Shooting an underlever.

[Countryman]

This means you can also "lay in a supply" which helps insulate against the sudden price hikes of the last few years.


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[Robson Valley]

I got to the point, trap-shooting, that I had to consider reloading. From what I could see others doing, it would be an ongoing process over time. Setting aside the cost of a progressive reloading machine, I looked at the availability of supplies: shot, powder, hulls, wads and primers. That was all OK. But, I noticed that the aforementioned parts _all_ came in different sized lots! Multiplying things together, I soon learned that I would have to reload more than 2,000 shot shells to clean off the bench. I wasn't ever shooting enough to be a serious student of the game so I gave up on the reloading concept.

I agree that reloads afford a measure of accuracy unmatched by factory loads (pull 20 bullets and measure the factory powder charges). Plus as above, the cost drops substantially. I found a paraplegic fellow who liked doing load development work = still cheaper than factory when I shot a lot of .30-'06 rifle and 7mm-.308 pistol.

 

[Countryman]

That side of the pond Robson my costings must look Cuckoo.

I walked into Walmart in Canada and found 3 brands of .300 Win Mag, all cheaper than I can reload in the UK.

The Canucks all gripe at how expensive it is to shoot there compared to the USA.

The U.K. Market as a whole is I understand smaller than any branch turnover in Cabelas.


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[santaman2000]

You can also save by shooting 44 Special vs Magnums; but not a lot.

 

[Countryman]

If you can find the brass.

Stuff you take for granted is made of unobtanium in the UK.

Thanks to ITAR we can't just whistle up an order from the US either.


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[Marijn]

The biggest downside to an underlever for me is the mandatory shooting of roundnose bullets.
And with "lead-free" becomming mandatory in a lot of places, options are limited.

Cone shaped bullets in a tube magazine is a disaster waitig to happen...

 

[British Red]

The newer Hornady's use a spire nose in their LeveRevolution

http://www.hornady.com/store/leverevolution

The tip is designed not to be hard enough to set off the primer in front

 

[mrcharly]

The biggest downside to an underlever for me is the mandatory shooting of roundnose bullets.
And with "lead-free" becomming mandatory in a lot of places, options are limited.

I thought that was just shotgun pellets? Is it rifled ammo as well?

Going to be very hard for the air-rifle shooters, if so.

 

[British Red]

Its just another case of the hysterical busybodies jumping on any bandwagon they can Mrcharly. Ask them for evidence of a single animal poisoned by lead ammunition and they get all huffy!

 

[santaman2000]

The newer Hornady's use a spire nose in their LeveRevolution

http://www.hornady.com/store/leverevolution

The tip is designed not to be hard enough to set off the primer in front

That was my first thought as well. Then too, Browning also make their levers with detachable box magazines that don't require pointe bullets and the caliber selection is much larger.

 

[Robson Valley]

The real issue with lead poisoning and lead ban began in British Columbia and has spread globally. 3-4 #6 lead shotgun pellets, ingested, will kill a duck. Fact. The migratory waterfowl here do so much shoreline grazing, particularly on the prairies like Saskatchewan that they eat pellets, lots of them, quite by accident, given the long history of waterfowl shooting along
the biggest migratory flyway in all of North America.

For a fact, I can tell you that the field dressed guts from Ruffed Grouse will disappear in less than an hour. Who takes them, I don't know. As I was shooting grouse with #6 and also #7.5 lead, I decided that I would only ever use #6 steel from now on. It's the cheapest "non-toxic" shot that I can buy.

There are some Hoo-Haws that claim that steel shot abrasion will damage shotgun barrels. Make some measurements +/- 0.001". Shoot 10,000 rounds of steel. Make some measurements = no change.
Hell, I don't buy 2,500 (10 flats) of shotgun loads a year any more!

 

[santaman2000]

Its just another case of the hysterical busybodies jumping on any bandwagon they can Mrcharly. Ask them for evidence of a single animal poisoned by lead ammunition and they get all huffy!

A single animal? How about 119 bald Eagles in one study:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"[h=3]Early Lead Poisoning Studies and Subsequent Ban on Lead Shot for Hunting Waterfowl[/h] From 1983 through 1985, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a nationwide monitoring program for lead exposure in waterfowl. Samples from more than 8,000 waterfowl were collected on National Wildlife Refuges and analyzed at the National Wildlife Health Center. During the first two years of monitoring, the prevalence of ingested lead shot was highest in diving ducks at nearly 10%, with lower frequencies in dabbling ducks, geese, and swans. The study provided data that addressed phase-in criteria for nontoxic shot zones, but the impetus for the implementation of the nationwide ban on lead shot for waterfowl hunting was lead poisoning of bald eagles. In addition, of more than 2,000 bald eagles examined by The Fish and Wildlife Service from 1963 to 1986, 119 were diagnosed as having died of lead poisoning. Two recent publications based on NWHC diagnostic data describe lead poisoning in comparison to other causes of mortality in eagles and the demographic and pathologic characteristics of lead poisoning in eagles.

Russell, R.E. and J.C. Franson. 2014. Causes of mortality in eagles submitted to the National Wildlife Health Center 1975-2013. Wildlife Society Bulletin 38:697-704.
Franson, J.C. and R.E. Russell. 2014. Lead and eagles: demographic and pathologic characteristics of poisoning, and exposure levels associated with other causes of mortality. Ecotoxicology 23:1722-1731."

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here's the entire article: www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/lead_poisoning

 

[Robson Valley]

Thanks, Santaman. I don't think that off-continent people have a good grasp of the flock numbers in our major flyways. The overgrazing done by Snow Geese can be seen easily in satellite images of the Canadian Arctic. Fortunately, the over grazing leaves a lot of chicks unable to migrate south so that's another drop in the bucket.
Over Kindersley, Saskatcheway, the sky goes dark daily from Canada Geese and those are the big ones = 18 - 25lbs doing 60mph.

Hey! You all! Do you realize that in many places here, there are no bag limits on Snow Geese? You can shoot as many as you like, every day that you can and you cannot put a dent in the population.
Some Gun Club pals went to South America for a bird shoot. The crop damage is obscene. Apparently, your first 1,500 shots are free.

The bottom line is that millions and millions of shotgun shells are used every autumn in North America. Steel, bismuth, and other non toxic loads had to become law.

 

[British Red]

The point about the animal poisoning was in reference to mrcharlys point about rifled ammo gentlemen - we already use steel or bismuth for wildfowl

 

[Marijn]

The point about the animal poisoning was in reference to mrcharlys point about rifled ammo gentlemen - we already use steel or bismuth for wildfowl

In Germany (where the lead-free rifle ammo story started, and I do most of my hunting) there were some cases of eagles killed bij leadpoisoning from eating guts from deer and boar left in the fields after gutting.

Although a lot of places I can still shoot lead, I'm way to happy with the full-copper like the Barnes TTSX, Hornady GMX and RWS HIT.
Extremely accurate, and plenty deadly. And almost always an exit wound.
Some really heavy boar tend to keep moving during driven hunts, but they do this when shot with leadbased rounds as well.

And in the end, I don't like really small paricles of lead in my food. When you look at an X-ray of a shot animal you can clearly see its full of minute lead particles.
Even with the stronger lead bullets that retain most of their mass, still a lot of lead in the meat.

 

[British Red]

In Germany (where the lead-free rifle ammo story started, and I do most of my hunting) there were some cases of eagles killed bij leadpoisoning from eating guts from deer and boar left in the fields after gutting.
.

Do you have a link to the story please?

 

[mrcharly]

And in the end, I don't like really small paricles of lead in my food. When you look at an X-ray of a shot animal you can clearly see its full of minute lead particles.

There is a guy in the USA who tests shooting all sorts of guns and ammo - in his pictures, lead splash from impacts on wood are very visible. So I can readily believe that any bullet that is lead or has an exposed lead tip will splash lead when impacting bone.

So if you are using full-copper bullets, I guess you can't count on expansion anymore.

 

[slowworm]

There's plenty of expanding lead free bullets available, some full copper (lookup Lapua Naturalis for example). You don't need to go to the US to see lead splash, look at the butts in any range. I thought the confusion around lead in meat was the anti-lead bods wrongly assume all the lead in the meat will be digested but in reality most is discarded in prep and the stuff that is eaten mostly passes through.

Going back to the original point about underlevers, I can't see any problem in using lead-free in them, I use hard lead and FMJ truncated cone heads and I can't see why a full copper TC head couldn't be produced or indeed why a round nose lead free head couldn't be made.

 

[Marijn]

*cut*

So if you are using full-copper bullets, I guess you can't count on expansion anymore.

they still expand, just leadfree. They have good end ballistics

 

[Marijn]

Do you have a link to the story please?

I'll get back to that.
Will take some time digging through the german Jagd und Hund forums.

And right now i'm busy with work and organising the driven hunt we have in Germany this weekend (40 rifles, on boar, roe, reddeer).