[NAFEX] .22 lead ammo advice
Mark Angermayer
hangermayer at isp.com
Sun Nov 16 17:00:44 EST 2008
Murph, I thought the concern about using lead shot in wetlands was not to the environment, but that the ducks were eating the lead pellets.
FYI-With regard to lead in the soil. I'm not a lead proponent and I'm glad they took lead out of paint and gasoline, but lead is not taken up well by plants. The concern mainly is children eating the soil directly, or eating plants with soil lead dust on them. The government recommends no more than 300 ppm lead in soil. Assuming a foot acre of soil weighs 4 million pounds, that computes to 1200 lbs. of lead per foot acre of soil. Soils vary as to how much lead naturally occurs. I've read 15-40ppm. At 40ppm, that's 160 lbs. of naturally occurring lead per acre. To get over the government allowance, you'd have to add 1060 lbs. of lead. That's a lot of 22 rounds.
Mark
KS
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard MURPHY
To: nafex
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2008 1:51 PM
Subject: [NAFEX] .22 lead ammo advice
Certainly, lead is toxic. The amount of lead that will leach into the soil is based on simple mechanics (ignoring chemistry here). The lead we find in paint and other concoctions is extremely fine. It has an enormous surface to mass ratio. Sometimes, a gram of powdered metal can have a surface area of one square meter ! The surface area of a .22 cal bullet, I should imagine is less than a square centimeter. Therefore, the occasional bullet or pellet into the dirt should be well tolerated.
Bird Shot (shotgun pellets of small diameter) is another matter. Lots of tiny pellets, usually landing in water, are a problem. Each shot launches far more lead than a .22, with much more surface area. Add that to the fact that Duck Hunters usually have there favorite spot, it is not unreasonable to believe that lead could be a huge problem to wetlands.
I would not hesitate to use lead .22 ammo for crop protection varmint control. If you're rather close to the neighbors, use hollow point ammo as it is less likely to pass through it's target. Also I don't know of a source for FMJ .22 ammo.
Murph
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