How safe is it to use lead round balls while hunting?

David Veale said:

True -- but it was also shown that about 20 years after leaded gasoline was banned, state-by-state, each state showed a significant drop in crime rates and incarceration. The leaded gasoline does definitely have an effect, though I believe the greatest effects are those on young children whose brains are still developing. A friend of mine has a daughter who suffered significant lead exposure when they remodeled their older home, and is not quite normal as a result.

My experiences with lead ball echo what other members here are saying; it fragments far less than high-power rifle bullets. But... I still don't keep meat anywhere near the wound channel. The acidity of the human stomach would certainly dissolve some lead if it's ingested. Lead exposure at any age is not a good thing. A coworker's father was a plumber back in the day, with loads of lead exposure. She described him as "batsh*t insane", which she attributed to that exposure.

Click to expand...

Looks like crime has been on the rise tge fast few years
Correlated in time is not the same as correlated in cause
Since commercial jet service for civilians starred there has been an increase in reported rapes, must me planes are a phallic symbol.

Makes good sense to me.

David Veale said:

True -- but it was also shown that about 20 years after leaded gasoline was banned, state-by-state, each state showed a significant drop in crime rates and incarceration. The leaded gasoline does definitely have an effect, though I believe the greatest effects are those on young children whose brains are still developing. A friend of mine has a daughter who suffered significant lead exposure when they remodeled their older home, and is not quite normal as a result.

My experiences with lead ball echo what other members here are saying; it fragments far less than high-power rifle bullets. But... I still don't keep meat anywhere near the wound channel. The acidity of the human stomach would certainly dissolve some lead if it's ingested. Lead exposure at any age is not a good thing. A coworker's father was a plumber back in the day, with loads of lead exposure. She described him as "batsh*t insane", which she attributed to that exposure.

Click to expand...

I’m a little dubious of all these stats and surveys. And I know from personal experience how reports can be twisted and misrepresented to show a desired result, it’s all about how data is used or pushed aside. Fact is we are all allotted only a certain amount of time on this earth. While caution is a healthy endeavor, trying to avoid everything that will kill you is a waste of time, live and enjoy as long as you can. The end will come soon enough.

Lead exists throughout the natural environment. In the mineral rich west
it is everywhere. Bullets and shot are not the real issue--it is the hatred
of gun owners and hunters. Yet those same people will eat hamburgers.
They think that the meat comes from the back of stores and grows on
"meat bushes" .

ShogunRyan said:

Does the lead contaminate the meat? Does it leave lead powder behind? If so do i have to get rid of the area of the meat that touched the lead?
(Also sidenote is it safe to use copperhead bbs in my smoothbore? Because lead is prohibited for hunting migratory birds where i am.)

Click to expand...

Really? Did you recently land on this planet?

I believe we have wandered abit far from the OP's title:

How safe is it to use lead round balls while hunting?​

Not safe at all, if you are the animal in front of the muzzleloader that it is aimed at at the time. For the rest of us, "no worries."

ADK Bigfoot

The whole thing about the toxicity of lead started with kids eating flaking lead based house paint. No one, for God's sake, is going to pick lead projectiles out of dead game and eat them.
There is concern about waterfowl ingesting lead pellets. I do not know enough about that to argue the merits and will, of course, obey the law when it applies.
"A republic, if you can keep it." I am not at all convinced that the MSM favors a republic.

Covid has done far more damage to folks than lead particles and dust in modern day times. . I worked 41yrs. , in an industry where lead was used to block radiation. Literally in room sized , lead boxes. They were in hospitals and called X-ray rooms. I began casting bullets at around 6 yrs. of age , andcontinued casting lead projectiles and fishing sinkers intermittently , all my life. SO , that puts me at 70+ years of intermittent lead exposure. Does the 50 or so deer i shot w/ lead , m/l round balls count?? Countless small game animals were also shot, using lead shot , and consumed from when I was a small child , and in adulthood. Though I fastidiously removed all the bird shot I could find , doubtless there was a bb or so not found. Still remember spitting the occasional lead bb on my dinner plate. Saying once again..........The most deadly fact about lead , is when it intentionally passes through the vital organs , of a living creature , and that creature expires from this life. Lead deserves some respect , but I don't think we should, wet our pants about it. Also , I know about all the kids poisoned from eating lead paint chips in old 20th century homes. My humble opinion , none of this experience with lead , is enough to totally ban hunting projectiles , and the guns that employ them.............After sustaining all the , long term exposure to all kinds of lead , at 76 , I have no symptoms of lead poisoning. .........

Nothing to worry about if you shoot them in the head...lol

But you ruined the tongue!!!!

I went through a phase years ago of harvesting the tongue’s of deer I killed. Back when I had the energy to not waste a scrap of meat. The tongues were tasty, but they’re small and take a lot of work to cut out and clean. But the resource is there if you put out the effort.

waksupi said:

Lots of guessing involved with this, with no proof.

Click to expand...

I suppose it depends on what you need for proof. When each state experiences a significant drop in crime rates about 20 years after they ban leaded gasoline (and many states did it at different times, all with identical outcomes), that's a pretty strong correlation. The same is true across different countries that banned leaded gasoline. I suppose for some people, there's no proof that I'm the perpetrator if I point my gun at someone and pull the trigger (hey, maybe a stray bullet came from somewhere else, and I missed?), but most reasonable people would agree with this level of evidence.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkn...ricas-violent-crime-epidemic/?sh=17d533dc12c4

Rudyard said:

The houses I lived in in UK had lead water pipes & I moulded a lot of bullets on an open fire never use any other shot but lead no intensions of doing other wise Ime 78 and not dying from lead poisoning .
Rudyard

Click to expand...

If the water flowing through the pipes is of a higher pH -- no problem. Many cities still use them with no ill effect. But... if you change the pH of the water so it becomes acidic (which is exactly what was done by our former governor as a cost saving measure in Flint, MI) then you start to have serious problems.

Don't get me wrong; I cast my own roundballs all the time and fully recognize the superiority of lead as a projectile material. But I don't do it in an enclosed space where vapors are likely to be inhaled. I pick the shot out of game as much to save my teeth as to keep from raising my lead levels.

It's not a matter of lead is 100% fine or 100% bad. The world is not black and white.

Mustang65 said:

You sir have a mighty sensitive palette.

Click to expand...

Well I have shot several times in a indoor range (government one supposedly “state of the art”) and if you blew your nose when you were done the Kleenex would be black.
Lead? Powder smoke? Is there a difference? I now avoid indoor ranges.

Daveboone said:

Any damaged meat immediatly around the bullet wound would be discarded /trimmed anyway.

Click to expand...

It’s been my experience that the immediate area around the projectile channel is badly bruised and bloodied anyway so it’s cut away as a matter of course.

Was

David Veale said:

If the water flowing through the pipes is of a higher pH -- no problem. Many cities still use them with no ill effect. But... if you change the pH of the water so it becomes acidic (which is exactly what was done by our former governor as a cost saving measure in Flint, MI) then you start to have serious problems.

Don't get me wrong; I cast my own roundballs all the time and fully recognize the superiority of lead as a projectile material. But I don't do it in an enclosed space where vapors are likely to be inhaled. I pick the shot out of game as much to save my teeth as to keep from raising my lead levels.

It's not a matter of lead is 100% fine or 100% bad. The world is not black and white.

Click to expand...

Wondering about the lead pipes in homes. Grew up with nothing but lead pipes in our house. Got older and lived in older homes with lead pipes. I would easily say all older homes still have lead pipes out side. Water companies have not replaced those pipes just because. Remember being told to let water run for a few minutes before using.

I’ve used lead my entire life, and played with mercury when I was a child. I’ve chipped lead paint for countless hundreds of hours. Lead toxicity fear is a brand new tool to disarm the American people. Lead is an amazing projectile! That’s why it’s been used for hundreds of years. If something cheaper, and more effective was discovered, they would drop all this nonsense about lead and start attacking that. The only time I’ve ever heard of lead causing harm was to a man who was melting fishing weights for days at a time with no ventilation whatsoever. So there you go. Don’t melt lead in a small closet and you’ll be good to go… it’s your life though. If you’re afraid of handling lead, or eating a felled animal then don’t.
Just remember that having caution is a good thing, but too much is a handicap.

Eric Krewson said:

If I had a dime for every lead split shot I crimped on my fishing line with my teeth in the last 70 years I could probably buy a new Kibler kit.

Click to expand...

I was thinking the exact same thing when I was a kid walking the river bank for days on end with a pocket full of split shot and crimp them on the line with my teeth

I recently came across a link discussing lead and wild game consumption. It discusses a number of studies involving both lead contamination of game as well as its affect on humans through lead levels in the blood. You may be interested in reading it over.

The bottom line is that it appears there may be more lead in game than we thought, but consuming meat with these tiny lead fragments (many so small they can only be detected by X-ray) does not seem to raise lead levels beyond what is deemed to be current acceptable levels in most cases.

Also, acceptable levels of lead have changed a great deal over the past 50 years. The CDC now considers a blood lead level of less than 10 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL) in adults to be an acceptable level. In the 1960’s the acceptable threshold was 60. In 1971, the CDC lowered this threshold from 60 to 40, and then lowered it again to 30 in 1978, to 25 in 1985, and then to 10 in 1991.

It does seem that lead has a much greater health effect on children than adults, so it may be advisable to limit the amount they consume.

https://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/...-of-lead-in-venison-gray-toxin-or-red-herring