individuals (trolls) or members that appear to be fostering arguments or disagreement will be dealt with in various manners from permanent removal to censorship.

Public attacks? How was that a public attack? Hammer bullets partnered with a group pushing for ban on lead bullets.

Troll? Once again, a bullet manufacturer posted a video about them partnering with a group talking about how bad lead bullets are. Posting that video creates dialogue. Are we only supposed to respond if we agree?

I've never once said anything derogatory, inflammatory, or anything that could be construed by an open minded individual as attacking. The fact that you'd even post this blows my mind.

 

[Ucsdryder]

The perception of attack is a bit perspective in how one wants to take it. It was not a personal attack. Kinda standard not to name the competitors bullet out of respect to them. Badlands did the same thing. Did you call him out?

Did badlands post a video on a forum to open dialogue on the subject? If they didn't want anybody to talk about it, they should have posted the video and then locked it.

 

[Wedgy]

Steve, what makes the cost difference in lead versus your bullets ? Is it the lathe turning cost vs swaging being cheaper and faster ? Thanks

 

[xsn10s]

I always strive to be respectful in my posts, sir. When I fail, I fail myself. And that happens.

I've generally avoided Steve's posts because of the personal attacks made against anyone that doesn't agree with the Hammer crowd. But in this obvious attack on lead bullets someone needs to speak up.

 

[Northkill]

You can search the posts. It's there unless someone deleted it. I didn't.

??

Did badlands post a video on a forum to open dialogue on the subject? If they didn't want anybody to talk about it, they should have posted the video and then locked it.

Most posts are all about dialogue. I for one sure hope we don't all agree on everything. But can we dialogue without the animosity an agenda to "kill" something or someone? I'm all for debating ideas and sharpening our opinions and perspectives. But can we do it in a less personal way?

I've generally avoided Steve's posts because of the personal attacks made against anyone that doesn't agree with the Hammer crowd. But in this obvious attack on lead bullets someone needs to speak up.

You can see it that way, or you can take a step back and evaluate where the "attacks made against anyone that doesn't agree" comes from. Steve feels the same thing in reverse. If you guys on here could just let the Hammer fans blow their stuff it would never get to that. They are excited about their thing and in the bigger picture its' good for all of us in hunting in general. I agree it's unfortunate how those conversations tend to go, but there's clearly 2 sides to it. For myself, I use a lot of different stuff. There are applications where I wouldn't pick the Hammer bullet, but where we've used them, they have performed very well.

 

[Chadp82]

I had an interesting conversation with a wildlife biologist for the MT fish and game last week. His main body of work is with birds. I had always figured that birds would be more affected by varmint hunting. When we hunt gophers at my uncle's place, we will shoot a 1k in a day. We don't pick them up. At the end of the day we go back to the house and watch the feast. All kinds of scavenger bites and birds of prey come in and clean it up. It's fun to watch. What he told me is during big game hunting season there is an increase in lead toxicity in the raptors. He said during the summer the raptors make most of their living on live prey. As winter comes in they transition from live prey to scavenging and unfortunately that coincides with hunting season. He has spent years setting up game cameras on carcasses and gut piles. He said he has never set up on one and not had a large bird of prey show up. I guess it is good that they are around to show up, but the point is they don't pass up on the meal.

My take from that is you can't deny that the ammo we choose to hunt with has an effect on the raptors. In fairness, there is certainly an argument about how much of a problem it is.

For me, as a manufacturer of lead free bullets, it is a bonus that my product doesn't contribute to the issue. Is it THE issue that makes hunters choose our product? I don't think so, but maybe, and that's fine. It's not the reason that we turned from lead core bullets to copper and finally ended up manufacturing copper bullets. As hunters we were looking for better terminal performance. Our quest led us to copper. Looking for less meat damage and quicker terminal performance. Everything we tried had some sort of issue, and we wound up making them our selves. So, we want people to find us and use our product for the same reason that decided to manufacturer Hammer Bullets, superior terminal performance and less meat loss.

I certainly respect that decisions you have made as a business, and agree we can all do little things to help. I have even used your product in a couple of rifles I have . I appreciate the dialogue, and am certainly not trying to challenge you or the conversation you had, but I still would be interested to know if it is possible to rule out other things.

If there is a seasonal rise there could be other environmental factors outside of hunting. Does the chemical composition of the water change seasonally? In the spring there is snow runoff which could dilute metal content naturally in the water, in the later part of the year it may be more concentrated as it is direct from the aquifer. Does the diet of the prey change? you already eluded to this, and we all know the eating habits change seasonally for may animals. This goes through the whole food chain. Deer and elk are rutting so they are more strained and the diet changes, animals are preparing for hibernation and their food sources may be different in the fall than in the spring when they exit hibernation. I wonder if the seasonal aspect of the entirety of the food chain compounds and affects scavengers more.

Again, not challenging this, but there may be other environmental factors. Even in birds, spring is nesting time (typically) and their day to day habits are different in the spring rather than the fall. Some predatory birds may fish more in one time of the year, and scavenge in another.

To me there are a lot of variable to place this solely on bullets or lead shot. I imagine these are some portion of the contributing factor, but at what percentage may be very hard to pinpoint.

 

[xsn10s]

Back to the video the 199 gr HH out of the RUM was supposed to going something like 3460 fps. I'd like to know that load.

 

[Ucsdryder]

??

Most posts are all about dialogue. I for one sure hope we don't all agree on everything. But can we dialogue without the animosity an agenda to "kill" something or someone? I'm all for debating ideas and sharpening our opinions and perspectives. But can we do it in a less personal way?


You can see it that way, or you can take a step back and evaluate where the "attacks made against anyone that doesn't agree" comes from. Steve feels the same thing in reverse. If you guys on here could just let the Hammer fans blow their stuff it would never get to that. They are excited about their thing and in the bigger picture its' good for all of us in hunting in general. I agree it's unfortunate how those conversations tend to go, but there's clearly 2 sides to it. For myself, I use a lot of different stuff. There are applications where I wouldn't pick the Hammer bullet, but where we've used them, they have performed very well.

You never responded to my question. Can you show me where I broke the forum rules? I didn't see any talk about "kill someone or something". Definitely not from me.

 

[xsn10s]

I certainly respect that decisions you have made as a business, and agree we can all do little things to help. I have even used your product in a couple of rifles I have . I appreciate the dialogue, and am certainly not trying to challenge you or the conversation you had, but I still would be interested to know if it is possible to rule out other things.

If there is a seasonal rise there could be other environmental factors outside of hunting. Does the chemical composition of the water change seasonally? In the spring there is snow runoff which could dilute metal content naturally in the water, in the later part of the year it may be more concentrated as it is direct from the aquifer. Does the diet of the prey change? you already eluded to this, and we all know the eating habits change seasonally for may animals. This goes through the whole food chain. Deer and elk are rutting so they are more strained and the diet changes, animals are preparing for hibernation and their food sources may be different in the fall than in the spring when they exit hibernation. I wonder if the seasonal aspect of the entirety of the food chain compounds and affects scavengers more.

Again, not challenging this, but there may be other environmental factors. Even in birds, spring is nesting time (typically) and their day to day habits are different in the spring rather than the fall. Some predatory birds may fish more in one time of the year, and scavenge in another.

To me there are a lot of variable to place this solely on bullets or lead shot. I imagine these are some portion of the contributing factor, but at what percentage may be very hard to pinpoint.

I agree since lead was found in antarctic as early as 1889. So the lead has covered the earth's surface for a long time.

 

[Northkill]

I agree since lead was found in antarctic as early as 1889. So the lead has covered the earth's surface for a long time.

It's like venom - not so bad unless it gets inside of ya

 

[buckbrush]

They see more birds with lead toxicity in the fall than they see the rest of the year. They don't catch birds and test them over and over.

That doesn't make sense and contradicts the narrative. Lead poisoning is understood to be cumulative and not cyclic on an annual basis.

Edited to add: thank you for the email. I am going to reach out to the biologist, who, based on the email address is not affiliated with the state.

 

[Northkill]

You never responded to my question. Can you show me where I broke the forum rules? I didn't see any talk about "kill someone or something". Definitely not from me.

I'm not trying to ignore you. Just think over it a little. Feel free to PM me sometime on it if you still would like to hear my observations so we don't have to continue this here on someone else's thread.

 

[Northkill]

That doesn't make sense and contradicts the narrative. Lead poisoning is understood to be cumulative and not cyclic on an annual basis.

Does it have something to do with the detail I think he mentioned at some point that birds can process it better than some creatures? I dunno. Just trying to keep an open mind to the possibilities.

 

[xsn10s]

It's like venom - not so bad unless it gets inside of ya

Do you drive a car or truck that uses gas or diesel? Because then you are contributing to lead pollution. I say that is far larger contributor of lead poisoning than lead bullets.