Hunting With a .22 Caliber Rim Fire in a Lead Free Zone

August 6, 2015

Question: I was wondering if you could still hunt with lead .22 caliber rimfire in a lead free zone. I’ve been looking for lead free .22 caliber rimfire rounds and its very slim pickins out there. (Cory S.)

Answer: Although the availability of nonlead ammunition may be improving with time, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) recognizes it can still be hard to find some calibers. It will take additional planning to participate in hunts where nonlead ammunition is required. We encourage hunters who intend to participate in these hunts to plan well ahead to be sure they have legal ammunition. There are a number of lead free .22 rimfire rounds that are manufactured, and stores in the California condor range may be most likely to have them in stock. We recommend searching on the Internet and calling ahead to local retailers. Remember that .22 rimfire is only legal to use when hunting small game and nongame animals. Current law does not require use of nonlead ammunition when taking rabbits or tree squirrels, unless you are hunting on CDFW lands, but nonlead ammunition will be required statewide for all hunting beginning July 1, 2019.

Another "feel good" regulation that errodes opportunity for recreational shooting and hunting. Wait until the effects of copper sulfide in water are unearthed next.......

and the wounded, suffering animals due to lack of good expansion from the bullets

The terminal ballistics of non-lead projectiles does not even compare to standard hunting ammo. Fragmentation is common and also mushrooming is reduced, which decreases the transfer of energy from the projectile to the target. From what I have seen, the ballistic coeficcient is greater on the non-lead, which will work fine for those with the "Chris Kyle Syndrome" that are shooting game out past a grand. The problem is that the round will not have much when it does get there, and the reduced velocity of a round being shot at great distance, will not mushroom as well (in either bullet, but especially the non-lead) and will not deliver the shock that is needed to create internal damage to the vital organs. You will get more injured animals dying of sepsis, which takes hours or days to kill the animal. There is SO much bad science going into the regulations of hunting and shooting sports that just blows the mind if you know anything about shooting. We owe it to the animal to make a quick, humane kill. Lead-free ammo does not do that. Look at steel shot for waterfowl. More ducks and geese have been killed from crippling wounds from steel that EVER by ingestion of lead. I have looked, and have not found a scientific finding of a single bird that died from eating lead. My understanding is that the lead would be consumed by the duck, possibly enter it's blood stream, and be passed on to us or other animals. I also looked for a scientific study on the amount of lead that is absorbed by the body from eating a pellet before it is passed. Knowing lead hazards and exposure levels, it is not the solid lead you find in bb's or sinkers for that matter, it is the lead dust that is generated and cannot be readily passed by your system when breathed in, or entered through the digestive tract by contamination. Lead is bad, we know this, but it is not the solid state of lead that is doing the damage. I really wish that laws were made that were substantiated by common sense or by sound science, and not a back door approach to achieve an agenda.

yep, EPA, Sierra Club, et all. I have personal experience with the copper not killing like lead. Deer hit 3 times, twice in chest at under 100 yds, still ran off and had to be shot again to end it. Small exits on 2 of 3 good hits.

So what is lead going to be replaced with, tungsten? I'm sure that with whatever happens, the price of ammo won't decrease.

solid copper makes up most, some have some inert type of sintered metal as their core-these are more fragile and not nearly as accurate at the solid copper or lead core

The biggest problem is fragmentation and core separation. On impact, the copper peels, and the maluable lead conforms to the copper as it expands, aiding in the bullet retention. With more solid cores, like tungsten, the metals will delaminate and separate. This reduces the total weight of the projectile, and creates projectiles. Each with a fraction of the weight of the bullet, which is stopped with soft tissue and does not carry through and create a wound channel, and deliver the concerted energy through the target. If the bullet does not mushroom and hold together like a FMJ round, the surface area is not increased, and the energy cannot be transfered to the target, you get a pin prick in and out with most of the energy carrying through the target, and out the other side with little transfered in the form of shock to the target. Solid copper will never get the weight needed, so some alloy is required to get the weight to where it needs to be to raise the BC (Ballistic coefficient) to a level of dependability, and repeatability. Lead is an essential component to a quality round, and as far as ethics go, the lead ban is about as unethical as bowhunting with field points, in my opinion.
There have been some inovations in lead free ammo, but they are not economical to the average hunter. I firmly believe that the liberal agenda and other anti-hunting organizations, is to regulate the industry to the point where the average person cannot afford to do it, and by default, shut hunting down in a large sense.
Back to the waterfowl issue, we have dealt with it, and everyone accepted it. As much as I hate to say it, wounded and lost birds are now a common thing. NObody that hunts ducks much at all, can honestly say they do not lose a few birds a year. This is probably going to haunt us eventually, and there will be an outcry to ban waterfowl hunting because all the crippled and lost birds. Be sure who you vote for.

There's a FMJ ban, but you can use a solid copper slug? How does that make any sense? Even if it has a hollow point it isn't going to perform efficiently.

I agree that with all this nonsense, some entity is trying to take away hunting rights. Sounds like DFW is bought and paid for. Why don't avid sportsmen get a voice?

There's a FMJ ban, but you can use a solid copper slug? How does that make any sense? Even if it has a hollow point it isn't going to perform efficiently.

I agree that with all this nonsense, some entity is trying to take away hunting rights. Sounds like DFW is bought and paid for. Why don't avid sportsmen get a voice?

FMJ ban is for handgun calibers only-The reason being, that handguns, traditionally, do not have the power to penetrate a Grade 2 vest. A solid core bullet out (non-lead) out of a 357 will. Virtually any centerfire rifle round will penetrate a Grade 2 vest, it is a velocity thing.

I meant FMJ ban on big game, the whole soft nose or expanding thing. Are they saying that a solid copper slug is an expanding slug? Because a solid copper slug doesn't do much more than mushroom a bit and keep on going. Not much shock and a same caliber entry and exit. Not very good for hunting imo.

I agree with the the "no FMJ on big game" rule, because the majority of dudes driving around during rifle season probably aren't good enough marksmen to drill something right in the spine or brain and drop an animal in it's tracks; even a heart shot with a .30 FMJ and it could go 100yds, let alone a gut shot. I'm just not seeing much of a difference between that and a solid copper slug.

And it sucks when a bullet just fragments like an M80 went off in a body cavity with no exit holes too like a more delicate core is gonna do. This crap seems backwards.

When it comes to everything but birds, just bow hunt  ... the buck in my avatar didnt make it 40yds. I do agree though on the matter of using steel shot on waterfowl is like bow hunting with target tips. That analogy is dead nuts. Just save your name brand shells and "reload" them 

I live in Condor area and have never seen a lead free rimfire shell.  I want to ask has anyone here seen any?

I live in Condor area and have never seen a lead free rimfire shell.  I want to ask has anyone here seen any?

http://www.brownells.com/ammunition/rimfire-ammo/winchester-varmint-lf-22-lr-26gr-tin-rn-sku105202939-43506-92917.aspx

http://www.cci-ammunition.com/products/detail.aspx?use=5&loadNo=0952

Tin or copper/polymer. Never have seen them at a store anywhere. Read the notes on the CCI rounds.

So far, I haven't had any problems with Barnes-X Copper solids. The 12 ga. sabot slugs are 1 oz, hollow-pointed, with pre-cut "petals" for pentagonal expansion, which seems to work well, and they hold together. My 12-ga Mossberg 835 rifled barrel likes them pretty well. I'm pretty sure anything they hit will go down hard inside 150 yds. Rimfire ammo has been tough for a while, but is getting better in the Sacto area. Lead-free will need to catch up to the market though. I have found .22 lead-free air rifle ammo online via Pyramid Air. Knocks squirrels sideways, but that's a pretty low bar.

From an environmental/wildlife health standpoint, I think it's going to take a lot more buy-in from sportsmen before the Condors stop dying from lead poisoning. It seems the new rules are being ignored. Those of us who hunt waterfowl got used to it, and it made the shotshell manufacturers step up their game. Steel duck loads were terrible when they first came out. They have come a long ways in almost 40 years.  I am going to guess we won't be using lead sinkers and jig heads for that much longer.