Lead advisory forces N.D. food pantries to pull venison

I see a bigger cottage industry in the making of no-tox ammo. I can see where taking the whole deer and giving a rudimentary "butcher" job,,then grinding the pile( hole included) would taint all the meat.Maybe this study needs to look to the butcher who throws every scrap into the grinder.Throw away the bloodshot meat. I really can't believe that a bullets impact will infuse lead in a 2' diameter.If it does I would say it was at the surface. How much of this meat was donated by bow hunters or road kill?
 
First...they certainly do state they don't differentiate between copper and lead fragments.....but then show in the chart that the samples known to be taken with solid copper projectiles showed ZERO and, what was it, ONE, fragment.....simply put Copper is far less frangible than lead and its a "safe" extrapolation that the "majority" of those fragments were lead......

Second...what other "sample" of meat intended to be consumed by the public that tests 60% positive for a known contaminant wouldn't get pulled off of the shelf?....can you think of one? I can't.....

As we all know each of "see's" things differently....me, personally, I like birds way more than I like most humans so I'm for mandating copper bullets for hunting if it saves them....the people I don't care about individually...clearly you know the danger....take the chance if you wish to, your choice and should you "succumb" I can read the notice here and cluck my tongue in reproach and say...."dammit Rick--I told you so"....still others will shout loudly that your death is an anti-hunting conspiracy when "lead poisioning from fragmented bullets" is indicated as the reason and still others will say...."bullshit...it wasn't the lead at all...all they want is my guns"....

Seems like such an easy fix though no matter what the REAL answer is....use a full copper bullet and there are no issues, scavenger, predator or final consumer.....and all of that for "pennies" over the cost of lead.....yet we already know the answer there though don't we?......yep, comes in two varieties and goes like this......"they'll pry my lead bullets from my cold, dead hand cause this isn't about lead its about my guns"...and...."if they go to copper I won't be able to afford the bullets to hunt with"......

Steve
 
This whole thing is BS. Saying there are microscopic particles is about as good as saying there is poison in every potato you eat. Yeah there is but what is the amount? There is mercury in every fish you eat, the amount makes a big difference.
The hormones and antibiotics most of the cattle get is probably worse then the minute amount of lead in wild game we are likely talking about. Do you really want a list of all the trace substances in our food? It is a good idea to check this out but some simple blood tests would have gone a long way in knowing if there was anything more to look into. There are families who eat nothing but shot game, did they ask any of them to get tested?

Lead is bad in certain situation, I have never doubted that, but to think we are going to get rid of it is very silly. It is used in far more then in ammo. I bet there are people on this forum who still have water going through lead pipes to their homes, heck the computer you are using to read this has lead in it and there are many industrial uses for lead that can not be done with any other substance, at least not an affordable one. If you think the price of lead went up because of bullets or because china wanted to add some to the toys they make you are wrong.

If you get your blood tested and it is high one of the first calls you will get will be from OSHA. They aren't worried that you are getting lead from what you eat. Those who do shoot and hunt who have high levels almost always have one thing in common, and it isn't casting lead or eating meat they killed, it is shooting indoors.
 
Yes, a solid copper bullet showed few/no fragments and is less frangible.

A thin copper jacket over lead, however...the disparity in metals could cause it to slough more, and even if the "majority" are lead far and away, the samples should be adjusted, or it should be shown to be statistically insignificant. The statement that they were all counted together, even in a far less percentage, DOES affect the validity of the study.

One food that is contaminated that they let out? Take your pick...how about peanut butter? Ever seen the studies on what's in there? Dry cereal? Hot dogs? Hamburger? Chicken? Pork? Raw pork is so nasty you're supposed to wash your hands, sterilize the cutting board, and throw away the knives afterwards...trichinosis is only one of the joys of raw pork.

Now, I do not honestly know what the cost would be to go to full copper bullets. However, being in the construction industry with ALL metals going berserk, I cannot make a blanket statement that it would be pennies. Boxes of shells for .45 ACP, .38, etc. have all gone up. Steel shot went up. And I know the manufacturers will not just introduce the solid copper rounds out of the goodness of their hearts - they will pass along re-tooling costs, etc.

I will say, though, that I am looking at the shell belt full of .45/.70 rounds for my Sharps that are 405-grain solid lead flat nose bullets and wondering a little more about them. Guess I better just head-shoot the deer from now on.

Steve, I'm not against doing the right thing. I am against a rush to judgement and wasting a resource that has been helpful to many people. Where do we stop in this desire to make everything "safe"?
 

Mar 27, 2008 2:54 PM

Post #22 of 23 (16 views)

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Second...what other "sample" of meat intended to be consumed by the public that tests 60% positive for a known contaminant wouldn't get pulled off of the shelf?....can you think of one? I can't.....
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we have meats that are loaded with growth hormones and antibiotics -- stuff you can't buy over the counter - you need a medical Rx for --- i'd classify those as contaminants and dangerous -- all you have to do is look at the growth rate of kids today v.s. the past to realize that the additives are having an effect on the population

not condoning passing out lead tainted meat -- but as somebody said -- good butchering eliminates that -- here we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- over-reacting to
a situation that is easily correctable -- accept venison donated that has been processed by "approved" butcher shops that will not include meat from the shot area.
 
Rick, have you ever recovered a slug from that Buffler rifle in game? I could see where a deer smacked in the hams with a 22-250 could have lead dust in a large diameter area. I wonder if the magnum craze of shooting midwest deer with a 400 yard rifle..at 43 feet has anything to do with it? Ihave shot Barmes bullets and could never get them to shoot accurately..accurate enough for deer..but that's not interesting. 99% of all the venison I have consumed in my life was taken with 12ga slugs.
 
405 grain! Holy smokes. That'll kill a deer with some serious lead poisoning...and I'm not talking ingestion... Zooinks. I think i shoot 150 grain bullets (copper jacketed lead) out of my lowly deer rifle. :-)
 
My family has used soft tipped bullets for big game in magnum and standard rounds. All of the recovered non magnum bullets had retained much of their mass. It would be easy to assume that a good portion of the lead tip was left behind in the wound channel after mushrooming. The .264 mag did blow up on a couple of deer when the shoulder bones were hit, but then the entire shoulder was not usable as food and was discarded.

In all the deer taken the damaged areas were never used as food. Not even for ground meat products. All that stuff goes into the dump. The likelyhood of consuming lead particles is very small if the meat is properly handled and butchered.

The issue of leaving the lead contaminated meat and guts in the field appears to be a real issue for scavangers eating those wastes.

A simple solution is to require all hunters to bury their gut piles so that birds don't get to them. Lost wounded deer would still present a problem, but it would be a smaller portion of the overall effect of thousands of gut piles on the open ground.
 
Well George, I was personally involved with that investigation and we ruled out any other source of the poisoning and after the bullet passed her blood lead level went down drastically. Also as many deer as are eaten in North Carolina I feel sure that we would have seen a relationship by now as we have one of the best programs in the nation. Further we and most of the states are more worried about childhood lead poisoning as it is much more devastating to young children to be lead poisoned . From a Public Health angle I would be more worried about hunters and their families breaking their teeth on steel shot.

There are many ways that children and adults can become lead poisoned and we do not have space and I do not have time to write them up here. You can find many scholarly papers on the web which will inform you of the problem here in the US.

Best,
Harry
 
The deer I've shot with it were in the 75 yard range, and the bullet went in and out...a through and through.

Makes a big damn hole, though. And, for not moving any faster than it does (1300 fps?), it tends to really do a lot of "shock" type damage to the organs...I guess a cinderblock doesn't have to go very fast to hurt you!
 
Laura shoots a 150-grain bullet in her .308, though we've talked about getting some 168-grain match boattails. I used to shoot 180-grain bullets out of mine before I traded it off. I just like a big enough bullet to know the job is done.

Part of the difference, though, is speed. The 405-grain monster is only going 1250-1300 fps. It has all the ballistics of a rock hurled from a trebuchet...but it's a lot of fun to shoot!
 
alright enough with the birds and with the anti gun thing no one ever said anything about anti gun. and this study has nothing to do with birds. we know lead is bad and that horse is dead so no need to keep the hammer in your hands.

good butchering would help considerably. what about the copper fragments that left in the meat wouldnt those be sharp enough to cut internal organs?

and they list copper jacketed bullets as alternatives and then say that they're just as bad. these people are idiots. and why not xray the individual packages of meat to see if they need to discard them. some of that meat probably was shot by bow hunters.

and like lee said copper bullets dont shoot for sh**.

oh and charlie i shoot 300gr hornaday's from my 50cal during muzzleloader at deer and 220gr round nose out of my 30.06. i dont like to chase'em.

eddie
 
Lots of contaminants in our daily life. In fact, I think you'd have a hard time finding ANY food without trace amounts of contaminants of one kind or another. Heck, even our drinking water is known to have a litany of contaminants.

http://www.nsf.org/consumer/drinking_water/dw_contaminant_guide.asp

Not saying we shouldn't be concerned about consuming lead. But this is a clear example of a typical knee-jerk reaction which is so common today. For cripes sake, lets say there is no more donations of deer to food pantries and lets say that causes a rise in deer populations in some areas as a result; how many people may potentially die in deer-vehicle accidents as a result??? There are a million unanswered questions. Lets examine the issue a little bit more clearly and make an informed decision rather than jumping to potentially ill-formed conclusions. There is a host of things that could be done to ensure safety while still getting this meat to the people who need it.

As far as switching ammo. Ok, maybe after we've put a lot more research into it. But I'm never in favor of being forced to do things as a result of inconclusive research. Hopefully a clear head will prevail here and millions of kids won't end up going hungrier as a result of an ill-concieved, pre-determined, unfounded conclusion.
 
I'm not shooting the messengers, But. More Liberal B.S. of how they're trying to look out for well being. Like they give two rats a$$ about our health! This is just another way to deceive the public about a program that casts hunters in a good light by helping folks out. Further more, lead bullets affecting condors! Yeah okay, maybe if you shoot one. What they circle the skys trying to sniff out a stray bullet from a shooter. This all from the the communist republic of California. They should also add lead bullets are causing gobal warming and maybe Al Gore could take credit for the discovery.
How in the hell did we ever survive till this point before there was "The Goverment" to look out for us. One more step forward to socilism, Go Hillary and Obama!!!
Oh, but they don't do $hit about China and there little lead paint problem WITH OUR CHILDRENS TOYS! Did they ban all imports from china because a few toys were bad? No.

Another sad day in America.

Gene R.
 
...like Lee said...how many are road killed.....WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE LEAD BUMPERS dammit!

All I can say is I was shocked at the amount of fragmentation that occured in my 8pt this past gun season. I shot him with .44 Mag .240 jacketed soft point and the bullet disintegrated pretty badly. I recovered lots of little pieces and bits and you could clearly see smaller wound channels and exit wounds in the vicinity of the primary boring. I made note of it because we'd had the discussion here last year about California Nutsack Headed Condors and I was very skeptical. I've shot plenty of deer with a shotgun and a handful with rifles but this particular case was a real eye opener for me.

So how about this...they only accept deer that are shot through the boiler room or bow killed. The certified butcher will stamp the paper wrapping with some kind of "certified" logo. Like a flop-eared bunny that has a huge heart thumping out of it's chest. Or maybe a nice tree...or a granola bar. Anyway, the food pantry will only accept this "specially certified lead free" meat.

On another note, I always bite the sinkers to crimp them on the leaders. I bet I did it yesterday 25-30 times. So figure this, I had Water Gremlin lead in my mouth for weeks at a time...every single day. Probably deposited on my teeth and I've done this for a long time. I'd say going on 15 years with good portion of those guiding...so I did it lots. And I'm fine. I mean really...I don't have elevated lead levels in my blood...I feel okay albeit a little on the heavy side. My hair isn't gray. Yesterday when I got off the river my wife said I looked a little ragged, maybe it's the lead......

IMG_6696.jpg

The Chia Pet is for scale.
 
Wow, is that a chia croc?
Looks like your wife is worried you'll get lost and she needs a photo to show on Fox and CNN.

I have tried to stop biting split shots, mostly don't as long as I remember my forceps. Shoot hard cast bullets, that will likely stop the fragmenting. It's already .43", you shouldn't need a bigger hole to kill a deer.

Tim
 
I'm curious they x-rayed the meat saw "metallic dust" and it automatically is lead? What about the possibility of minute amounts of steel from the grinders used on the meat? The minute amount of steel from the freshly sharpened knife? Sounds like a knee jerk reaction without much research into it. As far as lead goes there is probably more in the drinking water than in the meat. Every home in the city of Chicago has a lead pipe service! This is mandaited by the plumbing union and city ordinances. Which of course made me laugh when Daley was going to sue all the paint manufacturers for lead poisoning of kids in the city. How do you prove it was paint or the water or meat that is donated? Anyway better butchering techniques would eliminate the problem, I'm sure. Lets not ruin a good program just because one person says its bad.
 
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