Thought we’d completely dealt with the threat of poisonous lead in our hunting ammunition? Think again

THE NON-TOXIC DRAWBACKS

Initially, hunters did not embrace lead-free rifle ammunition. The earliest iterations suffered from inconsistent patterning, excessive barrel fouling, relatively poor accuracy, unreliable expansion, high prices and limited availability. Over time, however, many of those limitations have been overcome through continued research and development.

The inclusion of cannelures—horizontal grooves in the bullet—has eliminated the excessive fouling and pressure issues, for example, while concurrently improving accuracy and the ballistic coefficient (the measure of a bullet’s ability to overcome air resistance and maintain velocity for a flatter trajectory). While it’s fair to say that even the latest monolithic bullets aren’t as inherently accurate as lead-core bullets, the differences are minimal, and certainly not meaningful at typical shooting distances for game.

Although there’s still considerable uncertainty among hunters when it comes to penetration, the fact is monolithic bullets tend to penetrate deeper than lead-core bullets of the same weight and calibre. That makes them particularly effective on larger animals. It also allows hunters to select a lighter copper bullet and expect similar penetration, but with reduced recoil.

Monolithic bullets tend to penetrate deeper than lead-core bullets of the same weight and calibre

Another characteristic of monometal bullets is they’re tougher than lead-core bullets, typically retaining 100 per cent of their weight after impact. That makes them especially effective when you need to smash through bone to get to an animal’s vitals. If you only hit soft issue with a copper bullet, however, expect the animal to run farther than it would if similarly hit with a lead-core round; traditional cup-and-core bullets fragment considerably, creating a larger wound channel and more bleeding.

In my limited experience hunting with lead-free rifle ammunition—10 or so African animals ranging in size from springbok up to eland, and another three or four white-tailed deer—it performed well. I acknowledge this is a rather small sample size, however, so I reached out to fellow Outdoor Canada contributor T.J. Schwanky. He’s successfully taken more than 100 animals across North America and Africa using various monometal bullets, never losing one that was hit properly.

If lead-free bullets have an Achilles’ heel, it’s that their need for speed

If lead-free bullets have an Achilles’ heel, it’s that they have a need for speed; reliable expansion can be a problem with them when impact velocities fall below the 1,800 fps to 2,000 fps range. That makes monometals an unsuitable choice for hunters who expect to make shots at extended distances. Having said that, a typical 130-grain, .270 Win. bullet will travel in excess of 2,000 fps to beyond 500 yards, a distance at which only the most capable shooters should ever take an animal anyway.

As for the problem of limited availability of monometal bullets, that is waning over time. Granted, it helps if you live in a large centre with dedicated big-box hunting stores that can afford to carry large ammo inventories. I recently perused the shelves of my nearest Cabela’s, for example, and found a reasonable supply of lead-free bullets from a range of manufacturers, although not all calibres or bullet weights were represented; to be fair, that was in February, so there will likely be more options available leading into the fall hunting season.

If you hunt with a muzzleloader or a shotgun, meanwhile, or like to tackle the local vermin population with a rimfire rifle, the availability and variety of lead-free ammunition is more limited. But it’s out there if you are persistent in your search. As for the cost, we all know rifle ammunition of all flavours is getting expensive. Still, I found the monometal options to be on par, price-wise, with most premium brands and lines of lead-core ammunition.