16ga.com ~ View topic - Fiocchi to offer tungsten-polymer composite loads in 2009?

Member Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 592 Location: Minnesota

Anyone know anything about this???

25 December 2008
Canadian Press

North American Tungsten aims at munitions market
North American Tungsten Corp. has formulated a joint venture to produce and market tungsten-polymer composite, whose uses include replacing lead in environmentally friendlier ammunition.

Tundra Diversified Industries is negotiating to supply tungsten-polymer composite to Fiocchi Ammunition, aiming to hit the ballistics marketplace in the first quarter of 2009.

The tungsten-plastic composite material is described as being non-toxic, as malleable as lead, and denser than lead and bismuth.

North American Tungsten and Tundra Particle Technologies have been working together for three years at a pilot plant in Minnesota, perfecting techniques to improve low-grade concentrates of tungsten, a heavy metal widely used as a steel-hardening alloy.

"The TPT patented conversion process can utilize a much lower grade of tungsten concentrate than today's other tungsten processors require."
As a result, North American Tungsten "will have a significant outlet for lower-grade concentrate" from its Cantung mine in the western Northwest Territories and Mactung development project in eastern Yukon.

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

Don't hold your breath---in the meantime have you seen the ad for the spice flavored shot Embarassed

Joined: 28 Mar 2008 Posts: 1460 Location: Eagle, Nebraska

I hope it is true. AND hopefully it is offered in 16ga but I would doubt it. Especially in 2.5" hulls. Second, it must be @1300+fps or I don't want it.

A little competition amongst non-tox makers is a good thing.

Give me 1 or 1 1/16 oz @ 1350fps or better and I will buy.

Charles is out of luck, doubt if they make a 3/4oz load in #9's @ 1500fps.
Guess he will keep loading his own.

Member Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 592 Location: Minnesota

Not sure if anyone else came across this update:

http://www.fiocchiusa.com/Tundra.html

I couldn't find any details about Tundra other than this announcement.

Doesn't look like Fiocchi will offer the shot in 16ga loads.

Joined: 20 Mar 2009 Posts: 428

I have always wondered why nickle-plated lead shot or copper-plated lead shot would not be considered non-toxic. Like asbestos in floor tile, it is not considered toxic until it becomes friable (airborne).

Since the lead is totally encapsulated by the nickle or copper, why should it be considered toxic? Am I missing something here Rolling Eyes

Anybody

I will start a new topic Exclamation

Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 728

Kolar Dan,

Lead is actually almost completely inert in the environment and is really only harmful when it is ingested, which is what wildlife and environmental agencies claim waterfowl do when they root along the bottom of a lake, pond, river, bay or ocean for food. The reason given for banning lead rifle ammo in some areas of California, for instance, is that condors eat lead bullets from the carcasses of animals that hunters leave behind.

I know a skeet field where tons (literally) of lead shot has been deposited on the ground over 30 years. The State Environmental Testing Agency inspects and tests the adjacent wetlands (100 yards down hill from the field) for contamination every year and has never found any because the lead basically stays where it falls.

Lead is often used for flashing because it doesn't react with natural occuring solvents. Acid rain can degrade lead flashing over time but the concentrations of lead in solution are usually very low because of dilution by the rain. Acid rain is also not much of contamination catalyst on lead shot dispersed on the ground where annual leaf litter covers the shot and protects it from rain as is the case of the skeet field.

The Lordship Gun club outside of Stamford(?) CT was closed due to lead poisoning because the fields were sited in a manner that almost all the shot fired fell into a salwater estuary. This resulted in damage to the shell fish beds, aquatic plants, fish and waterfowl in the immediate area. The owners closed the field and paid to clean the estuary of almost all the lead. I don't have any idea how waterfowl or other animals would react to ingestion of copper or nickel, but I would think that somebody considered this issue when lead shot was being banned for waterfowl.

Joined: 20 Mar 2009 Posts: 428

My guess is that the duck would pass the nickle/copper-coated lead long before any of the harmful effects of the lead could take place. I think, as usual, some individual (probably a tree-hugging idiot) raised a bid fuss and we are going overboard trying to appease him/her by outlawing lead shot. Mad

Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 728

I wouldn't pass judgement on the ingestion theory too hastily. You have to remember that some birds have crops in their necks where they keep pebbles and grit for some length of time to help digest their food. I don't believe that any reasonable person would continue dropping high concentrations of lead in an area like the Lordship Gun Club.

On the other hand, the studies of posioned birds used to justify the lead ban while hunting waterfowl were limited to individual animals. There always was- and will be- attrition in game populations due to many causes, disease, drought, predation, hunting, etc., which are normally replaced by natural reproduction (imagine that). I have never read a study, however, of how much the affects of lead poisoning through ingestions affects overall game populations.

An example of environmentalists over reaching I think was the ban placed on lead rifle bullets recently in National Parks where hunting is allowed. this was supposed to protect the parks from "lead contamination" but nobody bothered to ask how even a few thousand rounds of copper plated lead rifle bullets spread out over a National Park could contaminate the environment.

You have to keep in mind that high levels of lead have been found in children eating flakes of lead-based paint.

Lead in and of itself is a relatively benign element - inert in most cases when encountered in it's natural state.

It becomes a problem when ingested and subject to the corrosive acids and other compounds found in the digestive system. It gets taken up into the bloodstream in the digestive process and gets deposited in the fat cells and nerve cells of the body. The decline of the classic Roman civilization was attributed, in part, to lead poisoning of the Senatorial class as they considered it "top snot" to eat from lead table servings and cook in lead containers. The proletariat had to eat and cook in clay containers - fired in ovens. We call that "china" now. Some irony.

Ingested lead is a problem for all higher life forms. That means conservatives are at risk, but liberals are safe.

When live decoys were allowed in duck hunting, it was usual well before the season to clip the wings of the decoys and then anchor them in front of the blinds. There would be some percentage of mortality early on, then the replacement decoys would survive just fine.

Currently the theory is that the first ducks in would dabble on the bottom where they were anchored, looking for grit for their crop. They would sweep up the shot, cleaning up the area and then suffer lead poisoning. The follow on birds would have a clean bottom to work on.

The Pacific Gun Club on Lake Merced in San Francisco had to switch from lead to steel target shot back in the early 90's to avoid being closed down completely. I believe they avoided having to do a clean up because no one could produce EVIDENCE there was residual shot on the lake bottom. It was there, but the city did not want to spend the money to do the study. So steel shot was the negotiated result.

Lead poisoning now is the standard evil catch-all for the anti-hunt anti-gun to use as a reason to restrict or ban hunting. Ten years from now in California they will use the persistence of lead in the environment to press a complete ban on hunting. Ironic, as the very fact that lead is inert in the environment and therefore persists will be used as the reason to ban lead-based hunting loads.

Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 268 Location: Meridian, ID

Member Joined: 09 Jun 2005 Posts: 885 Location: Wisconsin

They don't pass it that quickly. Remember the gizzard is for grinding and even if pated it gets ground to a degree. Most copper and nickel covered shot aren't plated anymore, washed in a solution. Plateing is to expensive anymore.

Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 728

Even if the shot were plated well the effect of high concentrations of copper or nickel in animals would be not good.

I don't think there is any question that ingestion of any kind of heavy metal in high concentration(s) is bad for individual animals, but all kinds of lethal events happen to wild animals all the time. Normally the reproductive capacity of viable animal populations is high enough to replace those individuals lost to attrition up to and beyond the carrying capacity of their habitat.

l have never, however, read or heard the claim that the number(s) of individual game animals ingesting lead from normal hunting activity is significant enough to have a net negative effect on the overall population of animals.