Copper/Polymer bullets - environmental impact?

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USGuns

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Does anyone here know much about the new copper/polymer bullets that are now available?
Is the polymer used biodegradable? Or maybe it's such an insignificant amount there is no real impact?
If not, seems like introducing more plastic into the environment isn't a good thing and just gives the anti-gun crowd something else to complain about.
At least copper is a natural mineral in the earth's crust and doesn't pose the health threats lead can.
Thoughts?
 
The coating is measured in thousandths. Not biodegradeable that I'm aware of. Pretty insignificant really.
 
USGuns wrote:
At least copper is a natural mineral in the earth's crust and doesn't pose the health threats lead can.

Lead is also a natural mineral found in the earth's crust. That doesn't make it any more or less desirable than copper.

The human body has transport systems to regulate the absorption and excretion of copper, so copper toxicity is unlikely to occur. Where these systems break down and copper does accumulate in the body, the results are devastating (i.e. Wilson's Disease). Lead is problematic for humans because the human body does not have similar effective transport systems to regulate the absorption and excretion of lead, so lead accumulation is more likely to occur and is more difficult to reverse.

Speaking personally, I think the few tons of copper/polymer bullets that will be made each year are not a significant source of "pollution" when compared to the hundreds of millions of tons of other polymers that we generate each year for other purposes and intentionally discharge into the environment.
 
Speaking personally, I think the few tons of copper/polymer bullets that will be made each year are not a significant source of "pollution" when compared to the hundreds of millions of tons of other polymers that we generate each year for other purposes and intentionally discharge into the environment.
Yea, but the antis will conveniently overlook that. :)
 
Lead bullets don't pose an environmental threat, except in the case of lead shot that gets eaten by waterfowl. But in terms of a gun range polluting land, there has never been any connection drawn between lead bullets in the soil and any wider contamination. The only place it poses a threat is in indoor gun ranges where it's hitting a hard backstop and you have lead dust going into the air. But that problem has been solved by ventilation.

Plastics probably could be a problem if widely adopted, but even if all bullets were made out of polymer I don't think it would be anything compared to the plastics we already use. It would be a drop in the ocean. The bullets would also be confined to small areas, so it wouldn't be any different than a landfill. Considering the limited number of shooters and gun ranges, I just don't see it being something to worry about.
 
It's all marketing hype. If the screwdriver tip bullets were as good as or better than hollow points, they wouldn't need to play the "green" card.
 
"...polymer used biodegradable..." Supposedly isn't a biohazard. Nylon based stuff takes 30 to 40 years to degrade. So yes, I suppose you could call it biodegradable.
The deal about these bullets/ammo is more about how they're made than what material though. Injection moulded bullets made out of powdered copper with polymer cartridge cases. Makes 'em weigh less too.
 
It's all marketing hype. If the screwdriver tip bullets were as good as or better than hollow points, they wouldn't need to play the "green" card.

Can't comment about screwdriver tip bullets, but copper hunting bullets offer some significant advantages over traditional jacketed lead bullets. And I can't fault someone for trying something new. The vast majority of new ideas fail, but if someone hadn't kept trying new stuff we'd still be hunting and defending ourselves with the same spears used 10,000 years ago. Those bullets may well flop. But who knows, they may work, or at least lead to another idea that may work.

As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."

Making a better bullet may well take 1000 failures as well.

Environmental impact !!! Lead does exist in nature, so does a lot of other toxic stuff. Copper and the plastic tips are probably less of a danger, but for the most part lead isn't a problem either. If there are large concentrations of lead in an area where it could be ingested by animals there could be issues. But except in rare cases I don't think this is a concern. It certainly isn't a concern as to humans ingesting lead from game animals shot with lead bullets.
 
Screwdriver tip bullets are the future of handgun ammunition. They don't rely on expansion, and are therefore 100% reliable, regardless of any barrier, clothing, or bone. No chance of them getting crimped closed and going FMJ on you, which is a big deal for concealed carry and duty use.
 
Screwdriver tip bullets are the future of handgun ammunition. They don't rely on expansion, and are therefore 100% reliable, regardless of any barrier, clothing, or bone. No chance of them getting crimped closed and going FMJ on you, which is a big deal for concealed carry and duty use.


Regular head or Philips?:D:rofl:
 
Lead ingestion by waterfowl has yet to be proven by an actual scientific examination. That report done years ago was debunked simply because there was no serious forensic analysis to prove lead was the killer. And because of that, we still see that lie perpetuated in the press and now repeated among shooters.

I give more credence to reloaders using closed lids on case polishers and requiring high rate ventilation of indoor ranges. Airborne lead is quite a bit more ingestible than a lead shot picked up off the marsh bottoms as gullet grinders. As for copper - well, the auto industry is seeing a change in brake pad materials as the EPA and DOT are requiring it's elimination. That is why we see "ceramic" pads coming out - and by test, they are actually softer, wear out sooner, and offer less braking as a result of the loss of copper in the mix. Not what some would tell you over the back yard fence, but why would they know? Copper is a known toxic element, the brass grommets in field gear are considered a low grade haz mat, and it's also a common practice in roofing to install a copper wire down the ridgeline of shingle roofs to kill mold off so that it won't discolor them.

Given enough time I think we will see a change from copper to some other element with a high density simply because it will be cheaper and incrementally less toxic. If copper - why not powered steel? Seems shotgunners have shown it works acceptably well. We've seen the results of how fast steel jacketed bullets wear barrels, and the cost savings in cheap ammo can offset the marginally higher wear rate. Barrels wear out anyway - do we really need to use copper in the jacket to incrementally reduce it? Considering it's the leade exposed to the initial flame of ignition that does the most damage, especially on high round count weapons in full auto use, we really have other problems to work on.

Powered copper/polymer bullets may have a life on indoor range use, reducing lead exposure, but the shooting community will likely accept them only if they get performance on par with hollow points in the field - at a competitive price. We collectively think that a molded bullet should be cheaper than a jacket drawn repeatedly and then bonded to a core. Overcome that and they may become a significant part of the market.
 
But copper kills trees. How can that be "green"? ;)

I don't know if straight copper will kill a tree. There is a crummy flowering tree in the parkway across the street. It drops leaves and flowers constantly, most of these end up blown onto my yard or into my garage. In the middle of the night I drilled holes and put in three 4" pieces of bare copper battery cable to try and kill it about 10 years ago.

The thing is as leafy and flowery and crummy as ever....
 
I do hope these Phillips Head Bullets work, and can replace hollow points, but let's let science figure that out. Or Paul Harrell and his meat targets. :D
 
Lead ingestion by waterfowl has yet to be proven by an actual scientific examination. That report done years ago was debunked simply because there was no serious forensic analysis to prove lead was the killer. And because of that, we still see that lie perpetuated in the press and now repeated among shooters.
Do you have a link to support that? I am not aware of any serious field or environmental biologist that questions the fact that ingested lead has had a negative effect on the predator/scavenger bird population. Lead is bad stuff and at the top of the trophic levels (i.e. animals that eat a lot of other animals), it can easily be accumulated (as can other toxins).

There is a reason lead paint and leaded gas were banned. It wasn't to take away peoples' guns.

Also, the fact that lead is naturally occurring is irrelevant. Asbestos is also naturally occurring but still deadly (as is uranium, arsenic, selenium, etc). Natural does not necessarily mean good to humans. I say, stick to the science. If lead is killing a bunch of birds unnecessarily, I am OK shooting steel or tungsten when hunting waterbirds.

Humans are messy. We need to take responsibility for that. I want my kids and (hopefully) grandkids to be able to camp, hunt, and fish in a reasonably unpolluted wilderness.
 
In many cases science is run by d and not actual proper science. For decades as American doctors have been saying that fast is bad for you, eggs cause cholesterol and margarine is good for you. Also there has been a misguided belief that ANY radiation exposure is bad for you which has been clearly disproven as a constant low dosage in populations actually dramatically lowers cancer rates. And then there's the epic fraud of the climate alarmists who fraudulently falsify vast amounts of climate data in order to gain power over is all.
Yes in some cases science is not a bad thing but many claims must be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, I waited in applied physics fitting models. The climate guys should go to jail over how anti scientific their methods are.
Amazing how much government money can corrupt folks.
 
In many cases science is run by d and not actual proper science. For decades as American doctors have been saying that fast is bad for you, eggs cause cholesterol and margarine is good for you. Also there has been a misguided belief that ANY radiation exposure is bad for you which has been clearly disproven as a constant low dosage in populations actually dramatically lowers cancer rates. And then there's the epic fraud of the climate alarmists who fraudulently falsify vast amounts of climate data in order to gain power over is all.
Yes in some cases science is not a bad thing but many claims must be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, I waited in applied physics fitting models. The climate guys should go to jail over how anti scientific their methods are.

Science is inherently self-correcting, since all data and methods must be explicitly subject to subsequent tests. Proving someone famous (or a famous theory) wrong is the quickest way to get well-known, and legions of graduate students spend their student careers attempting to do just that. If a scientific model has repeatedly withstood test without serious challenge to its validity, it is reasonably to accept it. Logically, of course, it can always be later rejected. But just shaking your fist at 'science' isn't really doing much. So far, the lead hypothesis is pretty well-accepted at this point. Being a bunch of science deniers doesn't advance the cause of gun ownership, in my opinion. If there are appropriately trained environmental biochemists on this board, I will happily defer to them.
 
Lead ingestion by waterfowl has yet to be proven by an actual scientific examination. That report done years ago was debunked simply because there was no serious forensic analysis to prove lead was the killer. And because of that, we still see that lie perpetuated in the press and now repeated among shooters.
.

I myself have seen examples of lead/steel shot ingested by waterfowl, when opening up their gizzards when dressing them out. May not be scientific, but it is definitive that they do ingest shot. As for the ingestion of lead shot being detrimental to waterfowl and scavengers, that has been proven time and time again. Here in the Mid-West, where our [b[National Symbol[/b] has learned to scavenge more and more, the ingestion of lead particles from hunting bullets has proven very detrimental. In my state, it has been determined that 15% of fatalities among Bald Eagles is due to lead poisoning from the ingestion of lead and 25% of Trumpeter Swans deaths are attributed to lead ingestion. The occurrence of lead shot on breeding grounds of Woodcock has shown a significant negative impact on the survival rate of young birds. This is not just a local problem, nor just a nation wide problem, but an international problem that has been proven world wide. It has been found that Sea Eagles are highly affected by the ingestion of lead particles, either in lead shot of wounded birds/waterfowl or lead particles scavenged from dead carcasses. Steller's Sea Eagles, the heaviest Eagle in the world, found along the sea coasts of Russia have a high incidence of death from lead poisoning due to scavenging on the carcasses of Sika deer carcasses. This is no perpetuated lie, but known fact. What one needs to do instead of burying their head in the sand is to determine whether this threat is significant enough to warrant change. Recent studies here and abroad have also confirmed that many humans that regularly consume game animals shot with bullets/shot containing lead, do indeed have a higher level of lead in their blood.

IMHO, I believe in areas where lead shot can accumulate in high concentrations that the use of non-toxic shot is required. Ducks Unlimited is in agreement with this, and they know a little bit about waterfowl. While there is a problem with scavengers and ingestion of lead from eating non-retrieved/discarded game carcasses, I think it is a local problem and any controls on ammunition should be determined at a local level, specific to the problem. While there are exaggerations of the issue from both sides of the discussion, it is a legitimate problem that needs to be studied and addressed, and not a lie.
 
there has never been any connection drawn between lead bullets in the soil and any wider contamination.

That's not quite correct. Military ranges have contamination problems due to lead where acidic conditions prevent the formation of a passivating layer around the bullets. That allows lead salts to form and migrate. Ranges without the acidic conditions don't face the same level of migration of lead. Since military ranges have very high volumes of lead accumulated they face more of a problem than LE or recreational ranges. I spent 20+ years working in the environmental management/cleanup field with DoD clients facing these problems.
 
My thought is this is a joke right? The amount of coating on a bullet is very, very little.

Plastic water bottles create more polymer “waste” by far at a shooting event than any amount of polymer waste from bullet coatings.

Shotgun hulls would have a larger effect but still insignificant.
 
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