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Lead Grains in Game Meat

  • 30-12-2008 10:46pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18


    Here is a question that I wondered for a while, not sure if it has been asked in the past, but here goes.

    Game birds /animals that are shot with a shotgun can have lead grains embedded in the meat. What would happen if you swallowed a lead grain(s) while eating the meat.

    Thanks to all in advance.

    Acerspader


Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,096 ✭✭✭bunny shooter


    It will eventually leave your body while you are attending to a call of nature :P


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 600 ✭✭✭greenpeter


    I dont worry about eating them but by god they can be hard on the teeth :mad:


  • Hosted Moderators Posts: 4,948 ✭✭✭pullandbang


    From experience it's rare to get a pellet deeply embedded in the meat unless it's been shot at very close range.
    Normally the pellet will lie between the skin and the meat and is easily removed at cleaning out time.
    If you do happen to swallow one then you'll have some explaining to do at airport security xray machines!:D:D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,777 ✭✭✭meathstevie


    Worst case scenario is giving the local dentist half an hour of work. I haven't heard of any other trouble otherwise. Lead poisoning wouldn't realy worry me as the amount of lead that actually gets into your body from eating game is extremely small to say the least.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 205 ✭✭dimebag249


    Sorry I can't provide a link or reference, but I saw in one of the shooting magazines there recently info on a survey carried out in the US on levels of lead in hunter's systems. People that regularily ate game meat killed with lead shot on average had a lower level of lead in their body than people that didn't eat game meat. I think it was in the Shooting Times going back maybe two months, I'll have a look for it at home if I think of it later.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16,165 ✭✭✭✭brianthebard


    Are you sure the lead shot is actually made of lead in any case?


  • Hosted Moderators Posts: 4,948 ✭✭✭pullandbang


    Are you sure the lead shot is actually made of lead in any case?

    What else would lead shot be made of?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,777 ✭✭✭meathstevie


    Lead shot indeed is lead. The alternative is steel or bismuth. In significant parts of the EU lead has been outlawed for hunting and is only permitted for clay and target shooting. Going on a very scientific sample, my Da, steel looks like the better of the two for hunting purposes. Since steel is lighter than lead you need more of it to make up a 28 or 32 gram load so if you're used to shooting a nr 6, 32gr lead cartridge to word on the ground is move up to a nr4 in steel loads.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,582 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    I've noticed my shotguns pellets travel quite well through rabbits, sometimes they end up under the skin on the far side. 34g No. 5 shot. I plan on getting a rifle for the bunnies though, nothing worse than perforating the stomach.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭stevoman


    kowloon wrote: »
    nothing worse than perforating the stomach.
    damn right there not. taints the meat. any rabbits i shoot that are hit that bad turn into ferret food!


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 44 lusoshooter


    Well I whose like 12 0r 13 years old and I was pigeon hunting,I always had the bad habit of carrying the air rifle pellets in the mouth for faster reload, in one fence jump i swallowed one,i just forgot what happened and kept hunting 5 weeks later i started having muscle pain and involuntary movements of the members, became so bad in a short space of time,that I got in to the emergency room with a total muscular paralyzes almost not being able to breed and turning blue, the doctor's gave to me a muscular decompress er and i whose able to return breeding, they kept ed me there for 2 days running a infinite set of tests to find the causes of what happened.
    the blood tests came back with severe lead poisoning and whose wen i remembered about the pellet and told them,after a sere of x-rays they find it in my intestine, whose stuck in the part that is called the appendicitis bend. They said if the pellet had traveled like should have done the time that the pellets stay in side is not sufficient to cause any problems.
    the worst memory of the accident is not all the pup:cool: they made me do until the pellet came out :o, but being punished for one year without touching the rifle until my dad made sure I had learned the proper use of it:(.
    About the pellets perforating the stomach in my country his common use to take out all the stomach and intestinal contents rite after the kill to avoid the contamination ,never had bad rabbit since i started doing the same. :)


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