"Green" bullets
 

:shaking:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/21...to-green-ammo/

Read this yesterday, liberals

We've been studying lead free primers for several years and started studying terminal performance of lead free bullets in 2012 with Joe Caudell.

The lead free technologies have not yet caught up with lead-based bullets and primers, and they may never catch up. Even when/if the performance gap closes, there may always be a significant price gap.

Most of pressure is political and not tied to sound science showing that the lead free technologies really solve or mitigate legitimate environmental problems, just the PC sense that "lead is bad" so "unleaded must be better."

This really is a non-story people are making out to be something it isn't. Just need to read up on what that factory actually did and where most of our lead comes from. Next thing you know those crazy libs are going to make me use unleaded gasoline! :rotfl: I honestly don't think there is one person on this forum that would want to work in a plant that melts lead or even near one.

In the spirit of 10 page threads the answer is clearly

UNIONS are what shut down the plant and/or:

Time will tell if there is more behind this non-story.
We shall see if this green tech is imported in the future, therefore opening up the ability for the united nations to issue the rules for ammo sales in the USA.

I am as conservative as anyone and I also read about this plant closing a while back and a few conspiracy thoughts popped in my head:spineyes:. I read a few other articles on the plant and more into it and its truly nothing here. News outlets never let the chance for a good fabricated crisis to go by the wayside - thats how they get views which lead to more advertising dollars:grinpimp: Its merely scare tactics to get more views. It absolutely sucks that this is what our 'news' has become - just look at the Phil Robertson fabrication, another non-story in my opinion. The man said one thing and all these 'news' outlets spun it and took his words out of context and next thing you know its all over the news. You never know what is truthful or what isn't, as long as it sells is what they are looking for, sad truth:(

You're right about the news outlets

There's a lot more to the story than the MO smelter. The conspiracy theories there have been overplayed.

But the facts that CA has banned lead bullets for hunting and the military is phasing them out are very real. The military phase out is based more on eco-nonsense than genuine environmental science. The decreased performance will put our soldiers and marines at risk.

By costing the tax payer about three times as much per projectile, the effectiveness of the 5.56mm infantry round is comparable with the lead based round it replaced. I am not as optimistic about the 7.62x51mm replacement bullets. Simultaneously addressing the terminal performance, muzzle velocity, and aerodynamic trade-offs in a lead free bullet is a much bigger challenge in a cartridge whose primary usage has shifted to longer range uses since the broad use of the 5.56mm for shorter range work.

And there is just no way to duplicate current performance levels of the current US Army and Marine sniper load in the .300 Win Mag with a lead free bullet. The performance of the 220 grain SMK can be matched using several other jacketed lead bullets from Berger, Lapua, or Hornady. Muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficient, accuracy, and terminal effect will all be significantly reduced compared with the current jacketed lead projectile. See the current ammo spec at: https://www.neco.navy.mil/upload/N00...0_0002_att.pdf

The combination of decreased performance in multiple areas will lead to needing a .300 Win Mag to achieve effective kill ranges that are now available with a 7.62x51mm. Soldiers will need a .338 Lapua to achieve the effective range currently available in the .300 Win Mag. In the era of big defense cuts, do we really need to be crippling our capabilities or spending billions to eliminate lead?

Mrs. MathGeek says, "If you like the ammo you're shooting now, you can keep it."

Thought the .308 (7.62) was what most sniper rifles were?

I read where it was only going to cost something like $18 million for the switch - we were spending over a billion a day in the last two wars which would equate to about what we spent every 30 minutes over there

Sometimes commonly used products are phased out because the long term effects of exposure to them and the environment can not be tested in the lab (it takes time), and they eventually get replaced (asbestos is one such product we used all the time and didn't know it was so harsh). Lead is a toxic element in every way, its the reason we no longer have leaded gasoline and why we no longer use lead pipes for plumbing:)

I don't think lead bullets are much of a problem to the environment here in Louisiana but I KNOW lead pellets from shotgun shells shot in the 60s are still killing ducks at Catahoula Lake 50 years later and that isn't cool to me.

I agree, can you post the evidence linking lead to the ducks at Catahoula lake?

Since when has a DoD cost estimate been accurate? Implementation was significantly delayed past the initial plan due to performance issues, and additional development time inevitably leads to additional costs. The M855A1 was scheduled for fielding in June 2010, but did not hit the field until Summer 2012. The lead free primer was supposed to be fielded in late 2012, but is still unavailable. Likewise the lead free 7.62x51mm bullet was supposed to be fielded in late 2012, but the schedule has slipped to 2014. By the time all small arms projectiles are transitioned to lead free the actual cost of development and transition will be in the hundreds of millions, without including the increased per unit cost which will increase ammo prices indefinitely.

Reduced performance will be harder to put a price on. What is the cost of enemies who do not get killed because lower muzzle velocities, less accuracy, and higher drag reduce effective range? What is the cost of lost soldiers and Marines when lead free primers fail to reliably ignite the powder charge because diazodinitrophenol is less resistant to prevailing storage and environmental conditions over time?

Only the Air Force has retained the 7.62x51mm for sniper/counter sniper use. The Army and Navy/Marines began large scale deployment of M24E1/XM2010 and U.S. Navy Mk. 13 rifles in .300 Win Mag in early 2011.

Extended engagement distances and the greater effective range of the .300 Win Mag shooting the 220 grain Sierra Match King bullet was the primary cause.

Most domestic law enforcement still favors the 7.62x51mm, because domestic
law enforcement use beyond 200 yards is rare.

I don't have any publications linked but here are a few quotes from our state waterfowl biologist Larry Reynolds (he is actually a member of this site, maybe he can chime in on more specifics). Catahoula Lake is probably one of the most extreme examples just due to the amount of people hunting out there for so long.

"If you want to see lead-poisoning and residual lead in the substrate, come visit Catahoula Lake. We just finished repeating core sampling transects to estimate lead availability in the top 8 inches of soil in this heavily-hunted 35,000 acre habitat to compare with past levels:

1963: 29,964 pellets per acre
1978: 76,452 pellets per acre
1988: 91,388 pellets per acre ......... do you see why implementing non-toxic regs was important in some areas? Look at the increasing trend of lead pellets in the soil.

2011: 81,264 pellets per acre

We pick up dozens of lead-poisoned ducks every year, and if we made any kind of effort to search the cover and lake edge, or run down flightless birds, we would get hundreds or thousands. We also know that one of the first effects of lead-poisoning is increased susceptibility to hunter-mortality, based on higher lead-ingestion rates and blood-lead levels in hunter-killed birds vs those killed/captured using more random methods on the lake during the same period.


and another

"We evaluate ingestion rates at Catahoula Lake every few years by taking gizzards from ducks checked at the boat ramp. None of those hunters thought they killed a lead-sick duck, but our last collection showed over 30% of the diving ducks had ingested lead, and 10% had more than enough pellets to certainly kill them. Most sources of mortality (predation, disease, exposure) are unobserved by hunters under "regular" circumstances."

It makes sense to protect ducks in sensitive areas if the "cost" is limited to increased recreational expenses for the hunter and reduced ammunition effectiveness.

But does it make sense to reduce the effectiveness of the ammunition our soldiers and Marines depend on when the data showing an environmental need is much less compelling?

Thanks for the info, I didn't know they made the switch to a .300 win mag. Just another example of the military making a switch from a perfectly good performing piece of equipment(.308) to another (kinda like going from lead bullets to 'green' bullets eh?:spineyes:)

Lead pellet ingestion is what I am referring to, not lead bullets. Steel shot has come a long ways and its not even an issue anymore to kill ducks with it.
I have no information on the 'green' bullets the military is supposed to be phasing in, and I doubt anyone on this site knows anything about it - military doesn't go around spouting out their new technologies. The author of this article just quoted a bunch of folks that assumed that these new bullets are going to be less effective and have no sources of information to back that up. Its what the media does nowadays to get ratings - its working, I have seen this article posted on every hunting/fishing site I view;)

The switch to the .300 Win Mag extended the effective range of Army and Marine snipers by 50% in an arena where extended range was sorely needed.

Yes, and I expect that 20 years from now, much more expensive options will be just as effective as lead bullets are today.

The Army discusses new developments in small arms ammunition at every NDIA armament conference. The full published specification is available for the currently fielded .300 Win Mag ammunition, the currently fielded 7.62x51mm ammunition, and the M855 ammunition in 5.56x45mm. I don't think they've published the full spec yet for the M855A1, but a lot of information about it is available, and it's not hard to reverse engineer most of the details from the available information.

Not gonna deny that especially coming from someone who is as knowledgeable about ballistics as you:)

Merry Christmas to you and your fam:cheers: