Best of Non-Lead Pellets?
- Thread starter mathisfunzy
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If you are open to shooting slugs, the zan 177 lead free 8gr zans are great! Otherwise no experience with the pellets..
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I use H&N Baracudas 5.71gn, shot out of a Beeman underlever or crosman 2240. The Beeman is my goto when I feed my friends, Red Squirrel or chipmunks .
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Predator GTO's are a good non-lead pellet. Be very careful though, they can and do ricochet much more than lead pellets!
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I might have shot just about every non-lead pellet out there. In my experience, it depends on the gun. Some like one kind of pellet, others prefer a different pellet, just like with lead pellets. Are you disappointed with the accuracy of your current non-lead pellets?
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No, I am trying to get my kids into the sport, but slightly worried about lead exposure. Not too concerned for myself.
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Ah, yes, fading fast fond childhood memories of holding lead pellets between my lips while sniping sparrows from the Purple Martin house...
Maybe look for unleaded on sale and build the database on what their guns shoot best from that? There is that lesson of "guns shoot different projectiles differently". Pyramyd has their 4 tins/cans for 3, Midway has had good deals on "blemished" tins of H&N "Green" pellets (not that a dent in the pellet can will hurt the hard tin pellets), Trenier airguns has had good prices on GTOs, Daisy has had their wadcutters on sale, Umarexusa currently has some RWS pointed tin pellets for cheap. I haven't had much accuracy with the plastic sabot metal core pellets, but then again there probably are guns out there that shoot them well. And steel BBs are lead free and don't carry energy as far as diabolo pellets. I'd say shooting an inch at 10 yards with BBs takes real skill (and a good BB to bore fit.)
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Thank you so much for all the helpful information. Glad there are so many good people on here willing to help others.
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If this is why, look into the copper plate HN pellets. They shoot amazing and you don't have to worry about exposure to lead.
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A lot of folks including me raise their own chickens and other fowl for the dinner table, or for eggs. Lost pellets that are found by barnyard fowl will be eaten for gizzard stones. The bird's gizzard will grind down these pellets resulting in lead poisoning, and eggs with very high lead levels. Copper plated lead will not make a difference since the gizzard will quickly grind through the thin plating. I learned this the hard way after I ended up destroying 15 full size turkeys that all had eaten lead pellets. A huge waste of time, money, and nothing in the freezer to show for it.
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A few years back, I ran 20 turkey pullets onto about half an acre under my orchard area to add to the freezer. After a couple of months, four birds got sick. Their mutes were green, loss of the ability to walk straight, very clumsy, falling over and not able to get up. Thinking it might be avian flu, I sent one bird carcass in to the vet for examination. A couple of weeks later it came back with lead poising. By this time, I had lost another 6. Upon cutting open the gizzards, 22 and 38 caliber bullets were found half ground up. It was about then that my daughter reminded me there used to be a backstop there when I taught them how to shoot pistols and 22 rifles. That's well over 30 years ago. I had forgotten all about those early days before I put in the 300 yard range and bench on my place. A metal detector found a lot of spent bullets well under the sod. The kicker was, mole hills and my tilling some of that ground had brought the spent bullets back up where the birds ate them assuming they were stones. Per the report, do not consume this meat, or any eggs from these infected birds. I ended up putting down the rest and burying them. Unlike mammals that pass a pellet quickly, the birds digestive system uses the gizzard and stones inside the gizzard to grind up food. A bullet is not passed until it's been worn down and absorbed into the bird's digestive system. That's why lead poisoning affects birds so much more than mammals.
things we experience take there tolls in many ways.
many years ago i bought 7 steer from a cattle farmer in MS.
about 2 weeks after i got them to my farm, a couple of them where laying down alot
of the time. then they started to regurgitate and loose there balance. My wife being a biologist, started researching
the problem and found it was lead poisoning from several tests she performed.
i contacted the cattle farmer in MS. about this and he had no clue why, he didnt understand and he also had a few steer that were getting sick.
so we loaded up and went back to his farm and we found the reason.
many years before the owner bought the place, the previous owner had fuel tanks above ground that must have leaked fuel or he spilled alot of it, right where the now owner built calf holding pens to begin to raise them after being weaned from there mother.
my wife sampled the ground and grass in the areas and found extremely high lead content.
so, i feel your pain man !!
many years ago i bought 7 steer from a cattle farmer in MS.
about 2 weeks after i got them to my farm, a couple of them where laying down alot
of the time. then they started to regurgitate and loose there balance. My wife being a biologist, started researching
the problem and found it was lead poisoning from several tests she performed.
i contacted the cattle farmer in MS. about this and he had no clue why, he didnt understand and he also had a few steer that were getting sick.
so we loaded up and went back to his farm and we found the reason.
many years before the owner bought the place, the previous owner had fuel tanks above ground that must have leaked fuel or he spilled alot of it, right where the now owner built calf holding pens to begin to raise them after being weaned from there mother.
my wife sampled the ground and grass in the areas and found extremely high lead content.
so, i feel your pain man !!
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it must have, the fuel tanks were 25-30+ years before the holding pens was built.
lead residue does not go away.
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@gendoc Wow!! I hadn’t thought about the effects of leaded gasoline. I have wondered how banging steel in pastureland effects the quality of beef. I’ve seen folks do that and have wondered if the fragmented lead could be ingested some sort of way. I hadn’t considered it being taken up by grass and other plants then to be ingested by cows that people would later eat.
I’m not sure how the process of up taking lead by plants works. I’d like to read up on that some more. I’m not against being aware of the possibility. I hope my shooting into wood and rootballs isn’t going to affect any livestock. I try to shoot into backstops along the fringes of thickets and tree-lines. I do wonder how the rain washes away lead fragments and if runoff deposits lead into waterways like creeks and ponds. Using lead free projectiles is a pretty considerate safety measure when it comes to livestock, particularly birds. I can appreciate you all sharing your experiences on that front with other airgunners.
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