Cargreen

On a rainy morning in the Cotswolds of southwestern England, Mike Robinson and I – along with his stalking dogs Millie and Sorrel – heard the unmistakable sound of two fallow bucks waging war against each other. The dogs froze and Mike and I slowly crept over the edge of the valley, trying to catch a glimpse of the fighters. His attention, and our mission, focused instead on a yearling buck – known as a “pricket” – standing off to the side, facing us. “Between the eyes,” was Robinson’s order, and the new one Wanted 110 PPR settled into the Viper Flex quad sticks. Seconds later, a Hornady CX round did its work, resulting in an instant kill.

Coated and uncoated lead projectiles for revolvers.

Robinson is a world-class chef, highly successful restaurateur and host of Wildlife farming TV program; he also helps manage more than 20,000 hectares in the Costwolds area, harvesting fallow deer for his Deer Box business which supplies restaurants in the UK with venison. Our joint hunt was part of deer culling/management, and Mike adheres to strict rules. His venison must be handled properly, and he insists on head-and-neck shots to maximize the amount of edible venison. Additionally, Mike and his colleagues are pushing for the use of lead-free ammunition, specifically the Hornady CX bullet in the Outfitter ammunition line. This led to a great discussion during one of our truck rides, about the differences, pros and cons of lead and lead core ammo versus the copper monometallic stuff.

The .45 Colt is well served by both jacketed and lead projectiles.

Mike’s decision – a personal decision – to choose lead-free projectiles is based on his desire to eliminate any chance of lead contamination in venison, and to assure consumers that their meal will not contain even a trace of a lead projectile. Here in the United States, the ban on the use of lead projectiles seems to be gaining popularity, although I am not entirely sure that the arguments for banning the use of lead are as compelling as it seems.

Lead has long been our favorite material for projectiles because it is malleable enough to be easily worked, yet hard enough to retain its shape during the violent process of firing it from a rifle, handgun or shotgun. Lead has been used as a material for projectiles for almost two thousand years, just as Roman soldiers used lead for their slings. Although lead is a great projectile, it is a toxic material – not just to the recipient of the projectile – to both humans and animals. Lead poisoning or lead poisoning is a reality and contamination can cause death.

The Nosler Partition is an absolute classic bullet with a lead core.

Lead was used for plumbing – with few beneficial effects – and for writing tablets, but our focus will be on the projectiles used for firearms, from the earliest pieces of fowl to the highly accurate rifles that can routinely hit the target at a distance. more than a mile (although the lead core is wrapped in a neat copper sheath). I’m old enough to remember when it was legal to hunt waterfowl, above water, with lead shot, although I was hunting for a long time when that all changed. I understand and fully agree with the concept of minimizing pollution to our sensitive waterways and wetlands, and the use of steel, bismuth and other non-toxic materials makes absolute sense.

Our rifle and handgun projectiles have long been lead-based, either in the form of the pure lead bullets that were so popular in the cartridges of the late 19th century.^e century, or in the copper-jacketed, lead-core projectiles that dominated the 20^e century. One of the hallmarks of lead and jacketed lead bullets was their tendency to expand prematurely in larger game animals – especially if they were lighter in weight and of smaller calibers – and many strides were made over the 20 years .^e century to mitigate that fact. From the “locked” sheaths of the Remington Core-Lokt, to the dual cores of John Nosler’s Partition, to the molecularly fused sheath/core of Jack Carter’s Trophy tied hogweedthe desire to slow the rapid expansion of a traditional cup-and-core bullet has not faded at all.

The Barnes TSX rallied from Cape Buffalo.

Jacketed bullets, especially the boattail varieties, have a nasty habit of disintegrating on impact, especially if impact velocities are high. Randy Brooks, owner of Barnes Bullets at the time, had the brilliant idea to remove the lead core entirely, resulting in a projectile made entirely of copper plating. Are Barnes led the way for the brass bullet revolution and paved the way for an entire market; almost every major projectile manufacturer offers some type of lead-free, copper monometallic projectile. Barnes revised their original design, resulting in the TSX, TTSX and LRX bullets, Horny has offered the GMX and CX projectiles, Federal has their Trophy Copper, Remington has the Core-Lokt Copper, and so on and so forth.

Remington Core-Lokt was an early attempt at holding a jacketed bullet together.

Then there are the smaller boutique companies that offer lead-free hunting projectiles. My favorites in this department include Woodleigh bullets from Australia, Peregrine bullets from South Africa and McGuire Ballistics of California (where the use of lead projectiles is prohibited). Each has its own application, with Woodleigh’s Hydrostatically Stabilized Solid being one of the best dangerous game bullets available, the Peregrine Bushmaster being a flat nose expanding bullet perfect for thick skinned game, and their Plainsmaster a Spitzer- boat tail, perfect for longer shots. on game. McGuire’s Copper Rose is a sleek, nasty projectile, perfect for just about any situation North American hunting can throw at it. Between these boutique projectiles and the aforementioned mainstream models, I’d say a big game hunter could spend his or her days outdoors with the confidence that their bullet won’t let them down. But the copper projectiles do come at a price.

Peregrine’s all-brass projectiles are fantastic for any game animal.

Copper projectiles are more expensive to produce than their lead jacketed counterparts, and consumers will see the higher price tag at the checkout. If you look at the popular .308 Winchester using the mediocre 165-grain bullets, you’ll be paying a street price of about $2.75 per round for a reputable brass projectile. If you want a premium bonded core softpoint, you can expect to pay the same, maybe even a little more. But if a simple copper bullet with a lead core suits your hunting needs, you can reduce that price by 30 percent or even more. And let’s face it, for the average hunter pursuing whitetail deer, black bear, or wild boar, a good old head and core like the Sierra GameKing, Federal PowerShok, Hornady Interlock, Winchester Power-Point and Remington Core-Lokt can certainly fill the freezer.

In the terminal phase, I think the lead core bullets have a more “instantaneous” energy transfer, or perhaps I should say that a copper bullet sometimes doesn’t show the impact on a heart/lung shot that a lead softpoint does. Is this a consistent feature? No, but it has happened to me in a number of different situations, with different brands, with different animals. That said, some of the most dramatic one-off kills of animals as large and heavy as the Cape buffalo have come from copper projectiles.

High-speed A-Frame nuclear projectiles recovered from game animals around the world.

Is lead dead? No folks, certainly not. I can’t imagine a world without the Swift Scirocco II, Nosler’s Partition and AccuBond, Hornady’s ELD-X and Federal’s Trophy Bonded series. Those Sierra GameKing hollow points that have accompanied me on so many adventures in upstate New York are dear to my heart, and while I do understand the issue of lead poisoning, I feel that the minuscule amount of lead left in the ground by hunters in the field being hit doesn’t mean anything.

A shooting range, where fired projectiles are concentrated, should require some degree of recovery and proper handling of contaminants. In California, where there are concerns about the endangered condor consuming lead from an animal’s intestines, the lead ban could make sense, but across the country it appears to be a political talking point. Here in New York, efforts have been made to ban the use of lead ammunition on our public lands, including the vast Adirondack and Catskill Parks, with the insinuation that the water supply for New York City is at risk of contamination. I have a feeling that among the multitude of possible contaminants in the New York City basin, the lead projectiles left behind by hunters wouldn’t move the needle. It smacks of a political control movement.

The new Winchester 21 Sharp delivers classic rimfire performance in a lead-free projectile.

Recently, the ban on lead ammunition has led to the development of cartridges specifically designed around copper bullets, namely Winchester’s new 21 Sharp. The 21 Sharp roughly mimics the performance of our venerated .22 Long Rifle, but with a copper bullet and a slightly smaller bullet diameter, offering rimfire shooters a lead-free choice in that very popular performance range.

I don’t mind choosing a lead-free bullet, not least. However, I do have a problem with the banning of useful, affordable bullet material in a way that seems to be based on political motivation. Just as emissions from our vehicles and power plants are carefully regulated, dealing with lead requires some foresight and common sense. As an avid reloader, I take precautions while handling lead-based projectiles to minimize the possibility of lead absorption through my hands by not touching my face, eyes, mouth, etc., and washing my hands vigorously after each reloading session. In over thirty years of reloading, I have not noticed a single symptom of lead poisoning or poisoning, and that includes throwing lead projectiles, loading pure lead projectiles, and handling thousands of cup-and-core rifles and pistol projectiles.

Copper projectiles are here to stay, there’s no doubt about that, and I’m glad to have them as an option, but there’s no way I’m abandoning my favorite lead core projectiles.