Most U.S. gun owners use lead-based ammunition and primers, and nearly half don’t engage in any post-shooting hygiene behaviors such as changing their clothes or showering, a study found.
I’m using lead free ammo since last year and I’m content with the results.
Many conservative, mostly older hunters claim that the killing power is inferior. But in my experience, even with a lead-free deformable bullet, the killing power is still perfectly adequate, even for smaller game. Killing power depends largely on the point of impact, so if the animal runs a long way, it’s the hunter’s fault, not the ammunition’s.
Lead is very dense, so a bullet the same size delivers more force. Steel was an early alternative, and in addition to being less dense, it also tends not to deform into a mushroom shape during impact like lead and copper do. So a steel bullet can penetrate cleanly through a target leaving a narrower path and have a slower penetration and exit velocity, all combining to do less damage.
The density benefit is the same reason some high end rounds use tungsten and even depleted uranium. Heavier bullets of the same size fly straighter and hit harder.
Steel and copper also tend to cause more barrel wear than lead. Probably tungsten does too, but I don’t have experience with it, let alone depleted uranium, lol.
The force difference would be absolutely miniscule. The energy comes from the powder, not the bullet material. Denser cores increase penetration by concentrating the force, not magically delivering more force.
Kinetic energy from a projectile is equal to the mass of the projectile times the square of the velocity, but air resistance saps velocity off quite rapidly and independently of the mass. So a heavy projectile will deliver more kinetic energy to a target than a lighter one with the same initial velocity.
A lighter projectile can be driven faster by the same charge of propellant, but air resistance increases with the cube of the velocity so delivering more energy through increased velocity is a losing game. You can decrease air resistance by decreasing the cross section of the projectile, but that requires dense materials like lead.
tldr: the difference is absolutely not minuscule. There’s a reason why bullets are made of dense materials.
The force difference for rounds made to similar WOULD be miniscule, because they’d be made to be similar. OFC you cannot cheat physics. I’m not trying to defend bullets made of fucking feathers here…
Of course it isn’t an energy multiplier. The energy carried as the bullet leaves the barrel will be very very close to the same. The energy it carries will be lost more quickly to air resistance with a less dense round though. Especially since the same powder behind less mass, means more speed, means more air resistance. How much that matters depends on a lot of factors, but it can certainly be enough to matter.
You’re correct, but also completely wrong at the same time. Yes, you can have a lighter bullet that is faster that carries the same kinetic energy. It might even hold its energy longer if it’s more aerodynamic. Where you are wrong is the ability to transfer that energy. A full metal jacket would pass clean through the target without transferring most of its energy into the target. A lead bullet that deforms is going to dump a lot more energy into the target. That’s why you have hollow points and other bullets that are designed to petal and fragment on impact. For hunting the goal is a bullet that does pass all the way through creating two wounds to bleed out and cutting as large of a wound channel as possible. Which is different than say self defense where you want a bullet that dumps all of its energy as fast as possible so you don’t over penetrate and hit your neighbor.
I guess all of that falls in line with the force being concentrated. It just really isn’t related to density as much as you’re implying. Unless I misunderstood what you’re saying.
Yes and no. I think the reasoning behind this often has to do with how the projectile behaves after striking the target. Generally speaking, a distinction is made between deformation-type and fragmentation-type projectiles, and, if I understand the arguments correctly, it’s assumed that lead-free projectiles don’t fragment as effectively or, in the case of deformation-type projectiles, don’t mushroom as well as lead-based ones do.
I don’t know if there was any truth to that when lead-free ammunition was first developed, but today that’s definitely no longer the case, and that argument is therefore invalid.
The deformation is exactly it. That’s why I’m that class I went to they demoed out. The copper bullet perfectly petaled the way it was supposed to into a star like pattern. That would leave a serious wound channel to bleed out of.
That technical level of discussion is all totally BS as far as politics is concerned. If your target can be harmed and isn’t armored, almost any kind of bullet will harm them. If they’re armored properly, nothing civilians get access to is going to harm them.
If you’re defending from an intruder, do you think they’ll be stopped faster by six bullets that fragment into five pieces each, or six bullets that fragment into three pieces each? Or maybe your (royal your: the people who seriously whine about all gun regulation) dumb ass is just splitting hairs after six shots…
I’m using lead free ammo since last year and I’m content with the results. Many conservative, mostly older hunters claim that the killing power is inferior. But in my experience, even with a lead-free deformable bullet, the killing power is still perfectly adequate, even for smaller game. Killing power depends largely on the point of impact, so if the animal runs a long way, it’s the hunter’s fault, not the ammunition’s.
I’ve always been confused by the killing power argument.
A sufficiently high velocity impact to the correct location kills regardless of the material in question typically.
So as long as the material does not cause fov to go to absolute shit or something then functionally it shouldn’t matter.
Lead is very dense, so a bullet the same size delivers more force. Steel was an early alternative, and in addition to being less dense, it also tends not to deform into a mushroom shape during impact like lead and copper do. So a steel bullet can penetrate cleanly through a target leaving a narrower path and have a slower penetration and exit velocity, all combining to do less damage.
The density benefit is the same reason some high end rounds use tungsten and even depleted uranium. Heavier bullets of the same size fly straighter and hit harder.
Steel and copper also tend to cause more barrel wear than lead. Probably tungsten does too, but I don’t have experience with it, let alone depleted uranium, lol.
It’s still worth switching away from lead though.
The force difference would be absolutely miniscule. The energy comes from the powder, not the bullet material. Denser cores increase penetration by concentrating the force, not magically delivering more force.
Kinetic energy from a projectile is equal to the mass of the projectile times the square of the velocity, but air resistance saps velocity off quite rapidly and independently of the mass. So a heavy projectile will deliver more kinetic energy to a target than a lighter one with the same initial velocity.
A lighter projectile can be driven faster by the same charge of propellant, but air resistance increases with the cube of the velocity so delivering more energy through increased velocity is a losing game. You can decrease air resistance by decreasing the cross section of the projectile, but that requires dense materials like lead.
tldr: the difference is absolutely not minuscule. There’s a reason why bullets are made of dense materials.
The force difference for rounds made to similar WOULD be miniscule, because they’d be made to be similar. OFC you cannot cheat physics. I’m not trying to defend bullets made of fucking feathers here…
Of course it isn’t an energy multiplier. The energy carried as the bullet leaves the barrel will be very very close to the same. The energy it carries will be lost more quickly to air resistance with a less dense round though. Especially since the same powder behind less mass, means more speed, means more air resistance. How much that matters depends on a lot of factors, but it can certainly be enough to matter.
Unless you’re a sniper working from 100+ yards, you do not need to care about the energy delivery difference air resistance would make.
Even then, it’s more about bullet drop and far less about suddenly losing lethality.
You’re correct, but also completely wrong at the same time. Yes, you can have a lighter bullet that is faster that carries the same kinetic energy. It might even hold its energy longer if it’s more aerodynamic. Where you are wrong is the ability to transfer that energy. A full metal jacket would pass clean through the target without transferring most of its energy into the target. A lead bullet that deforms is going to dump a lot more energy into the target. That’s why you have hollow points and other bullets that are designed to petal and fragment on impact. For hunting the goal is a bullet that does pass all the way through creating two wounds to bleed out and cutting as large of a wound channel as possible. Which is different than say self defense where you want a bullet that dumps all of its energy as fast as possible so you don’t over penetrate and hit your neighbor.
I guess all of that falls in line with the force being concentrated. It just really isn’t related to density as much as you’re implying. Unless I misunderstood what you’re saying.
This isn’t a discussion of lead vs some stupid-ass strawman you all imagine. This is about lead vs literally anything possible.
If you think copper or other heavy-ish metal bullets could never compete with lead, even on spread and delivered damage, then you are just stupid.
Yes and no. I think the reasoning behind this often has to do with how the projectile behaves after striking the target. Generally speaking, a distinction is made between deformation-type and fragmentation-type projectiles, and, if I understand the arguments correctly, it’s assumed that lead-free projectiles don’t fragment as effectively or, in the case of deformation-type projectiles, don’t mushroom as well as lead-based ones do. I don’t know if there was any truth to that when lead-free ammunition was first developed, but today that’s definitely no longer the case, and that argument is therefore invalid.
The deformation is exactly it. That’s why I’m that class I went to they demoed out. The copper bullet perfectly petaled the way it was supposed to into a star like pattern. That would leave a serious wound channel to bleed out of.
That technical level of discussion is all totally BS as far as politics is concerned. If your target can be harmed and isn’t armored, almost any kind of bullet will harm them. If they’re armored properly, nothing civilians get access to is going to harm them.
If you’re defending from an intruder, do you think they’ll be stopped faster by six bullets that fragment into five pieces each, or six bullets that fragment into three pieces each? Or maybe your (royal your: the people who seriously whine about all gun regulation) dumb ass is just splitting hairs after six shots…