EspressoBuzz

Hey Mike! I appreciated the social lesson/experiment in public oratory and rhetorical philosophical debate! Thanks!

This entire debate is non lead ammo for hunting. At the range I use lead ammo, My home range is a pellet trap inside a larger pellet trap. However I use non lead pellet ammo for hunting. I have a deer rifle and a slug gun both are fine tuned for copper and used exclusively for hunting, even so they make it to the range twice before each season the check zero. Small game is both more difficult since many pellets make it to the dinner plate and if cooked in an acidic environment spitting the pellet out may be too late. Do you eat the varmints? If you dispose of the carcass properly you've no need to switch from lead. We are talking about lead in the game you EAT. or if not disposing of it so raptors and other animals get at the lead.

I shoot almost every weekend weather permitting at home with air guns, once or twice a month trap or skeet and at least once a month at the long gun range either Islip, Brookhaven or Calverton. I practice a lot and whenever I can. Often going to the range after a morning of hunting or before an evening of fox hunting. I use to compete in air guns when i had time and before kids (B.K.). If you are proficient with your weapon then the transition to non- lead for the "kill shot" should not be an issue. I don't think I have thunk about what would happen to gun shops, perhaps continue to make money hand over fist.

I'm curious IF you only used non-lead ammo for the kill shot and sight in, how many bullets would you go thru a season? Don't count sub-sonic all but do count upland game bird ammo. I mean as a means to figuring out what actually costs might be.

yeah, my chicken coop works, but it looks like a patchwork quilt, I made one bad circular saw cut after another! I consider the screws and nails sticking out from all sides accidental critter deterrent!

One study taken by itself is not convincing I agree but the Wisconsin study does not exist in a vacuum. There have been dozens of studies in many states. States with hard core hunting communities and their elected officials. 'The North Dakota Department of Health (NDDH) and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) have recently released independent studies that provide recommendations for minimizing lead exposure to hunters and other individuals who consume game meat harvested with lead-based bullets, reports the Wildlife Management Institute." https://www.wildlifemanagementinstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=311:lead-recommedations&catid=34:ONB%20Articles&Itemid=54 Complete and comprehensive studies have been done by the CDC and other universities and research centers and continue to be done. As for the for the alternative being toxic also remember it is not just the toxicity that is important it is the fragmentation at high velocity. Even if copper were just as toxic, which it is not, it does not fragment at high velocity like lead. Like climate change those who do not want to change will continue to say there is not enough evidence or that the studies were not done properly or worse that they know and don't care. Arizona is on board! http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/documents/110715_NonLead_broch_FINAL.pdf

Agree! Knowing where lead is either in your diet or in the environment is part of the battle to keep it out of us! Seriously, on Long Island at the Yaphank skeet range deer are all over the place and use to hearing blasts and I often wonder how much lead they are getting just from the plants and ground.

Studies conducted in the 60's and 70's (many for lead paint and leaded gas) set levels and proved at what levels lead causes learning disorders. Follow me so far? Jump ahead to the CDC study (and others) where they identified where they were getting there lead from (i.e. game meat) and tests showed what their lead blood levels were and referenced the earlier studies on lead. Thus they can determine the degree of learning disorder. If you asking how do they know it wasn't lead paint not ammo, scientist check for that first, including the water and school environment. That's why they are called scientists and why the papers they produce are peer reviewed studies. Because other scientist would ask if other sources of lead have been eliminated. It's in the white papers the CDC has published on their site.

Near and dear to the heart... John H. Schulz, a resource scientist at the Missouri Department of Conservation, has calculated that as many as 15 million mourning doves are killed in North America each year from lead poisoning, mostly from eating spent lead shot that looks like the weed seed they depend on for food. That’s almost as many as the estimated 20 million mourning doves legally shot and killed each year by hunters.

Here ya go! Wild Meat Raises Lead ExposureTests by the CDC show that eating venison and other game can raise the amounts of lead in human bodies by 50 percent http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wild-game-deer-venison-condors-meat-lead-ammunition-ban/ Google it up you'll find other sources and for the patient the white papers are online too.

I keep the bird feeder invasive species free as much as i can, including starling, English sparrows and pigeons.

I'd say (like Curmudgeon) that the first 2 point are well established. The next three points are also fact but will be corrected with technology once the desire to use non-lead ammo is taken seriously by ammo makers. The last point requires I put on a tinfoil hat to answer: If hunters as a whole embrace non-lead ammo, create a demand for it, is this not taking the high ground? Are we not acting in a safe a responsible manner and dis-arming the anti-hunters and proving we are conservationists first and hunters second?

Yes forced on them because second hand smoke is toxic too. Just like concentrated lead in the environment effects raptors, et al. I personally use plenty of lead at the range, but have switched to non-lead while hunting with all my big bore or high velocity even for coyote which I pretty much dump into a dumpster on the way home. Oddly once fine tuned I found the copper air gun ammo better than the lead. I personally just feel safer eating what I shoot and I feel better not putting concentrated lead into the environment.

For me the evidence is clear from 2000 years of working with lead, since the Roman's to modern times each generation has become more aware of just how dangerous lead is to humans and wildlife. It is no mistake that the stated level for safe lead has been dropping in modern times as we learn more about it's dangers. I have switched to non lead ammo for all big game and am moving more toward non-lead for small game. Ultimately the decision is ours to make. I love hunting, but I started hiking and camping first and have a great love of the outdoors given to me by my father. So I would say I am a conservationist first and a hunter second. We as hunters can take the high ground and compel ammo makers to make more and cheaper non-lead ammo through our choices and ideas.

I was told that when town's hire hunters to cull the deer numbers in their area (as opposed to stupid measure like birth control) that they take head shots with small caliber ammo. I was also told all the meat goes to VDP. I am curious how that meat tests. If we want the price to go down do what I do when I buy ammo. ASK FOR IT. We all praise our system of supply and demand, well demand!

Vince, According to the Law Enforcement DEC I have spoken to they seem to think Xbows for Long Island is inevitable, so I hope you won't be pissed for long. However, If there are any hunter with muzzle loader ballistics experience I am wondering how the Sam Yang 909 compares. Four Seasons Number One: I ain't a BB gun. Number Two: Yeah that theory sound pretty stupid.

http://huntingny.com/forums/topic/30889-air-rifle-hunting-for-deer-coming-to-ny/?p=457159 oops wrong place, sorry

On Long Island the bow season for deer runs from October to the end of January and the special shotgun season runs just the month of January (recently weekends in January were added). Still the towns on Long Island have a deer population problem and from what some rangers have said I think they may try allowing big bore airguns in the 4 month bow season once the DEC decides on the minimum requirements for them. I have heard here that some slug guns have similar ballistics to muzzle loaders which are not allowed on Long Island. So I'm wondering ballistic-ally how some big bore airguns stack up. In particular I am looking at the one I am posting a link to, but there are many others with more power and I am sure better performance. http://www.pyramydair.com/s/m/Sam_Yang_Big_Bore_909S/516/4511 Please don't go off on a rant against sharing or losing any part of the bow season. With the vast majority of kills under 40 yards how do you think these big bore airguns may perform? Could this open up more land for hunting on Long Island or towns with deer problems in upstate New York?

ack! this topic again??? It just won't die.....

I've always used a hammer works fine no need to go crazy unless the gov't is out to get you.

I do believe that it sets regulations (a type of law? but not the only govt dept that does so) and they have often been challenged in court and EPA has a winning record in that respect. With all the players involved I don't think any dangerous element would ever be properly controlled if it had to go through our legislative system. While I think there is bureaucratic fat that can be cut there most certainly is a need for more people in the field.

I don't get that network as far as i know, but i do watch train shows when they are on. Last summer we took the Bernina Express to San Moritz past alpine glaciers and lakes up grades i wouldn't have believed until i saw them.

I still love trains! But this thread has died a political death.

i'm sorry but i read the thread twice and i didn't see the part where Obama derailed the train....

I am a big train affectionado and have ridden many scenic railroads and high speed and/or long distance passenger trains here and abroad. The shame of the American railroad system which was second to none in the early 1900's is that through mutual collaboration between all the truck and car companies they effectively killed long distance passenger train travel and left a gasping heavily subsidized freight system. Semi trucks especially cause more damage to the roads they use than the road maintenance tax they pay incorporated into their fuel. If (a big if) trains were more heavily used for long distance hauling the result would be more privately owned local haulers operating out of major train hubs, freight cost would be lower as well as fuel consumption and lower road maintenance cost, greater highway safety.