New study on lead fragments from shot in game birds - Page 3

Dean Romig · 05-07-2010, 09:07 PM

Yup.

james van blaricum · 05-07-2010, 09:09 PM

If you will shoot them in the head you won't have the problem

Duckman · 05-08-2010, 02:57 PM

We've probably overworked this one, but I think I was in more danger from cutting myself on the remainder of the copper jacket on that Nosler than from swallowing the lead. I think, even at age 60, my innards still function well enough to expel the lead! I am also still nimble enough of tongue to find just about anything size 8 or larger before I swallow it. Can't say about #9 as I haven't used them for awhile.
In AZ they require copper bullets around the Grand Canyon to save the introduced California condos from lead poisoning. I guess I'd be more concerned about their starving to death considering they evolved dining on ground sloths and mammoths, not puny mule deer.

Duckman · 05-08-2010, 02:58 PM

Make that Condors!

Richard Flanders · 05-08-2010, 03:33 PM

Interesting thread and something of interest to anyone who eats a lot of birds I'd say. After a meal of wild bird I don't go to sleep at night fraught with fear of bodily harm but I definitely try to NOT ingest shot. Stomach acid has a low pH and will readily dissolve shot and put lead into the system and it doesn't take much to be harmful from what I understand.... which isn't THAT much of course. I have a copy of a study that a roommate did on duck ingestion of lead which has pictures of their livers... NOT pretty I assure you. They really grind it up in their gizzard of course... THAT's not pretty either as they really break pellets down. Anyone ever had a hair test done for lead? I've considered it just for grins. A neighbor has high Pb contents in his blood from working in a local industrial shop and is essentially disabled as a result and is doing some sort of scavenging therapy which is supposedly working to some degree. Hard to imagine that bullet survived the butchering in that elk! I've got the .45-90 bullets I've pulled from my moose on the shelf here. Their wound channel is not hard to trace for sure but most just go straight through and are not recovered, even out to 250yds.

Dean Romig · 05-08-2010, 04:10 PM

It sure is comforting to know that Christmas tree tinsel is no longer made of lead foil... nor are the toothpaste tubes we used to suck on just to get the toothpaste smell on our breath so we could prove to our parents that we indeed had brushed our teeth... not to mention the airplane glue we used to sniff came in lead tubes too. No more lead pipes either supplying us with drinking water... no more lead in the solder we use to sweat copper pipes... no more lead in the paint used for domestic purposes. As a toddler I used to chew on the painted windowsills in our old farmhouse and on my crib too because the paint I could chip off with my new front teeth tasted so sweet (could only have been the lead in that old paint).

Have any of us been adversely affected by all this lead? I don't think so, but then maybe my thought processes aren't what they could have been

Richard Flanders · 05-08-2010, 04:23 PM

Hmmm... speaking of faulty judgment and thought processes Dean, perhaps all that lead is what causes the financially and socially deadly Parker disease?? I guess it's up the Chinese to make sure we get our Pb allocation from here forward.......

james van blaricum · 05-08-2010, 08:30 PM

richard, what is that grey cowling on your plane. Is that put on to protect the engine? Also
I understand that landing a plane with skis on snow is difficult because you don't have any
depth perception, is that true? I have a lot of hours in a skylane but landings were always on
concret, grass etc. jvb

ch · 05-08-2010, 08:34 PM

Yeah that lead tinsel made the best balls to through at my sister. Oh what about all that mecury in my mouth. ummmm. ch I think maybe thats to keep the motor warm?

Richard Flanders · 05-09-2010, 02:00 PM

James: It's an insulated engine cover that keeps the engine warm so you can start it again. If you let it get too cold while you're out playing, it's hard on the engine to restart it as it has a splash oil system for lubricating the cam lobes. I generally preheat the engine with a small electric heater inside the covered cowling overnight if it's real cold. The cover used to be black but UV fixed that.

Depth perception while landing on skis depends upon the lighting. On cloudy days the light is flat on snow and perception is bad so we sometimes make a low and slow pass on a landing site and toss out a string of spruce boughs... or sleeping bags, water bottles, parkas, or whatever is in the plane so we have some reference. On nice sunny days ski landings are the easiest of all and resemble a flat water landing on floats; you just fly it into the snow at a slow descent rate until it is on the ground...