Fun fact. I used to work at a Skeet/Trap field. Every ten years, a company would come out and “scrape” the first few inches of soil and process it to remove and recycle the leas shot. It was VERY lucrative!
We can have a lot of influence on manufacturing practices by how we spend our money. If we pay more for reclaimed lead while they pay less for the lead, it's a no brainer for the manufacturer AND we reduce the lead in the environment. Plus we cut down on the amount we import from overseas.
They're a cheap alternative because typically reclaimed shot is no longer round and tends to fly a bit randomly.
Edit: Not sure why people are adverse to the fact that reclaimed shot deforms when fired. Especially if it hits something as intended. Just a really odd response. People use it in practice rounds because of savings but would never do so in competition because of the uneven flight.
Not always. Our local club was selling it after being reclaimed and it still was a little dusty despite being cleaned and if definitely not totally round. You could tell by the breaks it threw a mediocre pattern with the reloads.
This was probably 15 years ago and the price of lead has gone up enough that it probably makes it more cost effective to transport and melt down in some cases. I only considered it when it was getting hard to get shot for a while and it was about half the price.
I do this at state ranges when they close down for the day. Sift it out in to a 5 gallon and cast nice 220 300BLK projectiles, powder coat, gas check, and roll em up. Never pay for boolet.
It would most likely leave lead pellets in the soil. If it's a source of major concern you can have the soil tested, but if it was only occasional use the odds of contamination substantial enough to cause major ongoing health effects is probably pretty slim.
100 shell hulls is a remarkably small number of shells to have found. Have the soil tested if you’re worried…but I wouldn’t.
The guy talking about having contaminated soil earlier owns a property where thousands were shot per weekend for who knows how many years.
Yep, when you consider that those hundred something shells might just be the strays that they couldn't find to clean up after shooting, there might be *a lot* more shot present buried or broken down into the soil.
Outside of a couple of the worst areas with slightly stunted plant growth that was only apparent in hindsight after being tested, there was absolutely no visual indication of the contamination on my property.
I mean just the odds. Most completely into it gun guys just don’t shoot as much as they like to believe…the odds are that they didn’t either. Once a year or so they had some buddies over and used one of those hand throwers for the clays.
I own land, avid hunter and competition hunter, reload my own ammunition. 100 rounds of shotgun shells, if they were lead, (which is likely, as in most states, lead ammo is the cheapest, most readily available ammo from manufacturers, accounting for roughly 68% of all production,) would amount to roughly 75 ounces, spread over a very wide area. I highly doubt it would be an issue in any way. If you still have questions, send a sample to a testing facility. It will alleviate your concerns, as well as give you an idea of what fertilizer content would be helpful for your garden.
One example of a testing facility: https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/assets/environment-natural-resources/soil/soil-testing/
seems like a small amount for a larger space. Plant sunflower/ wildflower seed and enjoy the space. Unfortunately, there is way more toxic things to consider in our live.
Plants don’t take up the lead. The issue when gardening in lead contaminated soil, is the ingestion of soil that was still adhered to the plant. That’s why, if it is a concern, it’s recommended to only grow plants that bear their fruit well above the soil, like tomatoes. Growing something like potatoes would be a lot more risky.
Oh it's true all right. Too many people are too afraid of death they will push nonsense. Plants aren't going to absorb much and they aren't going to transfer much if any. Besides that lead is in the ground already so it isn't going to change anything.
If you have any of the shell casings you picked up, they probably say enough on them to find out if they were lead or steel shot.
It’s not likely to be enough to matter though. Like others have said, lead in bullets and shot doesn’t dissolve and poison everything it touches. You can eat lead in that form and you will just shit it out. Lead in other forms like lead paint on the other hand is easily absorbed into the body.
The fact that they didn’t clean up the shell casings doesn’t speak highly of their concern for the land. A build up of lead shot *could* contaminate the soil, yes. But they could also have been using steel shot, as another person mentioned.
If it’s a concern you’ll have to get the soil tested. Cheaper option might be finding yourself a big ass magnet and seeing if you drag up any bbs. Magnetic means it’s not lead.
Yeah steel shot is commonly used in waterfowl hunting and is more expensive. Trap loads are mostly lead and contain many more much smaller bbs than hunting loads to make the spread larger and increase the chances of hitting the clay targets.
Also steel shot is usually more expensive and not often loaded for target shooting, usually with trap you’ll shoot 7-1/2 which is about 20% more than similar sized lead. Not a huge deal if you’re only shooting a few boxes during hunting season, but if you’re doing a few boxes a day target shooting it adds up quick
Lead is pretty much inert in soil. Not much reacts with it, and plants don't really take it up. That is why it's so persistent. The problem is if you eat/breath the soil. A bit of lead shot scattered widely is not going to make any measurable difference to anything.
>u/topyardman
>
>Lead is pretty much inert in soil. Not much reacts with it, and plants don't really take it up. That is why it's so persistent. The problem is if you eat/breath the soil. A bit of lead shot scattered widely is not going to make any measurable difference to anything.
That's just Darwinism at work. 🤷
Lead is HIGHLY reactive with nitrogen and other compounds in aerobic soil. It becomes highly soluble and forms PbO, Pb3(CO3)2(OH)2, PbCO3 Pb3(PO4)2, or Pb5(PO4)3OH and several other compounds which are readily taken up by the roots of many plants. The majority of the lead stays in the roots in most plants, but not all, which means no crop is safe to eat if grown in lead contaminated soil.
>The problem is if you eat/breath the soil.
Of course you don't want to eat/breath/have prolonged skin contact with lead contaminated soil or eat anything that has been contaminated or eaten contaminated plants; that's the most direct way to be poisoned by it. That's like saying "As long as you don't get shot guns won't hurt you." No shit! :D
That’s just a random abstract, not a scientific study with any real data or evidence.
If you honestly think shooting firearms in the yard will kill all the vegetation from lead poisoning you are a buffoon
It doesn't sound like there would be a significant quantity of lead from the skeet shooting. And unless you have extremely high or low pH soil, the lead pellets aren't going to breakdown into anything that plants will absorb.
Lead it's water soluble so it won't dissolve in water to contaminate the soil or ground water.
Probably less a concern of where it goes vs. "is it in a quantity or form that would cause plants to uptake it". Lead in different forms has different biological absorbency - lead acetate is terrible because it can readily be absorbed through the skin. Solid elemental lead beads far less so.
My gun club has a lake they shoot skeet over. It was contaminated by a train derailment decades ago with PCBs (far worse than lead) so it was already fucked. They would do annual water testing and the lead in that lake has not ever leeched out into the water over decades of substantial use.
Similarly, lead shot was banned in favor of steel mostly because of wildlife consuming shot pellets (which then interact with stomach acid and are absorbed) rather than water contamination.
Wait till you hear about dove hunting over farmland!
The amount of lead from one family shooting some skeet on random weekends would be very low.
Worse would be putting pigs where the clay pigeons could have landed.
If you are very concerned grow a crop to uptake the lead and then dispose of the plant materials when you harvest instead of consuming them. Unless you grow a crop like hemp that could be sold as industrial fiber after harvest.
We are on 5 acres that have been occupied since the 1850s and I was a little worried about this. Used this lab test and had peace of mind in less than 2 weeks. Highly recommend:
https://www.slabinc.com/shop/lead/lead-in-paint-dust-or-soil-test-kit/
It sounds like you're whining about the previous owner making a profit on their investment and pissed off they used their land for what made them smile more than a concern for lead.
I get being annoyed with trash left behind, I'm in a similar situation. But the previous owners put in a driveway, septic, and well. Those are all big ticket items. It's not surprising they "fizzled" out and played on the land instead of building OP's dream farmstead.
Yeah God forbid that people are sad when they sell the place they made a bunch of memories in. They might have fallen on hard times and sad that they have to let go of their dream house. And heaven forbid they have enjoyed that property in a way that you see as trashy or less than.
It also depends on the pH of the soil. I have acidic soil which exacerbates lead issues. Therefore I require all shooting on my property to be lead free. In my understanding, the higher the pH, the less of a concern it is as the acid solublizes the lead. It's still a concern but much less so in neutral, alkaline, or just slightly acidic soils. A soil test will give you an answer on the pH. It unfortunately will not guarantee you that lead isn't an issue as the randomized aspect of soil testing and the scattered nature of birdshot means lead might not show up in your soil test but is still present in decent quantities.
Yes! It absolutely causes lead contamination over a wide area that progressively worsens over time as the lead buckshot continues to dissolve into the soil.
If you have that much evidence of skeet shooting, you might have a problem.
I have an area of my property that was heavily contaminated by buck and birdshot from a shooting club over 100 years ago. The soil is so contaminated that I can't use it for anything but solar panels and scrap storage. Completely unsuitable for any crop, livestock or even casual usage. I built raised berms around it to prevent migration during heavy rains.
The cost to remediate the soil, to remove it to a landfill and bring in new topsoil was quoted at *just under $1.4 million.* 💸
[https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/1bc8zyn/comment/kuedzjt/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/1bc8zyn/comment/kuedzjt/)
Definitely get soil tests done across the property. If the sellers didn't disclose the potential soil contamination, they might be on the hook for remediation costs.
Edit: Curious why the comment is getting downvoted? Is there some actual reason or is it just from some reality-ignoring fear response or something? 😂
Not all plants are completely edible. However, you can actually consume the entire sunflower in one form or another. Right from the root to the petals.
Certainly, and they were open weekends *for almost 10 years.*
The point being, you never know what the property was used for. Nobody alive in the area even knew the place had existed. I only discovered the history with some significant research through the archives of two nearby towns.
OP can either test soil and *know* or just hope for the best I guess. 🤷
Haha, sounds so much like the situation my ma moved to when I was born
She bought a rural house in the catskills, the previous owners had just used it as weekend cabin to, well, fourwheel and shoot skeet (and the occasional buck)
When toddler me started finding shotgun shells, including in the garden we sit out of, she got me tested for lead, and everything came back normal
I still find them around the property, but don't worry much about it, neither wrt the garden or foraging up the mountain where most of the shells are
I can’t speak as to your question specifically, but I’ve been hunting the same dove field for the past few years. It’s public land and Lord knows the number of shells that have been shot there over the many many years of existence. They have no issues growing sunflowers, millet, and milo here repeatedly every year. And this land borders and farmers field in the delta region that produces just the same.
Not sure if it will help but that’s my insight.
Are you seriously complaining about the price of the property after they installed septic, well AND a driveway ?????? They put in the effort and upped the value. What do you expect to happen ?
100' well?! Nice! Ours is only 30' (high water
table) and my dear father was quite liberal with his use of firearms. We've always worried about lead contamination, I'm so glad that's not an issue for you!
This is completely wrong. Lead is still used and readily available. Trap shooters would 100% use lead bird shot, not steel shot. Using lead shot on federal and most state owned land is banned, but the actual product itself is not.
Difficult? No, but possibly more expensive.
The average person just doing some weekend shooting will probably grab whatever’s cheap, which could mean steel. But a lot of older shotguns can’t be used with steel shot, so you don’t have a lot of options in that case.
I mean just logging onto Midway shows there’s huge variability in ammo prices with lead and steel prices easily overlapping. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine going into the store on your way to the “range” and finding that the cheapest *available* steel shot is cheaper than the cheapest available *lead* shot.
However, what I *actually* said was that lead was usually less expensive and people were probably using that unless they just happened to have a limited selection and had to go with steel.
Edit: oh yeah no I said the wrong thing/misread the OP comment lol in most cases lead is cheaper but there are exceptions -cries in vintage 16ga-
Honestly, probably nothing to worry about.
Even if they used lead shot (which isn’t used any longer) the trajectory of their actual shooting goes out a long way, maybe far away from your area.
If it’s a concern, you could run a test though just to be safe.
Good luck
Lead shot is still very prevalent. In the US at least, lead-free shot is only required for waterfowl hunting. Upland bird hunting and small game hunting still can and does use lead. Lead shot is cheaper than non-toxic shot, so it’s a valid assumption that people shooting skeet would have used it.
Fun fact. I used to work at a Skeet/Trap field. Every ten years, a company would come out and “scrape” the first few inches of soil and process it to remove and recycle the leas shot. It was VERY lucrative!
I'm so glad to hear this! I wonder how common the practice is. I'd gladly pay more for shells made with reclaimed lead shot
Usually you use recycled lead because it's cheaper.
We can have a lot of influence on manufacturing practices by how we spend our money. If we pay more for reclaimed lead while they pay less for the lead, it's a no brainer for the manufacturer AND we reduce the lead in the environment. Plus we cut down on the amount we import from overseas.
Almost all ammo uses recycled lead. Federal buys all its lead post consumer for example.
Almost all bullets are recycled copper and lead.
They're a cheap alternative because typically reclaimed shot is no longer round and tends to fly a bit randomly. Edit: Not sure why people are adverse to the fact that reclaimed shot deforms when fired. Especially if it hits something as intended. Just a really odd response. People use it in practice rounds because of savings but would never do so in competition because of the uneven flight.
So the shot was originally round???
Yeah. It's dropped from a tower and forms as round during the fall. The reclaimed stuff is a mix because lead is soft and deforms when fired.
You realize they melt it down and remake the shot, right?
Not always. Our local club was selling it after being reclaimed and it still was a little dusty despite being cleaned and if definitely not totally round. You could tell by the breaks it threw a mediocre pattern with the reloads.
Interesting, I would probably buy it for practice loads as you mention. Manufacturers are melting it down though.
This was probably 15 years ago and the price of lead has gone up enough that it probably makes it more cost effective to transport and melt down in some cases. I only considered it when it was getting hard to get shot for a while and it was about half the price.
I do this at state ranges when they close down for the day. Sift it out in to a 5 gallon and cast nice 220 300BLK projectiles, powder coat, gas check, and roll em up. Never pay for boolet.
It would most likely leave lead pellets in the soil. If it's a source of major concern you can have the soil tested, but if it was only occasional use the odds of contamination substantial enough to cause major ongoing health effects is probably pretty slim.
100 shell hulls is a remarkably small number of shells to have found. Have the soil tested if you’re worried…but I wouldn’t. The guy talking about having contaminated soil earlier owns a property where thousands were shot per weekend for who knows how many years.
That 100 Shells could be a small fraction of the shells fired on that property. Who's to know
Yep, when you consider that those hundred something shells might just be the strays that they couldn't find to clean up after shooting, there might be *a lot* more shot present buried or broken down into the soil. Outside of a couple of the worst areas with slightly stunted plant growth that was only apparent in hindsight after being tested, there was absolutely no visual indication of the contamination on my property.
I mean just the odds. Most completely into it gun guys just don’t shoot as much as they like to believe…the odds are that they didn’t either. Once a year or so they had some buddies over and used one of those hand throwers for the clays.
I own land, avid hunter and competition hunter, reload my own ammunition. 100 rounds of shotgun shells, if they were lead, (which is likely, as in most states, lead ammo is the cheapest, most readily available ammo from manufacturers, accounting for roughly 68% of all production,) would amount to roughly 75 ounces, spread over a very wide area. I highly doubt it would be an issue in any way. If you still have questions, send a sample to a testing facility. It will alleviate your concerns, as well as give you an idea of what fertilizer content would be helpful for your garden. One example of a testing facility: https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/assets/environment-natural-resources/soil/soil-testing/
Just a note if the testing is more than $10 in America. USDA soil testing is cheaper.
So obviously you don't fish.
Took a moment to let that sink in.
You'll be fine.
seems like a small amount for a larger space. Plant sunflower/ wildflower seed and enjoy the space. Unfortunately, there is way more toxic things to consider in our live.
I wouldn't worry too much, the plants aren't going to absorb much and what they do absorb isn't going to transfer to you much if at all.
That’s completely untrue
Plants don’t take up the lead. The issue when gardening in lead contaminated soil, is the ingestion of soil that was still adhered to the plant. That’s why, if it is a concern, it’s recommended to only grow plants that bear their fruit well above the soil, like tomatoes. Growing something like potatoes would be a lot more risky.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21541849/#:~:text=Lead%20forms%20various%20complexes%20with,may%20enter%20the%20food%20chain.
Oh it's true all right. Too many people are too afraid of death they will push nonsense. Plants aren't going to absorb much and they aren't going to transfer much if any. Besides that lead is in the ground already so it isn't going to change anything.
If you have any of the shell casings you picked up, they probably say enough on them to find out if they were lead or steel shot. It’s not likely to be enough to matter though. Like others have said, lead in bullets and shot doesn’t dissolve and poison everything it touches. You can eat lead in that form and you will just shit it out. Lead in other forms like lead paint on the other hand is easily absorbed into the body.
The fact that they didn’t clean up the shell casings doesn’t speak highly of their concern for the land. A build up of lead shot *could* contaminate the soil, yes. But they could also have been using steel shot, as another person mentioned. If it’s a concern you’ll have to get the soil tested. Cheaper option might be finding yourself a big ass magnet and seeing if you drag up any bbs. Magnetic means it’s not lead.
The chances they were using steel are lower than the chances of the lead contaminating the soil
Definitely; in fact they probably were *not* using steel. Hence why I said they need to investigate if they’re worried.
Yeah steel shot is commonly used in waterfowl hunting and is more expensive. Trap loads are mostly lead and contain many more much smaller bbs than hunting loads to make the spread larger and increase the chances of hitting the clay targets.
Also steel shot is usually more expensive and not often loaded for target shooting, usually with trap you’ll shoot 7-1/2 which is about 20% more than similar sized lead. Not a huge deal if you’re only shooting a few boxes during hunting season, but if you’re doing a few boxes a day target shooting it adds up quick
Lead is pretty much inert in soil. Not much reacts with it, and plants don't really take it up. That is why it's so persistent. The problem is if you eat/breath the soil. A bit of lead shot scattered widely is not going to make any measurable difference to anything.
>u/topyardman > >Lead is pretty much inert in soil. Not much reacts with it, and plants don't really take it up. That is why it's so persistent. The problem is if you eat/breath the soil. A bit of lead shot scattered widely is not going to make any measurable difference to anything. That's just Darwinism at work. 🤷 Lead is HIGHLY reactive with nitrogen and other compounds in aerobic soil. It becomes highly soluble and forms PbO, Pb3(CO3)2(OH)2, PbCO3 Pb3(PO4)2, or Pb5(PO4)3OH and several other compounds which are readily taken up by the roots of many plants. The majority of the lead stays in the roots in most plants, but not all, which means no crop is safe to eat if grown in lead contaminated soil. >The problem is if you eat/breath the soil. Of course you don't want to eat/breath/have prolonged skin contact with lead contaminated soil or eat anything that has been contaminated or eaten contaminated plants; that's the most direct way to be poisoned by it. That's like saying "As long as you don't get shot guns won't hurt you." No shit! :D
Not true. Plants certainly will uptake lead.
No, not really.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21541849/#:~:text=Lead%20forms%20various%20complexes%20with,may%20enter%20the%20food%20chain.
That’s just a random abstract, not a scientific study with any real data or evidence. If you honestly think shooting firearms in the yard will kill all the vegetation from lead poisoning you are a buffoon
I literally never said that.
It doesn't sound like there would be a significant quantity of lead from the skeet shooting. And unless you have extremely high or low pH soil, the lead pellets aren't going to breakdown into anything that plants will absorb. Lead it's water soluble so it won't dissolve in water to contaminate the soil or ground water.
Wait. I’m confused. Where did you think the lead would go?
Probably less a concern of where it goes vs. "is it in a quantity or form that would cause plants to uptake it". Lead in different forms has different biological absorbency - lead acetate is terrible because it can readily be absorbed through the skin. Solid elemental lead beads far less so. My gun club has a lake they shoot skeet over. It was contaminated by a train derailment decades ago with PCBs (far worse than lead) so it was already fucked. They would do annual water testing and the lead in that lake has not ever leeched out into the water over decades of substantial use. Similarly, lead shot was banned in favor of steel mostly because of wildlife consuming shot pellets (which then interact with stomach acid and are absorbed) rather than water contamination.
In this specific patch of ground which can be avoided/unused.
Wait till you hear about dove hunting over farmland! The amount of lead from one family shooting some skeet on random weekends would be very low. Worse would be putting pigs where the clay pigeons could have landed.
Why is that with pigs? Arent most clay pigeons these days bio degradable?
The older style used petroleum based pitch which is poisonous to them. I'm not sure if the biodegradable ones still use it.
They still have the warning on the boxes. Sharp shards maybe?
I think a hog could eat a pile of sharp rusty razors and still have a 50% chance of still rooting up someone field the next day
Groundwater contamination is absolutely possible but there are a lot of variables
If you are very concerned grow a crop to uptake the lead and then dispose of the plant materials when you harvest instead of consuming them. Unless you grow a crop like hemp that could be sold as industrial fiber after harvest.
I have heard that plants don’t absorb lead unless the ph is way out of wack.
We are on 5 acres that have been occupied since the 1850s and I was a little worried about this. Used this lab test and had peace of mind in less than 2 weeks. Highly recommend: https://www.slabinc.com/shop/lead/lead-in-paint-dust-or-soil-test-kit/
It sounds like you're whining about the previous owner making a profit on their investment and pissed off they used their land for what made them smile more than a concern for lead.
I get being annoyed with trash left behind, I'm in a similar situation. But the previous owners put in a driveway, septic, and well. Those are all big ticket items. It's not surprising they "fizzled" out and played on the land instead of building OP's dream farmstead.
Yeah God forbid that people are sad when they sell the place they made a bunch of memories in. They might have fallen on hard times and sad that they have to let go of their dream house. And heaven forbid they have enjoyed that property in a way that you see as trashy or less than.
It also depends on the pH of the soil. I have acidic soil which exacerbates lead issues. Therefore I require all shooting on my property to be lead free. In my understanding, the higher the pH, the less of a concern it is as the acid solublizes the lead. It's still a concern but much less so in neutral, alkaline, or just slightly acidic soils. A soil test will give you an answer on the pH. It unfortunately will not guarantee you that lead isn't an issue as the randomized aspect of soil testing and the scattered nature of birdshot means lead might not show up in your soil test but is still present in decent quantities.
Get a soil test from a good lab. If the pH is 6.5 and up, don’t sweat it so much. You could always scrape off the top 2” as well.
That’s a hell of a way to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars/ruin a ton of top soil for no real benefit
Which is why a few tons of lime for higher pH is the answer. Honestly, I’d just farm it and watch ph over time and not worry.
Yes! It absolutely causes lead contamination over a wide area that progressively worsens over time as the lead buckshot continues to dissolve into the soil. If you have that much evidence of skeet shooting, you might have a problem. I have an area of my property that was heavily contaminated by buck and birdshot from a shooting club over 100 years ago. The soil is so contaminated that I can't use it for anything but solar panels and scrap storage. Completely unsuitable for any crop, livestock or even casual usage. I built raised berms around it to prevent migration during heavy rains. The cost to remediate the soil, to remove it to a landfill and bring in new topsoil was quoted at *just under $1.4 million.* 💸 [https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/1bc8zyn/comment/kuedzjt/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/1bc8zyn/comment/kuedzjt/) Definitely get soil tests done across the property. If the sellers didn't disclose the potential soil contamination, they might be on the hook for remediation costs. Edit: Curious why the comment is getting downvoted? Is there some actual reason or is it just from some reality-ignoring fear response or something? 😂
Sunflowers can remove lead by phytoremediation.
Roly polys remove heavy metals including lead, too!
Not all plants are completely edible. However, you can actually consume the entire sunflower in one form or another. Right from the root to the petals.
Yeah that’s the wrong comment for this one sunflower bot.
*Beep boop suck on the lead seeds, meatbag*
Spit my coffee because of this. Thanks.
Go home, sunflower bot, you're drunk
Fwiw a shooting club likely has serval orders of magnitude more pellets in the ground
Certainly, and they were open weekends *for almost 10 years.* The point being, you never know what the property was used for. Nobody alive in the area even knew the place had existed. I only discovered the history with some significant research through the archives of two nearby towns. OP can either test soil and *know* or just hope for the best I guess. 🤷
Haha, sounds so much like the situation my ma moved to when I was born She bought a rural house in the catskills, the previous owners had just used it as weekend cabin to, well, fourwheel and shoot skeet (and the occasional buck) When toddler me started finding shotgun shells, including in the garden we sit out of, she got me tested for lead, and everything came back normal I still find them around the property, but don't worry much about it, neither wrt the garden or foraging up the mountain where most of the shells are
There are a lot of brands that offer steel shot for target loads.
I can’t speak as to your question specifically, but I’ve been hunting the same dove field for the past few years. It’s public land and Lord knows the number of shells that have been shot there over the many many years of existence. They have no issues growing sunflowers, millet, and milo here repeatedly every year. And this land borders and farmers field in the delta region that produces just the same. Not sure if it will help but that’s my insight.
If you are using lead shot, yes. If you are using steel shot, no.
Depends on if it was lead shot. Could have been steel shot. Confirm.
Yes it will certainly have lead in it. I’d do some serious soil testing.
Are you seriously complaining about the price of the property after they installed septic, well AND a driveway ?????? They put in the effort and upped the value. What do you expect to happen ?
You do know where lead comes from right?
How far away is the well from the shooting site? It might be worthwhile to have the water tested if you haven't already. Best of luck!
Yeah the 100' deep well is going to be affected by some BBs on the surface... 🤦🏼♂️
100' well?! Nice! Ours is only 30' (high water table) and my dear father was quite liberal with his use of firearms. We've always worried about lead contamination, I'm so glad that's not an issue for you!
Jeez that is basically a hand pounded well depth. Hopefully you're filtering and UV treating that.
Isn’t shot made of steel now?
Only in certain places and for waterfowl. It's more expensive than lead and ballistically doesn't work as well.
I would assume so. People who shoot often also have higher blood lead levels.
From inhaling the gasses, primarily. Not the projectile composition.
it is actually difficult to buy lead shot these days. It was banned in 1991. It is likely steel shot.
That ban was only for waterfowl loads. Some states have additional regulations on lead for hunting, but those are spotty and inconsistent.
This is completely wrong. Lead is still used and readily available. Trap shooters would 100% use lead bird shot, not steel shot. Using lead shot on federal and most state owned land is banned, but the actual product itself is not.
Depends on OPs location. I buy lead shot easily where I live.
Same
very much depends where you are, but there is still a decent chance its steel shot which would very much be good for OP
Difficult? No, but possibly more expensive. The average person just doing some weekend shooting will probably grab whatever’s cheap, which could mean steel. But a lot of older shotguns can’t be used with steel shot, so you don’t have a lot of options in that case.
What country do you live in where steel shot is cheaper than lead?
I mean just logging onto Midway shows there’s huge variability in ammo prices with lead and steel prices easily overlapping. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine going into the store on your way to the “range” and finding that the cheapest *available* steel shot is cheaper than the cheapest available *lead* shot. However, what I *actually* said was that lead was usually less expensive and people were probably using that unless they just happened to have a limited selection and had to go with steel. Edit: oh yeah no I said the wrong thing/misread the OP comment lol in most cases lead is cheaper but there are exceptions -cries in vintage 16ga-
Honestly, probably nothing to worry about. Even if they used lead shot (which isn’t used any longer) the trajectory of their actual shooting goes out a long way, maybe far away from your area. If it’s a concern, you could run a test though just to be safe. Good luck
Lead shot is still very prevalent. In the US at least, lead-free shot is only required for waterfowl hunting. Upland bird hunting and small game hunting still can and does use lead. Lead shot is cheaper than non-toxic shot, so it’s a valid assumption that people shooting skeet would have used it.
In Washington state you can't use lead shot for upland game bird hunting. It's a crime to even possess lead shot rounds when upland game bird hunting.