SoftBonds
Posts: 862
Joined: 2/10/2012 Status: offline
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Thanks silverboat, that was kinda the perception I was drawing from my anaylsis based on my old chemistry books (rather than practical knowledge). I did note that Copper costs about 3 times what lead does, and steel is much cheaper than both. Given the concerns about making the bullet from a soft, easily worked metal, and the low requirement in number of rounds, I would think a bullet that has 3 times the raw materials cost (which would probably cost only 20% more given the other costs involved), would be reasonable. Of course, maybe the hunters out there are almost going broke paying the high prices of ammo right now. Lets see, a round of rifle ammo (hunters generally use rifles to hunt game) costs from 12 cents to... wow 17.60 per round for a .500 nitro round. Not sure the latter price is for a lead round though... Looks to me like most rounds (despite the 12 cents figure) were on the close order of a few bucks. So granted, a 20% increase in cost of ammo would be something like 40 cents per shot. I remember hearing about an old adage, "one shot, one deer, two shots, maybe one deer, three shots, no deer," so figure the average hunter gets into position on an animal 4 times a day until they succeed (yes, I know that is high), and that they fail the first three times, meaning 10 shots fired (or 11, but 10 makes the math easier...). At our estimated cost increase for a copper bullet, it would cost about $4 a day for the more expensive ammo. Which would, I grant, have slightly lower range, but should have comparable stopping power, and we know that copper is not toxic (you actually need a small amount in your own diet), which means both the hunter and any scavenger birds don't have a problem, all for the cost of a bag of beef jerky or so. I don't see that as a huge financial burden. Now if the cost of bullets was actually three times higher, I would agree it wouldn't be fair, but that would require that labor, machinery, transport, inventory costs, etc. tripled too, and there is no reason for that. Now, lets talk about firing ranges, where the costs are much higher. The issue you quickly run into is that you want to fire the round on the range that you will be firing in the field. So at this point a hunter would have a good point. However, I don't know how many rounds the average hunter uses at the range to get familiar with his weapon. I know how many rounds the military uses, but for obvious reasons that's a pretty high number. Fort Ord, out here is Cali, isn't used by the army, but they can't give it to the state because of all the lead from the firing ranges... So really, assuming that ammo costs increase 20% for copper ammo, what is the cost per hunter? Heck, we could look at the number of hunters, and depending on the total costs of the change, maybe the eco-groups could cover half or something? I've seen wild Eagles, Bald and otherwise, and they are pretty cool birds (for scavengers). So I guess I have a bird in this fight (if you will pardon the bad pun). I donno, I do think the hunters should have a say too, but I think there is a compromise out there somewhere.
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Elite Thread Hijacker! Ignored: ThompsonX, RealOne (so folks know why I don't reply) The last poster is often not the "winner," of the thread, just the one who was most annoying.
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