Is there a Lead Alternative for Muzzleloaders?

[Ben]

It looks like CA is going to pass a statewide ban on all lead ammo for hunting, including traditional (muzzleloader) hunting. The only one of my muzzleloaders that I hunt with is my Pedersoli (Cabelas) shotgun, which can shoot steel shot (though I've always shot hard lead in it). This got me to thinking though, does anyone make lead alternatives for traditional muzzleloaders like Great Plains rifles, and can those firearms use them?

 I'm speculating that modern muzzleloaders like those that use 209 primers can, but that the traditionally modeled firearms may not have barrels suitable for copper or whatever other material round balls.

[AZRedhawk44]

I've seen saboted jacketed slugs for sale, but I don't know if the twist rate of a muzzleloader intended for roundball would stabilize a copper jacketed sabot in a plastic sleeve.

[mtnbkr]

I haven't personally seen any non-lead substitutes for muzzleloaders with the slow twist rates suitable for patched round ball.  Faster twist guns can used saboted copper bullets such as those from Barnes.  I use saboted jacketed bullets in my Encore 209x50 rifle. 

I guess the same lead substitutes used for shotguns can be used (bismuth, etc), but it would be expensive. 

Chris

[ArfinGreebly]

Isn't zinc fairly soft?

Couldn't something like tungsten be dipped (or "jacketed") in zinc, giving a fairly heavy shot with a relatively soft exterior?

I reckon that would even be non-toxic.  Of course, if you're the one being shot, non-toxic is pretty irrelevant.

[AZRedhawk44]

I reckon that would even be non-toxic.  Of course, if you're the one being shot, non-toxic is pretty irrelevant.

It's for the buzzards condors. 



Won't somebody please think of the vultures condors? 



Don't you have any respect for the skeksis condors?

[TommyGunn]

YIKES!   KILL IT WITH FIRE!

[AZRedhawk44]

TG, keep that thought warm in the cockles of your heart, every time some pussified Californian starts whining about "Condors."

THAT ^^ above, is a condor... and is the basis of ALL whinging about lead ammo.

It's endangered because:
1. It's ugly and deserves to die.
2. It's filthy in its eating habits, and deserves to die.
3. It's stooopid (with 3 "o's"), and deserves to die.
4. It has a defective intestinal processing system, and deserves to die.
5. It eats Gelflings, and deserves to die.
6. Liberal Statists that hate guns like it, so it deserves to die.

[dm1333]

TG, keep that thought warm in the cockles of your heart, every time some pussified Californian starts whining about "Condors."

THAT ^^ above, is a condor... and is the basis of ALL whinging about lead ammo.

It's endangered because:
1. It's ugly and deserves to die.
2. It's filthy in its eating habits, and deserves to die.
3. It's stooopid (with 3 "o's"), and deserves to die.
4. It has a defective intestinal processing system, and deserves to die.
5. It eats Gelflings, and deserves to die.
6. Liberal Statists that hate guns like it, so it deserves to die.

If anybody asks you should tell them you were drunk when you posted this.

[mtnbkr]

Back to the OP, I found this:
http://www.tomboboutdoors.com/index.php/products/itx-muzzle-loading

I know nothing about it, but it's non-lead and designed for patched ball rather than the saboted loads used by faster twist guns.

Chris

[Ben]

Thanks for that link Chris!

They are super expensive ($12/10 versus $14/100 in .54), but would be worth it not to ruin the barrel of my GPR.

[makattak]

Thanks for that link Chris!

They are super expensive ($12/10 versus $14/100 in .54), but would be worth it not to ruin the barrel of my GPR.

And that, of course, was the point of the leftist's exercise, here. Price most people out of the hobby.

[T.O.M.]

Personally, I'm hoping that some enterprising soul or business can find a suitable and relatively inexpensive alternative for lead to be used across the board in all ammunition.  Sure would knock one of the most difficult anti-shooting/hunting arguments down real quick if there was non-toxic ammunition.

[Ben]

And that, of course, was the point of the leftist's exercise, here. Price most people out of the hobby.

Actually in this case not so much. It really is a purely enviro thing versus anti-gun (at least at this point). The condor areas have been "lead free" hunting for many years. This will be a statewide ban for all hunting with lead, however there is no ban for non-hunting use of lead. I can go to my regular forest service shooting area, which is in the middle of a condor refuge, and fire off 100,000 rounds of lead into the hillside, but not one round of lead into an animal in the same place.

While I will agree that even small amounts of lead intake can be harmful or fatal for some animals, others are much more resilient. The large numbers of animal deaths that people like Center for Biological Diversity and others used to push this through are incredibly fishy in my opinion. It would about require that there be twice the number of hunters that there are in the state, that they all actually hunted, and that they were all really lousy shots and let wounded animals get away, or else they were all crack shots, killing everything they shot at and leaving the gutpiles exposed for other animals (even those who wouldn't eat a gutpile) to eat.

Not to mention that with some of the numbers I've seen for "fatal" lead intake, I should have been dead at around 13, from the lead pellets I swallowed in bird meat.

[AZRedhawk44]

I fought this about 5 years ago, in AZ:

http://azredhawk44.blogspot.com/2008/01/arizona-game-and-fish-to-entertain.html
http://azredhawk44.blogspot.com/2008/01/box-of-truth.html
http://azredhawk44.blogspot.com/2008/01/victory-at-azgfd-headquarters.html


Unless condors go around from hunter gutpile to hunter gutpile, and are constantly gobbling up the lead bits because they like the special seasoning they provide, and hunters are using some impressively frangible lead based ammunition... I just don't buy it.

The number of people I saw on the "other side" of the issue that were legitimate environmentalists was staggeringly small.  I remember talking to one actual PhD biologist there, and he agreed with my assessments on the nature of most lead hunting ammunition (negligible lead shearing or loss of weight from the recovered projectile).  He was more interested in AZGFD "encouraging" alternative ammo in condor zones rather than compelling it.  But the ranting gaia fetishists that also came to support the condor were flat-out anti gun and anti hunting, and vastly outnumbered that biologist.

[cordex]

Personally, I'm hoping that some enterprising soul or business can find a suitable and relatively inexpensive alternative for lead to be used across the board in all ammunition.

Jacketed soft steel does an acceptable job for many (but not all) calibers.  Oh wait, that's "armor piercing".

[MillCreek]

Do the regs specifically prohibit depleted uranium? 

[Tallpine]

I've heard that silver bullets work pretty good 


I can't imagine any lead in any of the game that I've shot.  Bullet goes in through the ribs and out through the ribs (often nicking a fore quarter) and disintegrating the lungs and/or heart.  I really don't think that there is any lead in the gutpile since I don't shoot them in the gut, and probably not much if any in the mush left in the chest cavity.

Everything else comes back to be processed, and of course any bullet bloodied meat doesn't get used for human consumption.  I can't see that our dogs particularly have any lead poisoning effects 

I suppose the slob hunters who shoot a single deer five or six times in the gut and butt might leave some lead fragments behind 

[HankB]

Isn't zinc fairly soft?

Couldn't something like tungsten be dipped (or "jacketed") in zinc, giving a fairly heavy shot with a relatively soft exterior?

I reckon that would even be non-toxic.  Of course, if you're the one being shot, non-toxic is pretty irrelevant.

Zinc is actually pretty hard for bullets - they used to use zinc washers on the base of some cast/swaged bullets to "scrape out" the leading, and IIRC, for a time 'way back, Remington or Peters made some round nose bullets with zinc jackets as "metal piercing" loads. (Not 100% sure on this last - may have faulty info or faulty memory.)

Hmmm . . . need something soft . . . not lead . . . dense . . . preferably not radioactive . . . 

Some sort of mercury amalgam?

Or 24K gold?   

[zxcvbob]

Cadmium would probably work...

[birdman]

Plutonium.  Just don't use a large capacity magazine.

[French G.]

Plutonium.  Just don't use a large capacity magazine.

The downfall of the particularly accurate shooter. Then one day the backstop went critical...

[Tallpine]

The downfall of the particularly accurate shooter. Then one day the backstop went critical...

Shooting is a blast 

[charby]

Supposedly you can shoot these in a slow twist (1:48) ML.

https://thorbullets.com/

I'm going to wonder if someone will start making non lead Great Plains/Maxi Ball style bullets. We have a couple federal areas in Iowa where any lead bullet is a verboten. No problem with modern ML or Shotgun slug hunters since there is commercially produced all copper slugs for both.

I'm going to start using Barnes bullets for my 300wm as soon as I use up all the Hornady bullets I have, mostly because I want to hunt Blacktail deer sometime and it might be California. I'm also tried of traditional copper jacketed bullets exploding when they the hit bone.

[zxcvbob]

Supposedly you can shoot these in a slow twist (1:48) ML.

thorbullets.com

I thought they were gonna be made of thorium. 

[Scout26]

I'm with Tallpine on this. 

Every game animal I've shot has had two holes in it, one entrance, one exit.  Only birds have had lead pellets in the meat once I've cleaned them.

If condors are dying from lead poisoning it's probably not from gutpiles, but from paint chips.