I shoot targets in pellet traps with pistols using 4.5mm lead pellets in a home range in my garden. All the pellets are collected and can be recycled. There is almost zero environmental contamination. There is no reason for the government to interfere with this hobby and I am not interested in this requiring a licence, just leave us alone for Pete's sake.
I work in an electronics shop. A few years back a "safety coordinator" seemed intent on making us get rid of solder in the shop. Right... It can't happen, and no, silver solder isn't going to work on heat sensitive parts. She also was aghast at power strips with 14 outlets all with something plugged-in. She was nearly shouting that this was a fire hazard. Our electricians pointed out that everything plugged-in was low voltage, so the cumulative draw was less than a standard light bulb. She didn't understand, which is the fundamental flaw that is behind the ban on lead ammunition. People with power that want to be seen as taking action, but who don't really understand the issue or even care that their solutions won't help at all. Their primary job is staying employed by appearing to do useful things.
Let me tell you all a story. I've been shooting lead, full-bore and air, for over 50 years. My profession is electronics, which I started as a hobbyist at 13 - so over 60 years of soldering with molten lead. Note, fluid bubbling stuff inhaling the fumes - not sitting down-range at 600 yards. From the "Experts" all my organs should have long failed. Obviously not. Arguments all hinge on one word "COULD". A Maths Lecturer once defined "COULD" for me: "IF MY AUNT HAD BALLS - SHE COULD BE MY UNCLE". Enough "PROOF" Experts? Happy shooting.
@@todorkolev7565 Rubbish. The Health and Safety Executive were so concerned by fumes of lead being emitted during the soldering process that they mandated fume extraction over soldering stations. THEY are the EXPERTS.
@@mikesharp4033 no level of expertise can change the boiling point of lead. I refer you to the Mendeleev table for further enlightenment. As to the regulatory requirement for ventilation: The fumes that come out - and are potentially dangerous to inhale - are from smoking flux and other detritus. If the flux is Rosin, that is indeed a toxin. And the fact that you are in good health - and I sincerely congratulate you for this - is anecdotal and does not mean the fumes are harmless (even though they are NOT lead)
@@todorkolev7565 Still RUBBISH. During soldering LEAD BOILS - that is how the process works. Do not confuse readers with mention of Mendeleev Table - this has nothing to do with the boiling point of metals. Also the boiling of lead during soldering produces micro-particles (not present while lead is solid), which become airborne.
Setting aside conspiracy theories, here's my tuppence worth. I use air rifles, centre fire rifles and shotguns. Considering the environmental impact I was under the impression it was initially driven by the allegation of waterfowl ingesting the spent lead shotgun pellets and I suppose that's a reasonable hypothesis. I'll buy that one. Another arguement against lead was for high velocity bullets killing animals subsequently entering the food chain. I know from experience the small particles of lead left in an animal and there are undeniable potential health issues ingesting lead. Allow a lead pellet to remain in a parcel of meat for your pet raptor and it will not be alive for long! I'm aware there are digestive differences between avian critters and mammals, but never the less I'd rather not ingest lead. So, Americans have mostly moved to steel starting about 30 years ago. Other European countries are the same. Moving to non lead shotgun cartridges I'm fine with if Govt and regulatory bodies change the regs for us to use better high performance cartridges instead of the low pressure stuff were stuck with. Copper centre fire bullets are perfectly fine and have been used as the 'solid' choice for dangerous game for many years. No issues so far. The big crunch and my gripe is .22 rimfire and air rifles. They require soft lead to perform. THERE ARE NO SUITABLE ALTERNATIVES!! They are relatively slow and do not atomise on impact so what real harm can they be to health or the environment? Shotgun and centrefire sports can weather this change, .22 target shooting, live quarry shooting e.g. pest control and air rifles will suffer and likely catastrophically if viable alternatives are not available AND THEY ARE NOT. Leave air rifles and subsonic .22 rimfire out of the led ban. My thumbs r tired now
Also, there are noticeable problems with vaporized lead in indoor shooting ranges. The reality is that we are going to have to change over, just like they did with solder. Usually it's tin or zinc mixed with copper. And, yes, it affects airguns as well. It's not uncommon for a moderator to be called a LDC (Lead Dust Collector) by many old-timers.
@@plektosgaming An indoor shooting range with proper and adequate extractors should not have an issue with lead vapour. The main problem is that there are no economically viable alternatives to lead
@@plektosgaming They realised that with solder the lead alternative was *not* really suitable for hobby & educational use, and this is why you can still buy it for those purposes today. So I don't see why an exception cannot be made for those guns which really still need it.
@@loc4725 The problem is that they create centrated areas of contamination due to the gasses and dust present at shooting ranges and the like. The only reason we suffer with garbage alternatives is because the people who make ammunition are lazy. Most bullets are copper clad now, and they have no impact no modern firearms rifling or longevity. So, copper-clad tin or whatever should perform the same. That is assuming that airgun barrels are also made to the same specs. Again, if they are not, that's the industry being lazy and giving us junk/cutting corners.
@@plektosgaming I get the angle you are at here but centre fire rifles are operating at huge pressures above air rifles and basically force the copper bullet into the rifling , air rifles I doubt have enough power to do the same, that's why for our air rifles we use soft lead as it conforms easily to the barrels and engages the rifling. But then again what about FX and their non rifled barrels, is this the route we need to be heading? Smooth twist and alloy pellets or copper? Would copper clad pellets work with these types of barrel? So many questions to be answered in this
The UK doesn’t believe in firearms ownership, they’re seen as a danger/general detriment to society. That’s the general political viewpoint as that’s what most British people believe.
Considering 80+% of the water we drink in the UK travels through lead pipe, the risk of lead poisoning is hardly down to a minority of shooters but more likely our water suppliers
This has nothing to do with saving the environment but all to do with more regulations and gathering more power and creating more bureaucrats to spend more tax money on there salaries. Governments are never out to help you or the environment there only out to help there bottom line. Keep at it Andy you and Giles are the only ones left I watch and I'm American love your channel and you reveiw style. Cheers!
I've been involved in campaigning against overreaching legislation in another (non-shooting) area and one of the things we quickly realised was that the regulatory body was making rules not based on evidence but because they would likely be downsized, and so needed to justify their current form & existence by coming up with new 'safety' rules.
@@loc4725 the only true use for a bureaucrat is justifying there own job. Every government everywhere in the world needs to go on a starvation diet and leave the people and the environment the hell alone there going to save the world to death.
Agree ...if people have been paying attention to the agendas the Globalists have pushed the last 2 yrs and what they have PLANNED .....this Is a backdoor way of reducing firearm ownership by making ammunition inaccurate so people don't see the point of carrying on ......corrupt Governments don't want an armed population because of what they have planned
@Acknowledged of All the Consequences. The case for banning lead in ammunition appears very weak to me. Where are the peer reviewed studies? Where is the impact assessment? Where is the justification for a complete ban over mitigating & controlling the alledged problem? And another thing, if lead is so bad then why go after a source which likely constitutes significantly less than 1% of total environmental lead pollution, especially when aviation though use of leaded fuel quite literally aerosolises and spreads serious quantities of the stuff around every day? Why are they going after the handful of small berries right at the top when there are giant fruit next to the ground? If protecting the environment is the primary aim then this ban doesn't seem to make any sense.
@@loc4725 that's because there is no environmental issue they just want to make it harder any way they can for any of us to have a means of fighting back. I know the second amendment doesn't exist in the UK but you all are our brothers and sisters and you should have the ability to shoot and hunt at your leisure without health and safety ( another useless beraucracy ) telling grown folk what they can and cannot do.
I have seen results of areas where a lot of clay shooting was done for several decades. The numbers where far from alarming lvls and the water ground levels where not touched. It’s all about regulating the shooting sport. I shoot indoors since 30 plus years and get my blood tested yearly. Nothing alarming. If they can’t get the guns they will go for the ammo.
The lead in the ground is bound up in ores so doesn't really get into the surrounding environment unless subjected to erosion or other geological processes. We mine the ore, crush it up and then heat it to extract the metallic lead and turn it into all sorts of useful things that may ultimately end up accidentally poisoning the environment and/or its occupants. Like many other things, it's fine and balanced in its natural state until we dig it up, refine it and put it in places and concentrations it never would have naturally been. I'm not suggesting that lead is inherently bad, just that the notion that it carries the same environmental risk in its natural state that it does in refined form is wrong.
If the Airgun manufacturers haven't already been working on an alternative to lead as a replacement then they could be guilty of killing the golden goose, namely us, that buy their products. People could be turned away from the sport or retire from it if there is not a reliable consistent substitute to fit in the millions of airguns already owned.
there is no metal that can replace lead its tho light ,to expensive or to hard . al shooting records of the past wil be better with lead shot , then those set with non lead projectiles
Having been in Health and Safety for over 20 years here is my considered opinion. It is a proposals from the HSE not the Police. HSE will enforce and prosecute against any proposed legislation. To enable enforcement, only licensed sites will be used by licensed shooters. The use of lead and its recovery will be subject to spot visits and all recovery and disposal records will be subject to inspection as a statutory record under the legislation. Lead-free ammunition will be subject to statutory record and inspected to proof it is being used. The implications are horrendous but the consequences to the industry, shooters and range managers in the event of a breach need to be carefully considered. Once traditional consultation processes start, the HSE is going to put legislation before parliament and in no time it will be passed and we have missed our chance. Get involved. Please.
This has every sign of being another ill-considered over reaction in respect of air gun ammunition, which as your statistics show is a very small proportion of lead usage. I've never considered steel BB ammunition due to ricochet issues and not wanting BB's all over the place. All the rifles I have are rifled barrels which are designed to use lead projectiles and would be wrecked by anything like a BB. Lead deforms on impact with the advantage of not ricocheting if a sensible back stop is used. In the garden all my lead pellets go into a catcher and are recycled. I shoot at both indoor and outdoor ranges. The indoor pellets are all recovered. Outdoor they currently go into a sand bund with a full ex-military range backstop. It wouldn't take a lot of effort to install pellet catchers. As far as pest control lead again offers the advantages of accuracy, mass, and deformation transferring maximum energy and aiding a clean kill. I'm at a loss to identify any other material that will adequately fit the bill. Certainly not any sort of plastic - another environmental no-no. Depleted Uranium??
Another government department where the horse is led by the cart Soon we will need permission to get out of bed in the morning, and then they will tax you on that. Great video cheers Andy 👍
Yet again the idiots speak up to sell out the rest of the shooting community. You feel free to carry on trying to protect your part of the community but when the hunters are gone they will come for you too.Feel free to educate yourself on the history of gun control in the UK.
the lead thats got in the people is most from the lead in drinkwaterpipes , coalburning .and in leadfree fuel s is still some lead. metalic lead from bullets is stabil . you can dig bullets up from 1600 ,and they are still complet. and lead is a earth metal thats naturaly everywhere . like iron ,copper .also
This has the potential to completely shut down our sport in all its guises. The main appeal with airguning has always been its cheap and cheerful once over the purchase of the weapon. As per the comments string here, if we are facing 37,50£ a tin we are getting into rim fire territory. Yet again we see ill advised and rushed decisions being made to squeeze out legitimate shooting. 🤔
Those prices would eventually calm down if mass produced, I don't think theirs any conspiracy to squeeze shooting, at least consciously but more of an attempt for the government to hit environmental targets without doing something like taxing red meat or essentially trying to have its cake and eat it,.
It seems to me, to be another attack on our sport, brought on by the anti shooting and hunting brigade, something that only they would think up, having succeeded in getting banned lead weight used in course fishing, most of all their other attempts of getting our sport in all it's form banned have met with failure. Dave B at RatnRabbit Pest control.
£37.50 a tin would be very conservative in mho! I've seen shotgun cartridges 10x more expensive than normal lead. Add to this the massive drop in volume sales and the price per unit will rocket because smaller batches will be more expensive to produce. I'd recon we'd be lucky to see the tin of pellets being as low as £37.50
If we set avg 12ga shotshell lead at 1oz, that equates to over 230,000,000 shotgun shells fired just for hunting on a smallish island nation. (If the 6k+ ton figure is in metric tons, it is also over 200,000,000 in US tons.) That works out to around 400 shots per year per each of the 600k hunters if they all use 12ga shotguns. When smaller shells such as 16ga or 20ga are considered, with less total lead in each shot, that 230 million shells fired is obviously a low estimate. Where did the 6k plus tons of lead figure come from? It sounds a little high, perhaps even totally made up in order to push somebody's agenda. If that is a gov't supplied figure, my bovine excrement meter would be pegged.
I know US tons are light but even so, did something go wrong with your sums? A tonne is 1000kg = 2204 lb. (2.20462 lb/kg). A ton is 2240 lb. US ton is 2000 lb Considering no one outside of the US uses US tons I suspect they are ton or tonne, near enough the same thing.
Factor in clay shooting and it could be a whole different figure. I’m totally opposed to a lead ban but it seems there’s little we can do to avoid it when our governing bodies either have no voice or just roll over.
Should the shooting community take HSE to court for the years they have allowed lead exposure since lead paint was banned? This ban will be tacit to an admission that they have knowingly allowed our exposure for years despite their regulatory duty.
The laughable part of the lead paint ban/VOC reductions in paint is the results are paint finishes are piss poor , they neither protect the timber window/door or have any longevity. Total ban on VOC's in Paint coating were supposed to have been in by 2012, here we are 10yrs later and they still can't ban it because the paint industry can't produce products which work...... Gotta love the Woke, Lefty Governments in the UK including the current pile of shite Tory Party.
To set a good example I hope the ammunition currently being supplied to Ukraine by the governments looking to impose this restriction on their people is lead free!
There are already alternatives used for fishing. But these things are often a case of, "nanny went mad". The alloys used for those and lead-free solder are also toxic. As is adding class 1 carcinogen benzene to petrol to replace the dangerous lead. Oh dear, what a shame, nevermind.
@@stevestewart4416 true i use the H&N Baracuda power pellets, they are a lead coated pellet and the don't deform so much on impact and they hit much harder
Thank you for this video sir and just when I thought it was impossible to "beat" your AAR channel - you came out with AAR News! Bravo! You are now the BBC of airguns :) I recognize the massive efforts and hard work that have been added to your life with this new channel. Best of luck with it!
I shoot Shotgun, HMR, and air (sub 12 and FAC). For my shotgun (Benelli M2) it's not an issue, I've already changed to steel and the bunnies and pigeons drop just the same as with lead. I understand the NTX ammo for HMR is OK, but I've never tried it. Many moons ago I had sample packs of air rifle pellets which included copper, it was dreadful, I hope there is something better nowadays else I would not be wanting to shoot bunnies with it.
Last year I collected all the pellets from My pellet traps and saved them in a crisp tube , I had just over 23lb of lead in that tube , it's sat in My garage at the moment but will be melted and made into sea fishing weights , though there are plans to follow the banning of lead in Freshwater fishing and the use of lead weights in the Sea is also under scrutiny and may yet be banned . Shoot Straight Stay Safe & Stay Well .
Here in the states we solved our problem of British overlords by sending them home. We do the same today with our politicians by voting them out of office. Kidding aside, the impact of mining an element out the ground, and shooting it where it goes back into the ground, is negligible. Shot for waterfowl is different because the birds ingest shot. Lead for pipe and paint is different too, as also can easily enter the body. However, the attack on rifle ammunition sounds like just another ploy to eliminate the shooting sport. Good luck to you my British friends. I hope you find a solution to your government overreach.
Erm yeah right. Believe what you want. You never got rid of the English. Look at Epstein island. The crown is blackmailing your politicians to secure business deals etc. Prince William owns SERCO which runs much of the logistical support for the US military. A contract awarded during the time that Epstein island was an active operation. Run by his uncle. Coincidence? I mean overreach is overreach. I laugh like heck on July 4th I know that.
The proposed ban on lead for rifles is cobblers. I have looked at the science, and even with the aggressive techniques used (cooking game in vinegar anybody?), the conclusion was that ingestion of game shot with lead may (note the word "may") lead to damage to human health. No statistics or examples of anyone actually affected are offered. In other words, there is zero risk to human health. The proposed ban is to reduce a theoretical risk (actually zero) without assessing the benefits e.g. to vermin and pest control and would lead to reduced animal welfare. Write to your MPs and get HSE put back in their box.
I have tried several lead free alternative in.22 and they are all to light in sub 12. In fact the copper alternative have a slower FPS on the chronograph. They do not reach out beyond 30m and are pretty inaccurate. I imagine in 177 they are even worse when this ban goes ahead, unless the pellet manufactures make a decent lead free pellet that has the performance as lead I can see 177 being useless for hunting. There are many videos of FAC Spec rifles shooting copper alternative very well at 900 FPS but they are useless at sub 12. I doubt the government are going to relax FAC rules, so yes this is a way of getting rid of airguns.
Nice vid with some good information.. But, unfortunately it highlights clearly the major problem with shooting.. Solidarity of all disciplines of shooting.. The fact that each form of shooting for whatever reason only cares about their needs and not the needs of everyone means that no matter what happens we will ultimately always loose.
Is there any real evidence that lead ammunition is getting into food and water. What are the figures if any, and how do you prove that it is coming from ammunition. Is this ban just someones "Good Idea" just in case. I used to handle lead solder every day for over 45 years in my job of repairing radio and television equipment. I have just turned 70 and as far as I am aware have suffered no ill effects. I think most people in my job will tell you the same. It is just more regulation to keep the regulators in work.
Lets face it, what's behind this is ultimately is they don't want joe public having any sort of weapon. First they thought they'd sort it with licencing but that costs money to run, so instead you make it financially unfeasible for the majority to buy the required ammo and voila job done. Wrap it up in a protect the environment gift wrap and sit back smug. If this is genuinely about the environment there must be much bigger culprits to run to ground before us lot.
This is basically it, it’s a convenient excuse to further disarm us so they can further push more tyrannical measures in the west. With the improvements in 3D printing and home milling they just can’t stop people rearming, you can already build shotguns and shells from scratch it’s great.
Yeah, that's why lead was removed from paint and petrol too, to stop us having guns. Don't forget that we never went to the moon either. It's all a big conspiracy - or are you just a bit dumb.
I'm not saying it's a conspiracy I'm stating that it it's a great way to remove airgun usage from a large number of people by pricing us out. Its well reported that there is a demographic who'd like nothing more than to see airgun and crossbow ownership banned in the U.K.
@@nigelhutt9921 People get caught up on if its some evil cabal in a secret bunker plotting every little detail when in reality its people who have good intentions that inavertently cause harm through dogmatic measures. They want to make the UK safer but don't realise how much thier actions actually harm us. It's like the knife and blade restrictions, absolutely ridiculous and ineffective yet they keep pushing more and more because admiting they're wrong and need to reassess the situation is far too humiliating compared to continuing their fanatical crusade until results magically turn up. As I said above reality is gonna quickly catch up and they're gonna have to change or get clowned on. I'm already laughing because they can't stop me
I use a funnel trap outside or at an inside range, I’ve got over 12kg saved in spent pellets! Only thing I need to do now is make my own pellets? What’s known as recycling! 👍
Tried a few lead free after watching this video, H&N Field Target Trophy Green and the Copper H&N Field Target Trophy Power - Both terrible, under a 5p size grouping with AA Diabolo, be lucky if a £5 note covered the grouping from the lead free, terrible. Anyone got any other suggestions before I start buying a lifetimes worth of lead pellets?
Presumably, air gun barrels are as fussy about lead-free pellets as they are about lead pellets. I shot a 5 shot group with AA field in .177- 2mm centre to centre; then I repeated that with BSA Greenstars- 2mm c2c. But in my .22 cal Hammerli 850 Magnum there was a definite loss of accuracy.
I’d rather the gun industry took the lead and come up with the solutions rather than government imposing their I’ll considered legislation. We have a lot of very clever people working in the industry and I’m sure they can come up with suitable performance alternatives to lead(Pb) and the ammunition manufacturers will out of necessity develop the ammo
Well said, your right all nonsense. With water companies pulling sh..t into our rivers every year. Thats more of a concern!!! Just the EU prats trying to stop the sport.
The risk of me being affected by lead is very low almost nill, the risk of me suffering from airborne pollutants like carbon particulates is very high, When I wipe the window sill down its black with dust and soot from the road, seesm the government likes to pick easy soft targets, rather than do something worthwhile.
Airgun sniper elite has done extensive testing on lead free pellets , you just gorra paw through his TH-cam channel to find them , there are quite a few ...
Great video Sir. Definitely a worrying time for our industry. Would like to see these statistics on how many peoples health has actually been effected directly from lead in the food chain or the environment? As apposed to sewage being discharged into river & sea including pesticides on crops? Think the environment agency should get their act together first on more important issues than pointing the finger at shooters who are actually helping the environment with pest control.
They tell me, I have an elevated amount of lead in my testicles, and I assume it's from shooting lead projectiles for over 60 years! However, after wandering through my life with so called "lead balls," I have NOT noticed any negative effects, other than the fact the lead in my balls, has perhaps, given me a sort of stunted upward growth and has made me grow in a more sideways, yet blocky way, resembling a stance known to gun people as, a "J. Wayning" type of stance. This type of stance comes from what John Wayne used, with his hands near his pistoles, at his sides, starring directly into you're eyes, just before the draw, he would say, "Ok pilgrim.... And anyways, they tell me I have an elevated amount of lead in my testicles, and I assume it's from shooting lead projectiles for over 60 years, but I see no problems with that whatsoever....
Theres simply no cheap / closely priced and readily available alternative to most full bore and rim-fire cartridges. Both in performance and terminal energy.
Thanks Andy very interesting. The first point is a viable alternative. If the issue can be resolved then happy days no further discussion. The second question is legislation. Sure they can stop the sale in the uk but eBay from China etc? The third is policing. As a retired officer myself I can assure you that’s not going to happen. Okay each force will appoint an environment officer that among a plethora of other duties may visit some gun clubs. So good luck government of the day, I will watch this space.
Stopping sales won't be an issue ( and not just for ammunition but everything else ) if/when they implement the planned cashless society linked to digital ID Passports and social credit score
Reviews on non lead pellets indicate ricochets travelling a considerable distance. This I believe will due to complaints of neighbouring properties lead to the banning of garden 'plinking' in the near future . A cunning plan from the start?
They do not need valid data to ban lead, they already successfully implemented a ban on its use in electronic equipment which was one of the lowest users of lead (in solder)
Actually leaded solder is still used in medical equipment and military equipment. Reason lead free solders are brittle and cause bad joints over time i.e. not reliable hence the exemptions. You can still leaded solder in its for hobby/private use. I can see a roaring trade in pellet and bullet mould's .
Hopefully JSB, H&N etc. will finally start to develop a reasonable alternative as the lead free pellets I have tried over the years have been nothing short of dreadful. Of course, the alternative is that they don't bother and sell lead pellets to countries such as USA who buy far more than us (witness the current JSB shortage as the US purchased so many (I believe it was £20m worth?)) whilst not investing in R&D for the UK market
Andy, If you look on shooting the breeze target forum they have been developing some well engineered ways of collecting lead from field target type knockdown targets. They have managed to collect over 90% of the lead.
Sledgehammer to crack a nut, including airgunners. Any metals are precious, and cost fantastic amounts of cash to mine. Mind you, with green alternatives at nearly £40 a tin (previous comment) is a green alternative really viable?
There are but they're extremely expensive. That's why the vast majority of people shoot steel shotgun cartridges because unless you are a rich person ull not be using the other stuff!
@giant1234 The stuff used in the fishing industry is lighter than lead. What me may find is a shift in Cali Res when this is done and dusted with .22 being the new .177. who knows?
Not looking forward to buying my 1st tin of "24 carrot Gold" pellets just to save the environment lol,, but seriously i can see them coming up with a "lead tax" in the same pretence like carbon emissions - they will fill their coffers one way or another!
Air guns are very versatile weapon - there are plenty of ways to make ammo without lead. For example, I make my own ammo using hot glue with steel BBs embedded. Perhaps not as lethal as lead bullet, but it will still maim and kill at high enough FPE.
Surely they need to allow the gun manufacturers and ammunition makers time to produce new ammunition types that work with existing as well as new models of weapon.
Excellent video as always, hopefully the manufacturing company will find an alternative to lead,but as always the big pollution countries won't stop the manufacturing of lead ammunition,maybe you could do a review on what alternatives there are out there at present.
I use a HW95K and shoot 8.3gr RWS Superdomes ( .177 ) at 785fps ......the only lead free alternative near that weight puts my rifle at 12.05ft/lbs , with the rest of the available pellets at around 6gr knocking a good 3ft/lbs off my muzzle energy ... I use my HW95K for target work out to 60 yards and pest control out to 35yards - 45ysrds .....and it seems most if not all lead free pellets available aren't accurate enough or have enough terminal energy for either
Shooting is getting expensive as it is without a lead ban. People might need to go back to single shot air guns, it’s so easy to get through tins with multi shot pcp’s. I love it though apart from the cost.
Not so much a back door into 'more legislation for shooters', but perhaps the eventual complete ban of all private shooting in the UK? The loss of lead ammunition will cause a massive hit to the shooting world and many will retire from the sport. The outrageous extra costs of any 'new' replacement ammo types will be simply unaffordable for the vast majority of hobby shooters. Many older but perfectly serviceable and wonderful shotguns, will be either incapable of shooting steel, due to proofing issues, or will require the extra cost of being re-submitted for proof for steel and will cost a fortune. Let alone the vast and overwhelming back logs which will be inevitable in getting guns re-proofed when a ban finally hits. (There are not enough Proof Houses to cope in the UK). As with everything we do, this is all very last minute and late in the day, and as such will mean we run into the problem head first, causing huge infrastructure and supply issues. Already, there are considerable problems emerging for rifle shooters looking at alternatives in many calibers. I hear on the grapevine that .243 is juts one caliber proving very hard to find a suitable alternative for, as its ballistic characteristics have shown most current materials are unsuitable and highly inaccurate. That will mean some very common calibers may simply begin to disappear from usage as supplies of lead are removed. This issue has been known and talked about for many, many years but it seems we are, as humans, typically leaving it all to the last moment and letting politicians and anti-shooting lobbyists take control and close the door in our faces. Whilst it is already current practice to recover and re-cycle all lead from rifle ranges, both indoor and outdoor, quite how clay shooting schools and grounds can hope to meet the legislation for recovering 90% of all lead on their land, heaven only knows! I cannot see it being at all possible in most cases. Many clay shooting schools, currently will not permit the use of steel shot on their land anyway! Make no mistake, this will be a massive and destructive blow to private and sport shooting in the UK and across much of Europe, and we are very far from solutions to effect a successful or cost effective transition away from lead. The time scale for all this is completely unworkable. I echo the words of some of those commenting below, in that we should all stand together on this issue. If we ignore the needs of one discipline or type of shooting, we stand to lose it all. There can be no 'well, I don't shoot shotguns or rimfire rifles, so I will take the side of protecting airgun shooters', or the opposite. We have to work together and voice as one in order to find a way forward through this mess.
Well done for highlighting this issue. I'm about to try my first lead-frees (BSA Greenstars in .177 and .22) but, like claretbuck1882, am concerned about the effect on the barrels of my guns. Also, there is the high price. I wonder if I'll be confident enough in lead-frees to risk a shot at a rat and how effective the lighter weights of alloys will be on live quarry.
@@acknowledgedofalltheconseq366 Only if he eats the cleaning wipes afterwards. I don't know about the rest but I usually clean my hands afterwards because oily and leaded hands are not something you eat/scratch your arse/pick your nose with.
Been using lead free for a year now with surprising results using my hw80 95 and 77, I have been using the hn ftt greens and the bsa greens the hn have been bang on at 30/35 yards as good as the lead, they drop rabbit's squirrels just as hard the bsa also gave good results just not as tight as the hn. A side note there has been no change in performance when going back to lead either so evidently no damage has been done to the barrels. I will be continuing to test at longer ranges there can be a bit more movement in higher winds but not that much than the lead to be honest. The price is the killer though and at 200 pellets a tin they are way to expensive but in time I think they will come down. There is a yank testing them at 30/50yards he is getting amazing groups.
@@JG-fv9bv my rifles are all .22 but in .177 you would be right up to the 900fps probably near on a 1000 fps with the lead free even on a 12ftlb rifle.
Cheers for the info, one concern is that with the lighter pellet there will be less pressure/resistance between the pellet and piston head so causing more stresses on the spring and cylinder eventually causing potential damage ?
Something I forgot and would like to add. When my grandfather died in 1960 (I was 6) my brother brought home an eye dopper bottle full of mercury> I would put drops of it on my desk and roll it around like it was drops of water. there is n....n....n......n..........n..nothing wrong with me and I'm 68 now
Lead shotgun shells for waterfowl hunting have been banned for 30 years in the USA. It took awhile for the Ammo companies to get it right with steel shot but eventually they got a reasonable alternative. Steel shot certainly isn't a good choice for pellet air guns.
Is this not just another hand around the throat of our sport? This will see ranges close because of the agricultural and water table side of things.., not to mention collecting 90% of the lead sent down range (pellet traps are gonna fly off shelves). Some rifles and pistols don’t like non lead alternatives (some of mine don’t.., wouldn’t group if you paid them.., unlike the politicians who make up these rules [cough cough]). I can understand why they’re coming out with this but don’t understand why we the air gun/rifle community, which let’s face it makes up a negligible amount tonnage compared to the rest, are going to suffer. We’re going to end up with rifles that wouldn’t hit a barn door at 5 yards let alone group. Half of my rifles will end up as expensive paper weights with no possibility of “moving them on” because no one will want to give them a new home. Yes Andy, I think you’re correct with the “Backdoor licensing “ you mentioned.😎
So 90% recovery, based on what start point? If you have a club that's been shooting for 10 years over the same land, so is that back dated or from the ban date? How on earth would you measure it? The contamination is already in the land.
And to that point... what are they measuring 90% off? Are we all going to have to start counting our shots so they know how many spent pellets need to be collected?
I think it should be more precise categorization of shooting activities , than just boom-boom and bann all lead made ammo. For example I am a cripple in a wheel chair and 99% of my shooting sessions are indoors shooting targets and cans . All my pellets goes into a pellet trap and been carefully collected and disposed in the proper collection points only ! Long time ago the fishing weights made from lead were banned in the UK and some other countries , but this is totally different invaroment . And generally if we paranoicly going down to this way of thinking , very soon , we should expect bann for all gas and petrol feeded vehicles , all power plants should be shutted down as the also poisoning the atmosphere ...oh, that's too much to me...
We have to consider the alternatives for lead-free pellets. Lead split shot for fishing has been banned for over 30 years. Usually described as tungsten. But that is a very hard metal that has to be alloyed to make it soft enough. Typically iron (Fe), tungsten (W), bismuth (Bi), tin (Sn), and copper (Cu) - and bismuth and tin are arguably more toxic than lead. As with lead-free solder, a bad case of nanny got it wrong. Not only does it not metallise properly but some of the alloy constituents are more toxic than lead. A study needs to be made of the actual damage done by shooting lead rather the blanket knee-jerk, "lead is bad". It is bad but we need to assess how bad.
@@mikehunt8968 by someone who is familiar with the toxicity of e.g. cadmium, bismuth, antimony, selenium, arsenic, tin, even copper and aluminium etc etc commonly used in such alloys. You're welcome to look them up.
How interesting... I was an NHS doctor for over 30 years and never saw a lead related illness... I did however see a lot of illness and misery caused by alcohol, smoking,drug taking, poverty etc.etc.
How much lead is released into the environment from church roofs and roof flashing? I find it hard to believe that shotgun hunting is higher than clay shooting. Where steel shot is fine with most shotguns airguns need a heavy slug to kill cleanly. Vermin are going to go through the roof if airguns are effectively banned. There are a lot of unforeseen consequences if they shutdown airgun ownership.
I first got into shooting as a shotgun user but only recently got into air guns. So my perspective will be more from a shotgun shooter (both sport and game). For me, it makes sense to phase out lead shot if it is causing sufficient damage to the environment as we all have to part a play in keeping our plant healthy for future generations. BUT so far the alternatives (not including steel) are VERY expensive and prices across the board have recently gone up already thanks to certain economical situations. Steel is the most viable right now but they also come with issues such as not being as effective, higher ricochet chance and potential to damage guns that are not steel proofed. 18 months simply isn't enough time and passing the burden onto ranges and shops will cost them dearly and that cost will eventually find its way to us the shooters further pushing people out of the sport. We need a better plan but sadly I feel the shooters won't be listened to and politicians will just do as they please.
the proposed ban on lead bullets, is this going to include worldwide military use as 90% of military projectiles have a lead core, as for poluting food chain and water table, are they first going to ban the more prolific and readily used phosphafes, weed and pest killers, chemical fertilizers used worldwide by farms,governments and councils. if you drew an honest table of poisonous things still used and causing harm, lead ammo would be down the list, but as usual gun users are an easy target to divert public attention away from chemical companies that keep politicians pockets from starving, if ammo companies contributed major billions into politics, gun users would be top dogs. how many tonnes of chemical waste vanish world wide annually. as for airguns if they found they could make pellets out of resin or alluminium, there would be a ban on those especially as most of these groups are lead by anti gun/blade/pointy stick/banana fanatics who think all weapons should be banned right upto the point some enemy bursts into their home intent on murder rape or pillage at which point its no good making anti gun speeches, ask any group invaded and abused in the last 90 years !neither ISIS nor NAZI worried about poisoning folk.
The solution for shotguns is easy. Replace de lead with steelballs ( here in the netherlands). Only setback is when hunting with steel balls, the consumer can encounter a steel bal in the meat. This can cause your tooth to break and leadballs do'nt.
I served as an apprentice electrical fitter and spent many years ripping out lead cables in Her Majesties warships (if you used the toilets the wash hand facilities were only available ten minutes before clocking off time ,unless you were a plumber by trade!) most of my working life involved lead solders in electronic systems. I now wonder why my present health condition is due to this? or maybe working alongside workers ripping out asbestos lagging ( they had canvas overalls and respirators i had a handkerchif round my mouth) HMG did nothing about this for many years. What has this to do with shooting/ well the industrial spillage of lead must be much more than in shooting sports surely . And yes the lead free solders are pathetic and other materials in an air rifle must be harmful?
Is there any research being done by certain groups? Can alloy or other metal projectiles be coated with a solution that can coat the barrel before leaving the muzzle? Can the projectile be coated with lead which will be released by friction thus leaving lead in barrel posing no theat to the enviorement? Questions,Questions, Questions?
I use a target trap to collect my pellets so no pollution there, but notice my fingers get covered in lead when loading, always wash the pellets first but still get some coverage, I am considering wearing gloves to load magazines.
Make your own pellets put them modern lead free tin.. spray with rainx will keep them looking super bright and no one will be able to tell the difference
I shoot targets in pellet traps with pistols using 4.5mm lead pellets in a home range in my garden. All the pellets are collected and can be recycled. There is almost zero environmental contamination. There is no reason for the government to interfere with this hobby and I am not interested in this requiring a licence, just leave us alone for Pete's sake.
If I didn't have my pellet trap targets I wouldn't be able to make fishing weights.
@@andrewrush5125 ha ha werent lead fishing weights banned years ago lol
@@colinwilkinson3648 Not for sea fishing
I work in an electronics shop. A few years back a "safety coordinator" seemed intent on making us get rid of solder in the shop. Right... It can't happen, and no, silver solder isn't going to work on heat sensitive parts. She also was aghast at power strips with 14 outlets all with something plugged-in. She was nearly shouting that this was a fire hazard. Our electricians pointed out that everything plugged-in was low voltage, so the cumulative draw was less than a standard light bulb. She didn't understand, which is the fundamental flaw that is behind the ban on lead ammunition. People with power that want to be seen as taking action, but who don't really understand the issue or even care that their solutions won't help at all. Their primary job is staying employed by appearing to do useful things.
Absolutely!!
Let me tell you all a story. I've been shooting lead, full-bore and air, for over 50 years. My profession is electronics, which I started as a hobbyist at 13 - so over 60 years of soldering with molten lead. Note, fluid bubbling stuff inhaling the fumes - not sitting down-range at 600 yards. From the "Experts" all my organs should have long failed. Obviously not. Arguments all hinge on one word "COULD". A Maths Lecturer once defined "COULD" for me: "IF MY AUNT HAD BALLS - SHE COULD BE MY UNCLE". Enough "PROOF" Experts? Happy shooting.
you poor deluded man.
the fumes you generate in soldering are NOT lead.
@@todorkolev7565 Rubbish. The Health and Safety Executive were so concerned by fumes of lead being emitted during the soldering process that they mandated fume extraction over soldering stations. THEY are the EXPERTS.
@@mikesharp4033 no level of expertise can change the boiling point of lead.
I refer you to the Mendeleev table for further enlightenment.
As to the regulatory requirement for ventilation: The fumes that come out - and are potentially dangerous to inhale - are from smoking flux and other detritus.
If the flux is Rosin, that is indeed a toxin.
And the fact that you are in good health - and I sincerely congratulate you for this - is anecdotal and does not mean the fumes are harmless (even though they are NOT lead)
@@todorkolev7565 Still RUBBISH. During soldering LEAD BOILS - that is how the process works. Do not confuse readers with mention of Mendeleev Table - this has nothing to do with the boiling point of metals. Also the boiling of lead during soldering produces micro-particles (not present while lead is solid), which become airborne.
Setting aside conspiracy theories, here's my tuppence worth. I use air rifles, centre fire rifles and shotguns. Considering the environmental impact I was under the impression it was initially driven by the allegation of waterfowl ingesting the spent lead shotgun pellets and I suppose that's a reasonable hypothesis. I'll buy that one. Another arguement against lead was for high velocity bullets killing animals subsequently entering the food chain. I know from experience the small particles of lead left in an animal and there are undeniable potential health issues ingesting lead. Allow a lead pellet to remain in a parcel of meat for your pet raptor and it will not be alive for long! I'm aware there are digestive differences between avian critters and mammals, but never the less I'd rather not ingest lead. So, Americans have mostly moved to steel starting about 30 years ago. Other European countries are the same. Moving to non lead shotgun cartridges I'm fine with if Govt and regulatory bodies change the regs for us to use better high performance cartridges instead of the low pressure stuff were stuck with. Copper centre fire bullets are perfectly fine and have been used as the 'solid' choice for dangerous game for many years. No issues so far. The big crunch and my gripe is .22 rimfire and air rifles. They require soft lead to perform. THERE ARE NO SUITABLE ALTERNATIVES!! They are relatively slow and do not atomise on impact so what real harm can they be to health or the environment? Shotgun and centrefire sports can weather this change, .22 target shooting, live quarry shooting e.g. pest control and air rifles will suffer and likely catastrophically if viable alternatives are not available AND THEY ARE NOT. Leave air rifles and subsonic .22 rimfire out of the led ban. My thumbs r tired now
Also, there are noticeable problems with vaporized lead in indoor shooting ranges. The reality is that we are going to have to change over, just like they did with solder. Usually it's tin or zinc mixed with copper. And, yes, it affects airguns as well. It's not uncommon for a moderator to be called a LDC (Lead Dust Collector) by many old-timers.
@@plektosgaming An indoor shooting range with proper and adequate extractors should not have an issue with lead vapour. The main problem is that there are no economically viable alternatives to lead
@@plektosgaming They realised that with solder the lead alternative was *not* really suitable for hobby & educational use, and this is why you can still buy it for those purposes today. So I don't see why an exception cannot be made for those guns which really still need it.
@@loc4725 The problem is that they create centrated areas of contamination due to the gasses and dust present at shooting ranges and the like. The only reason we suffer with garbage alternatives is because the people who make ammunition are lazy. Most bullets are copper clad now, and they have no impact no modern firearms rifling or longevity. So, copper-clad tin or whatever should perform the same. That is assuming that airgun barrels are also made to the same specs. Again, if they are not, that's the industry being lazy and giving us junk/cutting corners.
@@plektosgaming I get the angle you are at here but centre fire rifles are operating at huge pressures above air rifles and basically force the copper bullet into the rifling , air rifles I doubt have enough power to do the same, that's why for our air rifles we use soft lead as it conforms easily to the barrels and engages the rifling. But then again what about FX and their non rifled barrels, is this the route we need to be heading? Smooth twist and alloy pellets or copper? Would copper clad pellets work with these types of barrel? So many questions to be answered in this
It’s nothing about the environment, it’s about more rules and regulations and money.
The UK doesn’t believe in firearms ownership, they’re seen as a danger/general detriment to society. That’s the general political viewpoint as that’s what most British people believe.
Yep!
True!
One rule for them, another for us. They shit on this planet endlessly.
You took the words out of my mouth.
Once again it's all about MONEY!!!!
So after years of handling lead pellets without rubber gloves or surgical masks, you all must be poisoned by now.🤣
The nanny state lives on
As Shakespeare once wrote; “…a gun ban by any other name would never smell as sh/t…”
Guess I gotta stock up on some pellets and BBs for my airguns then,just in case the ban will happen outside of the UK as well.
Considering 80+% of the water we drink in the UK travels through lead pipe, the risk of lead poisoning is hardly down to a minority of shooters but more likely our water suppliers
This has nothing to do with saving the environment but all to do with more regulations and gathering more power and creating more bureaucrats to spend more tax money on there salaries. Governments are never out to help you or the environment there only out to help there bottom line. Keep at it Andy you and Giles are the only ones left I watch and I'm American love your channel and you reveiw style. Cheers!
I've been involved in campaigning against overreaching legislation in another (non-shooting) area and one of the things we quickly realised was that the regulatory body was making rules not based on evidence but because they would likely be downsized, and so needed to justify their current form & existence by coming up with new 'safety' rules.
@@loc4725 the only true use for a bureaucrat is justifying there own job. Every government everywhere in the world needs to go on a starvation diet and leave the people and the environment the hell alone there going to save the world to death.
Agree ...if people have been paying attention to the agendas the Globalists have pushed the last 2 yrs and what they have PLANNED .....this Is a backdoor way of reducing firearm ownership by making ammunition inaccurate so people don't see the point of carrying on ......corrupt Governments don't want an armed population because of what they have planned
@Acknowledged of All the Consequences.
The case for banning lead in ammunition appears very weak to me. Where are the peer reviewed studies? Where is the impact assessment? Where is the justification for a complete ban over mitigating & controlling the alledged problem?
And another thing, if lead is so bad then why go after a source which likely constitutes significantly less than 1% of total environmental lead pollution, especially when aviation though use of leaded fuel quite literally aerosolises and spreads serious quantities of the stuff around every day? Why are they going after the handful of small berries right at the top when there are giant fruit next to the ground? If protecting the environment is the primary aim then this ban doesn't seem to make any sense.
@@loc4725 that's because there is no environmental issue they just want to make it harder any way they can for any of us to have a means of fighting back. I know the second amendment doesn't exist in the UK but you all are our brothers and sisters and you should have the ability to shoot and hunt at your leisure without health and safety ( another useless beraucracy ) telling grown folk what they can and cannot do.
I have seen results of areas where a lot of clay shooting was done for several decades. The numbers where far from alarming lvls and the water ground levels where not touched. It’s all about regulating the shooting sport. I shoot indoors since 30 plus years and get my blood tested yearly. Nothing alarming. If they can’t get the guns they will go for the ammo.
Absolutely mate 100 percent
Its basically a back door way of banning without actually banning
let me understand something Lead is mined from the ground but putting lead back is bad for us
Now now Steve, enough of the common sense, they’ll be called you a conspiracy theorist.😉
@@Griffo34 ...and Asbestos....and Mercury.
The lead in the ground is bound up in ores so doesn't really get into the surrounding environment unless subjected to erosion or other geological processes. We mine the ore, crush it up and then heat it to extract the metallic lead and turn it into all sorts of useful things that may ultimately end up accidentally poisoning the environment and/or its occupants. Like many other things, it's fine and balanced in its natural state until we dig it up, refine it and put it in places and concentrations it never would have naturally been.
I'm not suggesting that lead is inherently bad, just that the notion that it carries the same environmental risk in its natural state that it does in refined form is wrong.
@@DjDolHaus86 I was being factious. I know the difference between lead deep in the ground and after it's refined from the ore. but thanks anyway
LOL! the point is where on the ground is the lead going back into and at what volume.
If the Airgun manufacturers haven't already been working on an alternative to lead as a replacement then they could be guilty of killing the golden goose, namely us, that buy their products. People could be turned away from the sport or retire from it if there is not a reliable consistent substitute to fit in the millions of airguns already owned.
Tungsten is a good option…
@@mrpickles3479 tungsten is the hardest metal .can not be shot in a rifled barrel
there is no metal that can replace lead its tho light ,to expensive or to hard . al shooting records of the past wil be better with lead shot , then those set with non lead projectiles
How about 9ct gold 😀
Some tungsten alloys will cause cancer within a year if they get inside your body. It goes to show that you can't tell what new materials will do.
Having been in Health and Safety for over 20 years here is my considered opinion. It is a proposals from the HSE not the Police. HSE will enforce and prosecute against any proposed legislation. To enable enforcement, only licensed sites will be used by licensed shooters. The use of lead and its recovery will be subject to spot visits and all recovery and disposal records will be subject to inspection as a statutory record under the legislation. Lead-free ammunition will be subject to statutory record and inspected to proof it is being used. The implications are horrendous but the consequences to the industry, shooters and range managers in the event of a breach need to be carefully considered. Once traditional consultation processes start, the HSE is going to put legislation before parliament and in no time it will be passed and we have missed our chance. Get involved. Please.
So,where were the HSE when Grenfell tower was clad like a guy Fawkes night bonfire.....
@@Esoxlucius51 Oh great! Sorry for contributing. I presume you are active in the consultation process and have registered your concerns.
@@Esoxlucius51 look into the 'victims'..... They didn't exist, staged drill passed as real to the public.
This has every sign of being another ill-considered over reaction in respect of air gun ammunition, which as your statistics show is a very small proportion of lead usage. I've never considered steel BB ammunition due to ricochet issues and not wanting BB's all over the place. All the rifles I have are rifled barrels which are designed to use lead projectiles and would be wrecked by anything like a BB. Lead deforms on impact with the advantage of not ricocheting if a sensible back stop is used. In the garden all my lead pellets go into a catcher and are recycled. I shoot at both indoor and outdoor ranges. The indoor pellets are all recovered. Outdoor they currently go into a sand bund with a full ex-military range backstop. It wouldn't take a lot of effort to install pellet catchers. As far as pest control lead again offers the advantages of accuracy, mass, and deformation transferring maximum energy and aiding a clean kill. I'm at a loss to identify any other material that will adequately fit the bill. Certainly not any sort of plastic - another environmental no-no. Depleted Uranium??
Another government department where the horse is led by the cart
Soon we will need permission to get out of bed in the morning, and then
they will tax you on that. Great video cheers Andy 👍
Considering all the damage done to everyone and everything by politicians, let's ban them?
as long as you have paid the bed tax
Soon you'll need a permit just to view your weapons...provided they're safely sealed under glass.
That’s some Fudd lore! 😂
This northerner privileged dude (not a long time airgun retailer ) trusts those making the rules .I will fortunately be gone from the crap hole uk
Probably inherited money and was some kinda engineer when it made more money , or northerner accountant .
Need steel bullets in a lead barrel , no probs!
Only a weapon when used against another human.. ✌️😂
Most of us are shooting at paper and have pellet catchers.
How is it contaminating anything ?
Yet again the idiots speak up to sell out the rest of the shooting community. You feel free to carry on trying to protect your part of the community but when the hunters are gone they will come for you too.Feel free to educate yourself on the history of gun control in the UK.
What do you do with the used lead pellets?
the lead thats got in the people is most from the lead in drinkwaterpipes , coalburning .and in leadfree fuel s is still some lead. metalic lead from bullets is stabil . you can dig bullets up from 1600 ,and they are still complet. and lead is a earth metal thats naturaly everywhere . like iron ,copper .also
This has the potential to completely shut down our sport in all its guises. The main appeal with airguning has always been its cheap and cheerful once over the purchase of the weapon. As per the comments string here, if we are facing 37,50£ a tin we are getting into rim fire territory.
Yet again we see ill advised and rushed decisions being made to squeeze out legitimate shooting. 🤔
Those prices would eventually calm down if mass produced, I don't think theirs any conspiracy to squeeze shooting, at least consciously but more of an attempt for the government to hit environmental targets without doing something like taxing red meat or essentially trying to have its cake and eat it,.
It seems to me, to be another attack on our sport, brought on by the anti shooting and hunting brigade, something that only they would think up, having succeeded in getting banned lead weight used in course fishing, most of all their other attempts of getting our sport in all it's form banned have met with failure. Dave B at RatnRabbit Pest control.
@@acknowledgedofalltheconseq366 So are alloys used in lead substitutes for air guns (Bizmuth amongst others), not to mention far more expensive.
£37.50 a tin would be very conservative in mho! I've seen shotgun cartridges 10x more expensive than normal lead. Add to this the massive drop in volume sales and the price per unit will rocket because smaller batches will be more expensive to produce. I'd recon we'd be lucky to see the tin of pellets being as low as £37.50
@giant1234 can you re use the non lead weight for fishing? Don't think it will work with ammo
If we set avg 12ga shotshell lead at 1oz, that equates to over 230,000,000 shotgun shells fired just for hunting on a smallish island nation. (If the 6k+ ton figure is in metric tons, it is also over 200,000,000 in US tons.) That works out to around 400 shots per year per each of the 600k hunters if they all use 12ga shotguns. When smaller shells such as 16ga or 20ga are considered, with less total lead in each shot, that 230 million shells fired is obviously a low estimate. Where did the 6k plus tons of lead figure come from? It sounds a little high, perhaps even totally made up in order to push somebody's agenda. If that is a gov't supplied figure, my bovine excrement meter would be pegged.
I know US tons are light but even so, did something go wrong with your sums? A tonne is 1000kg = 2204 lb. (2.20462 lb/kg). A ton is 2240 lb. US ton is 2000 lb
Considering no one outside of the US uses US tons I suspect they are ton or tonne, near enough the same thing.
Factor in clay shooting and it could be a whole different figure. I’m totally opposed to a lead ban but it seems there’s little we can do to avoid it when our governing bodies either have no voice or just roll over.
Should the shooting community take HSE to court for the years they have allowed lead exposure since lead paint was banned? This ban will be tacit to an admission that they have knowingly allowed our exposure for years despite their regulatory duty.
The laughable part of the lead paint ban/VOC reductions in paint is the results are paint finishes are piss poor , they neither protect the timber window/door or have any longevity. Total ban on VOC's in Paint coating were supposed to have been in by 2012, here we are 10yrs later and they still can't ban it because the paint industry can't produce products which work...... Gotta love the Woke, Lefty Governments in the UK including the current pile of shite Tory Party.
@@adriansams6066 Worse than that, Germany banned lead paint some 60-70 odd years before the UK Government got round to it with kids toys.
To set a good example I hope the ammunition currently being supplied to Ukraine by the governments looking to impose this restriction on their people is lead free!
Iirc they use Depleted Ukrainian 😉
The military will be exempt.
The military are exempt from any incoming lead ban 🥱
how droll
@@phoghat what a tasteless comment! Not an attitude that reflects well on our sport and no possible "just a joke" justification
Lead is a natural element dug up from the earth. It’s my job to return it back to where it came
Another back door way of getting rid of shooting altogether
Alaska already has a ban on lead pellets and I think California does too. Time to stock up and buy some molds.
One can only hope the pellet manufacturer's, can come up with a viable alternative to lead,it's in there interests, as well as ours.
@@acknowledgedofalltheconseq366 you can get copper coated ones maybe it's the cost.
@@acknowledgedofalltheconseq366 copper is toxic too.
There are already alternatives used for fishing. But these things are often a case of, "nanny went mad". The alloys used for those and lead-free solder are also toxic.
As is adding class 1 carcinogen benzene to petrol to replace the dangerous lead.
Oh dear, what a shame, nevermind.
@@stevestewart4416 true i use the H&N Baracuda power pellets, they are a lead coated pellet and the don't deform so much on impact and they hit much harder
@@acknowledgedofalltheconseq366 copper is safer yes, but safe no. Where have all the copper saucepans gone?
Alloy sticks? Containing what metals?
So would you be banned from shooting lead pellets in your back garden into a pellet catcher which catches 100% of the lead?
Was thinking the same thing mate
Thank you for this video sir and just when I thought it was impossible to "beat" your AAR channel - you came out with AAR News! Bravo!
You are now the BBC of airguns :) I recognize the massive efforts and hard work that have been added to your life with this new channel. Best of luck with it!
I shoot Shotgun, HMR, and air (sub 12 and FAC).
For my shotgun (Benelli M2) it's not an issue, I've already changed to steel and the bunnies and pigeons drop just the same as with lead.
I understand the NTX ammo for HMR is OK, but I've never tried it.
Many moons ago I had sample packs of air rifle pellets which included copper, it was dreadful, I hope there is something better nowadays else I would not be wanting to shoot bunnies with it.
Petition to KEEP LEAD FOR *ALL* SHOOTERS
Last year I collected all the pellets from My pellet traps and saved them in a crisp tube , I had just over 23lb of lead in that tube , it's sat in My garage at the moment but will be melted and made into sea fishing weights , though there are plans to follow the banning of lead in Freshwater fishing and the use of lead weights in the Sea is also under scrutiny and may yet be banned . Shoot Straight Stay Safe & Stay Well .
Here in the states we solved our problem of British overlords by sending them home. We do the same today with our politicians by voting them out of office. Kidding aside, the impact of mining an element out the ground, and shooting it where it goes back into the ground, is negligible. Shot for waterfowl is different because the birds ingest shot. Lead for pipe and paint is different too, as also can easily enter the body. However, the attack on rifle ammunition sounds like just another ploy to eliminate the shooting sport. Good luck to you my British friends. I hope you find a solution to your government overreach.
Erm yeah right. Believe what you want. You never got rid of the English. Look at Epstein island. The crown is blackmailing your politicians to secure business deals etc. Prince William owns SERCO which runs much of the logistical support for the US military. A contract awarded during the time that Epstein island was an active operation. Run by his uncle. Coincidence? I mean overreach is overreach. I laugh like heck on July 4th I know that.
Pellet traps are probably the solution for target shooting and steel shot for shot gun. Single projectile for hunting should be allowed.
Ban politicians
The proposed ban on lead for rifles is cobblers. I have looked at the science, and even with the aggressive techniques used (cooking game in vinegar anybody?), the conclusion was that ingestion of game shot with lead may (note the word "may") lead to damage to human health. No statistics or examples of anyone actually affected are offered. In other words, there is zero risk to human health. The proposed ban is to reduce a theoretical risk (actually zero) without assessing the benefits e.g. to vermin and pest control and would lead to reduced animal welfare. Write to your MPs and get HSE put back in their box.
Exactly mate
I have tried several lead free alternative in.22 and they are all to light in sub 12. In fact the copper alternative have a slower FPS on the chronograph. They do not reach out beyond 30m and are pretty inaccurate. I imagine in 177 they are even worse when this ban goes ahead, unless the pellet manufactures make a decent lead free pellet that has the performance as lead I can see 177 being useless for hunting. There are many videos of FAC Spec rifles shooting copper alternative very well at 900 FPS but they are useless at sub 12. I doubt the government are going to relax FAC rules, so yes this is a way of getting rid of airguns.
Nice vid with some good information.. But, unfortunately it highlights clearly the major problem with shooting.. Solidarity of all disciplines of shooting.. The fact that each form of shooting for whatever reason only cares about their needs and not the needs of everyone means that no matter what happens we will ultimately always loose.
That was exactly what happened with the hunting with dogs ban.
@@robertlawrence7958 exactly mate
well observed here in ireland its the same the bullies are employing the divide and conquer tactic
Time to start stocking up on lead pellets 😬
Is there any real evidence that lead ammunition is getting into food and water.
What are the figures if any, and how do you prove that it is coming from ammunition.
Is this ban just someones "Good Idea" just in case.
I used to handle lead solder every day for over 45 years in my job of repairing radio and television equipment. I have just turned 70 and as far as I am aware have suffered no ill effects.
I think most people in my job will tell you the same.
It is just more regulation to keep the regulators in work.
If you want evidence, that’s gonna be a problem
@@franklaskus2395 That's what I mean. Where is the evidence, if any.
So indoor ranges should be ok for lead, which could see an increase in ranges available which would be nice.
I wish my friends across the pond luck.
Lets face it, what's behind this is ultimately is they don't want joe public having any sort of weapon. First they thought they'd sort it with licencing but that costs money to run, so instead you make it financially unfeasible for the majority to buy the required ammo and voila job done. Wrap it up in a protect the environment gift wrap and sit back smug. If this is genuinely about the environment there must be much bigger culprits to run to ground before us lot.
This is basically it, it’s a convenient excuse to further disarm us so they can further push more tyrannical measures in the west.
With the improvements in 3D printing and home milling they just can’t stop people rearming, you can already build shotguns and shells from scratch it’s great.
Yeah, that's why lead was removed from paint and petrol too, to stop us having guns. Don't forget that we never went to the moon either. It's all a big conspiracy - or are you just a bit dumb.
I'm not saying it's a conspiracy I'm stating that it it's a great way to remove airgun usage from a large number of people by pricing us out. Its well reported that there is a demographic who'd like nothing more than to see airgun and crossbow ownership banned in the U.K.
@@nigelhutt9921 People get caught up on if its some evil cabal in a secret bunker plotting every little detail when in reality its people who have good intentions that inavertently cause harm through dogmatic measures.
They want to make the UK safer but don't realise how much thier actions actually harm us.
It's like the knife and blade restrictions, absolutely ridiculous and ineffective yet they keep pushing more and more because admiting they're wrong and need to reassess the situation is far too humiliating compared to continuing their fanatical crusade until results magically turn up.
As I said above reality is gonna quickly catch up and they're gonna have to change or get clowned on.
I'm already laughing because they can't stop me
so I went out and bought a completely untraceable crossbow from my local gunshop............................
I use a funnel trap outside or at an inside range, I’ve got over 12kg saved in spent pellets! Only thing I need to do now is make my own pellets?
What’s known as recycling! 👍
Tried a few lead free after watching this video, H&N Field Target Trophy Green and the Copper H&N Field Target Trophy Power - Both terrible, under a 5p size grouping with AA Diabolo, be lucky if a £5 note covered the grouping from the lead free, terrible.
Anyone got any other suggestions before I start buying a lifetimes worth of lead pellets?
Presumably, air gun barrels are as fussy about lead-free pellets as they are about lead pellets. I shot a 5 shot group with AA field in .177- 2mm centre to centre; then I repeated that with BSA Greenstars- 2mm c2c. But in my .22 cal Hammerli 850 Magnum there was a definite loss of accuracy.
Steel..✌️
I’d rather the gun industry took the lead and come up with the solutions rather than government imposing their I’ll considered legislation. We have a lot of very clever people working in the industry and I’m sure they can come up with suitable performance alternatives to lead(Pb) and the ammunition manufacturers will out of necessity develop the ammo
@giant1234 precisely
There simply is no alternative to lead that works in the same way.
@giant1234 Shooting is diffetent,you need a metal that has weight & expands.
@@andrewclaxton6446 necessity is the mother of invention
@giant1234 Lead free pellet are hard & dangerous to use at close range such as on rats.
The whole thing is a load of bollocks, they just cant leave the shooting community alone .
It ain’t just shooting the filthy just want to stop everyone from living free. Evil filthy scum in the ivory towers. Time to wake and say NO MORE
Well said, your right all nonsense. With water companies pulling sh..t into our rivers every year. Thats more of a concern!!! Just the EU prats trying to stop the sport.
I totally agree.
The risk of me being affected by lead is very low almost nill, the risk of me suffering from airborne pollutants like carbon particulates is very high, When I wipe the window sill down its black with dust and soot from the road, seesm the government likes to pick easy soft targets, rather than do something worthwhile.
When we wipe dust and soot from our windows it's not from the road but log burners !
@@ianm4633 I hope you are joking ffs 🤦
@@robmule4647 No sadly I'm not joking
This will be interesting. Health and safety knobs getting itchy feet again.
Excellent and informative video Andy , I think we will need to see an updated comparison of lead free options soon.
Airgun sniper elite has done extensive testing on lead free pellets , you just gorra paw through his TH-cam channel to find them , there are quite a few ...
Great video Sir. Definitely a worrying time for our industry. Would like to see these statistics on how many peoples health has actually been effected directly from lead in the food chain or the environment? As apposed to sewage being discharged into river & sea including pesticides on crops? Think the environment agency should get their act together first on more important issues than pointing the finger at shooters who are actually helping the environment with pest control.
They tell me, I have an elevated amount of lead in my testicles, and I assume it's from shooting lead projectiles for over 60 years! However, after wandering through my life with so called "lead balls," I have NOT noticed any negative effects, other than the fact the lead in my balls, has perhaps, given me a sort of stunted upward growth and has made me grow in a more sideways, yet blocky way, resembling a stance known to gun people as, a "J. Wayning" type of stance. This type of stance comes from what John Wayne used, with his hands near his pistoles, at his sides, starring directly into you're eyes, just before the draw, he would say, "Ok pilgrim....
And anyways, they tell me I have an elevated amount of lead in my testicles, and I assume it's from shooting lead projectiles for over 60 years, but I see no problems with that whatsoever....
Theres simply no cheap / closely priced and readily available alternative to most full bore and rim-fire cartridges. Both in performance and terminal energy.
Thanks Andy very interesting. The first point is a viable alternative. If the issue can be resolved then happy days no further discussion.
The second question is legislation. Sure they can stop the sale in the uk but eBay from China etc?
The third is policing. As a retired officer myself I can assure you that’s not going to happen. Okay each force will appoint an environment officer that among a plethora of other duties may visit some gun clubs.
So good luck government of the day, I will watch this space.
Stopping sales won't be an issue ( and not just for ammunition but everything else ) if/when they implement the planned cashless society linked to digital ID Passports and social credit score
Reviews on non lead pellets indicate ricochets travelling a considerable distance. This I believe will due to complaints of neighbouring properties lead to the banning of garden 'plinking' in the near future . A cunning plan from the start?
I've been lead free for quite a while anticipating this move. I use h&n green in .177 and .22
The .22 version is £37.50 per 500.
Holy 💩!!!!!!!!!
Blimey, that’s crazy.
£15 for 200. That in old money equates to £37.50 per 500. Slight deception
More to point how good better or same ??
I've found the h&n greens are perfectly accurate in my hw100 .177 and .22 in my artemis p15.
They do not need valid data to ban lead, they already successfully implemented a ban on its use in electronic equipment which was one of the lowest users of lead (in solder)
Actually leaded solder is still used in medical equipment and military equipment. Reason lead free solders are brittle and cause bad joints over time i.e. not reliable hence the exemptions. You can still leaded solder in its for hobby/private use. I can see a roaring trade in pellet and bullet mould's .
Hopefully JSB, H&N etc. will finally start to develop a reasonable alternative as the lead free pellets I have tried over the years have been nothing short of dreadful. Of course, the alternative is that they don't bother and sell lead pellets to countries such as USA who buy far more than us (witness the current JSB shortage as the US purchased so many (I believe it was £20m worth?)) whilst not investing in R&D for the UK market
Andy, If you look on shooting the breeze target forum they have been developing some well engineered ways of collecting lead from field target type knockdown targets. They have managed to collect over 90% of the lead.
Sledgehammer to crack a nut, including airgunners. Any metals are precious, and cost fantastic amounts of cash to mine. Mind you, with green alternatives at nearly £40 a tin (previous comment) is a green alternative really viable?
Excellent video. I hope they find a new material for ammunition. A video with the actual alternatives will be perfect.
There are but they're extremely expensive. That's why the vast majority of people shoot steel shotgun cartridges because unless you are a rich person ull not be using the other stuff!
@giant1234 The stuff used in the fishing industry is lighter than lead. What me may find is a shift in Cali Res when this is done and dusted with .22 being the new .177. who knows?
Not looking forward to buying my 1st tin of "24 carrot Gold" pellets just to save the environment lol,, but seriously i can see them coming up with a "lead tax" in the same pretence like carbon emissions - they will fill their coffers one way or another!
Yep, pay lots of money means no damage to the environment which means no damage in the first place
Seems like a way to reduce airgun shooters, make the pellets so expensive most can not afford to shoot.
Air guns are very versatile weapon - there are plenty of ways to make ammo without lead. For example, I make my own ammo using hot glue with steel BBs embedded. Perhaps not as lethal as lead bullet, but it will still maim and kill at high enough FPE.
Surely they need to allow the gun manufacturers and ammunition makers time to produce new ammunition types that work with existing as well as new models of weapon.
Excellent video as always, hopefully the manufacturing company will find an alternative to lead,but as always the big pollution countries won't stop the manufacturing of lead ammunition,maybe you could do a review on what alternatives there are out there at present.
I use a HW95K and shoot 8.3gr RWS Superdomes ( .177 ) at 785fps ......the only lead free alternative near that weight puts my rifle at 12.05ft/lbs , with the rest of the available pellets at around 6gr knocking a good 3ft/lbs off my muzzle energy ...
I use my HW95K for target work out to 60 yards and pest control out to 35yards - 45ysrds .....and it seems most if not all lead free pellets available aren't accurate enough or have enough terminal energy for either
Using 22 lead free might work better in windy conditions.
Shooting is getting expensive as it is without a lead ban. People might need to go back to single shot air guns, it’s so easy to get through tins with multi shot pcp’s. I love it though apart from the cost.
Not so much a back door into 'more legislation for shooters', but perhaps the eventual complete ban of all private shooting in the UK? The loss of lead ammunition will cause a massive hit to the shooting world and many will retire from the sport. The outrageous extra costs of any 'new' replacement ammo types will be simply unaffordable for the vast majority of hobby shooters. Many older but perfectly serviceable and wonderful shotguns, will be either incapable of shooting steel, due to proofing issues, or will require the extra cost of being re-submitted for proof for steel and will cost a fortune. Let alone the vast and overwhelming back logs which will be inevitable in getting guns re-proofed when a ban finally hits. (There are not enough Proof Houses to cope in the UK). As with everything we do, this is all very last minute and late in the day, and as such will mean we run into the problem head first, causing huge infrastructure and supply issues. Already, there are considerable problems emerging for rifle shooters looking at alternatives in many calibers. I hear on the grapevine that .243 is juts one caliber proving very hard to find a suitable alternative for, as its ballistic characteristics have shown most current materials are unsuitable and highly inaccurate. That will mean some very common calibers may simply begin to disappear from usage as supplies of lead are removed. This issue has been known and talked about for many, many years but it seems we are, as humans, typically leaving it all to the last moment and letting politicians and anti-shooting lobbyists take control and close the door in our faces. Whilst it is already current practice to recover and re-cycle all lead from rifle ranges, both indoor and outdoor, quite how clay shooting schools and grounds can hope to meet the legislation for recovering 90% of all lead on their land, heaven only knows! I cannot see it being at all possible in most cases. Many clay shooting schools, currently will not permit the use of steel shot on their land anyway! Make no mistake, this will be a massive and destructive blow to private and sport shooting in the UK and across much of Europe, and we are very far from solutions to effect a successful or cost effective transition away from lead. The time scale for all this is completely unworkable. I echo the words of some of those commenting below, in that we should all stand together on this issue. If we ignore the needs of one discipline or type of shooting, we stand to lose it all. There can be no 'well, I don't shoot shotguns or rimfire rifles, so I will take the side of protecting airgun shooters', or the opposite. We have to work together and voice as one in order to find a way forward through this mess.
Absolutely 🙏
*HOW IS THIS CHANNEL NOT BIGGER ?* 🤨
this is the news channel, the main channel is AAR On Air. stay safe Andy
@@aaronairnews2324 That explains why my *Subscribe* button wasn’t clicked when I was more than sure I’d subscribed to *AAR* 👍🏽
Well done for highlighting this issue. I'm about to try my first lead-frees (BSA Greenstars in .177 and .22) but, like
claretbuck1882, am concerned about the effect on the barrels of my guns. Also, there is the high price. I wonder if I'll be confident enough in lead-frees to risk a shot at a rat and how effective the lighter weights of alloys will be on live quarry.
@@acknowledgedofalltheconseq366 Only if he eats the cleaning wipes afterwards. I don't know about the rest but I usually clean my hands afterwards because oily and leaded hands are not something you eat/scratch your arse/pick your nose with.
Been using lead free for a year now with surprising results using my hw80 95 and 77, I have been using the hn ftt greens and the bsa greens the hn have been bang on at 30/35 yards as good as the lead, they drop rabbit's squirrels just as hard the bsa also gave good results just not as tight as the hn. A side note there has been no change in performance when going back to lead either so evidently no damage has been done to the barrels. I will be continuing to test at longer ranges there can be a bit more movement in higher winds but not that much than the lead to be honest. The price is the killer though and at 200 pellets a tin they are way to expensive but in time I think they will come down. There is a yank testing them at 30/50yards he is getting amazing groups.
Hi , I have a HW95K ( currently using RWS Superdomes in 177 ) and getting 11.41ft/lbs ..785fps ....what are you getting with the H&N fft's in yours ?
@@JG-fv9bv my rifles are all .22 but in .177 you would be right up to the 900fps probably near on a 1000 fps with the lead free even on a 12ftlb rifle.
Cheers for the info, one concern is that with the lighter pellet there will be less pressure/resistance between the pellet and piston head so causing more stresses on the spring and cylinder eventually causing potential damage ?
MATT from demolitionranch must be immune to pb !
Awesome vids bro 👍
Something I forgot and would like to add. When my grandfather died in 1960 (I was 6) my brother brought home an eye dopper bottle full of mercury> I would put drops of it on my desk and roll it around like it was drops of water. there is n....n....n......n..........n..nothing wrong with me and I'm 68 now
Lead shotgun shells for waterfowl hunting have been banned for 30 years in the USA. It took awhile for the Ammo companies to get it right with steel shot but eventually they got a reasonable alternative. Steel shot certainly isn't a good choice for pellet air guns.
Is this not just another hand around the throat of our sport? This will see ranges close because of the agricultural and water table side of things.., not to mention collecting 90% of the lead sent down range (pellet traps are gonna fly off shelves). Some rifles and pistols don’t like non lead alternatives (some of mine don’t.., wouldn’t group if you paid them.., unlike the politicians who make up these rules [cough cough]). I can understand why they’re coming out with this but don’t understand why we the air gun/rifle community, which let’s face it makes up a negligible amount tonnage compared to the rest, are going to suffer. We’re going to end up with rifles that wouldn’t hit a barn door at 5 yards let alone group. Half of my rifles will end up as expensive paper weights with no possibility of “moving them on” because no one will want to give them a new home.
Yes Andy, I think you’re correct with the “Backdoor licensing “ you mentioned.😎
So 90% recovery, based on what start point? If you have a club that's been shooting for 10 years over the same land, so is that back dated or from the ban date? How on earth would you measure it? The contamination is already in the land.
And to that point... what are they measuring 90% off? Are we all going to have to start counting our shots so they know how many spent pellets need to be collected?
I would like to know the number of people directly effected by lead poisoning from shooting or ingestion, good luck with that one.
The alternatives are much more expensive and more difficult to produce ect.
Thank you for bringing this issue to light
I think it should be more precise categorization of shooting activities , than just boom-boom and bann all lead made ammo. For example I am a cripple in a wheel chair and 99% of my shooting sessions are indoors shooting targets and cans . All my pellets goes into a pellet trap and been carefully collected and disposed in the proper collection points only ! Long time ago the fishing weights made from lead were banned in the UK and some other countries , but this is totally different invaroment . And generally if we paranoicly going down to this way of thinking , very soon , we should expect bann for all gas and petrol feeded vehicles , all power plants should be shutted down as the also poisoning the atmosphere ...oh, that's too much to me...
And I just bought yesterday my first pellet pistol.................seems I will be obliged to use my bbs instead, thanks for the video
We have to consider the alternatives for lead-free pellets. Lead split shot for fishing has been banned for over 30 years. Usually described as tungsten. But that is a very hard metal that has to be alloyed to make it soft enough. Typically iron (Fe), tungsten (W), bismuth (Bi), tin (Sn), and copper (Cu) - and bismuth and tin are arguably more toxic than lead.
As with lead-free solder, a bad case of nanny got it wrong. Not only does it not metallise properly but some of the alloy constituents are more toxic than lead.
A study needs to be made of the actual damage done by shooting lead rather the blanket knee-jerk, "lead is bad". It is bad but we need to assess how bad.
Brought to you by the same people as Climate Con, and Wu-flu....
@@mikehunt8968 by someone who is familiar with the toxicity of e.g. cadmium, bismuth, antimony, selenium, arsenic, tin, even copper and aluminium etc etc commonly used in such alloys. You're welcome to look them up.
How interesting... I was an NHS doctor for over 30 years and never saw a lead related illness... I did however see a lot of illness and misery caused by alcohol, smoking,drug taking, poverty etc.etc.
The amount of people put out of work from this
How much lead is released into the environment from church roofs and roof flashing? I find it hard to believe that shotgun hunting is higher than clay shooting. Where steel shot is fine with most shotguns airguns need a heavy slug to kill cleanly. Vermin are going to go through the roof if airguns are effectively banned. There are a lot of unforeseen consequences if they shutdown airgun ownership.
There not shutting gun ownership Shutting down lead dust and lead poisoning Like they did with leaded gas and lead paint
Lead free pellets are dangerous to fire for the shooter at short ranges such as on rat's.
I first got into shooting as a shotgun user but only recently got into air guns. So my perspective will be more from a shotgun shooter (both sport and game). For me, it makes sense to phase out lead shot if it is causing sufficient damage to the environment as we all have to part a play in keeping our plant healthy for future generations. BUT so far the alternatives (not including steel) are VERY expensive and prices across the board have recently gone up already thanks to certain economical situations. Steel is the most viable right now but they also come with issues such as not being as effective, higher ricochet chance and potential to damage guns that are not steel proofed. 18 months simply isn't enough time and passing the burden onto ranges and shops will cost them dearly and that cost will eventually find its way to us the shooters further pushing people out of the sport. We need a better plan but sadly I feel the shooters won't be listened to and politicians will just do as they please.
I just think most shooters will roll over, as usual.
This has been coming for some while. The industry has just ignored it rather than innovating.
the proposed ban on lead bullets, is this going to include worldwide military use as 90% of military projectiles have a lead core, as for poluting food chain and water table, are they first going to ban the more prolific and readily used phosphafes, weed and pest killers, chemical fertilizers used worldwide by farms,governments and councils. if you drew an honest table of poisonous things still used and causing harm, lead ammo would be down the list, but as usual gun users are an easy target to divert public attention away from chemical companies that keep politicians pockets from starving, if ammo companies contributed major billions into politics, gun users would be top dogs. how many tonnes of chemical waste vanish world wide annually. as for airguns if they found they could make pellets out of resin or alluminium, there would be a ban on those especially as most of these groups are lead by anti gun/blade/pointy stick/banana fanatics who think all weapons should be banned right upto the point some enemy bursts into their home intent on murder rape or pillage at which point its no good making anti gun speeches, ask any group invaded and abused in the last 90 years !neither ISIS nor NAZI worried about poisoning folk.
even the airsoft-bb's are under investigation, especially the heavier variants (0.33 and above) because they contain metal, at least most of them.
What will likely happen there is they will point to the lack of biodegradability and use that as a reason to ban them.
The solution for shotguns is easy. Replace de lead with steelballs ( here in the netherlands). Only setback is when hunting with steel balls, the consumer can encounter a steel bal in the meat. This can cause your tooth to break and leadballs do'nt.
I served as an apprentice electrical fitter and spent many years ripping out lead cables in Her Majesties warships (if you used the toilets the wash hand facilities were only available ten minutes before clocking off time ,unless you were a plumber by trade!) most of my working life involved lead solders in electronic systems. I now wonder why my present health condition is due to this? or maybe working alongside workers ripping out asbestos lagging ( they had canvas overalls and respirators i had a handkerchif round my mouth) HMG did nothing about this for many years.
What has this to do with shooting/ well the industrial spillage of lead must be much more than in shooting sports surely .
And yes the lead free solders are pathetic and other materials in an air rifle must be harmful?
Is there any research being done by certain groups? Can alloy or other metal projectiles be coated with a solution that can coat the barrel before leaving the muzzle? Can the projectile be coated with lead which will be released by friction thus leaving lead in barrel posing no theat to the enviorement? Questions,Questions, Questions?
I use a target trap to collect my pellets so no pollution there, but notice my fingers get covered in lead when loading, always wash the pellets first but still get some coverage, I am considering wearing gloves to load magazines.
Sounds like its time to stock up with your best pellets brands
They did this with fishing weights years ago,
We adapted,
And lead over a certain weight is allowed.
Very good explanation of the proposals.
12 gauge shotgun cartridge 437 grain average, .22 air rifle 18 grain average. spray and pray vs precision.
Lead is the new gold! It is time to start to buy lead pellets and slugs.
Make your own pellets put them modern lead free tin.. spray with rainx will keep them looking super bright and no one will be able to tell the difference
I’ll keep all the lead I’ve accumulated and make myself a few pellet moulds , sounds like clay pigeon shooting is all over 😮