Thread: Lead Contamination In Game Meat

Something a few of you may find quite interesting, Take from it what you will. Bit of back story - my partner who i have got into hunting/shooting & recently just shot her first deer, and being the inquisitive female that she is, started doing some research on lead, lead projectiles, & what the projectiles do upon impact with animals. A quick google search for something along the lines of "deer lead xray" etc, can find plenty of articles about lead contamination in game meat, and plenty of photos of xrays showing lead particles strewn throughout the body far away from the point of impact, which at first glance to someone that doesnt know any better looks very alarming. I felt that there was likely more to the story, especially with some of the articles showing things like lead particles at near the opposite end of where the animal was shot, which made me feel like there was a bit of "anti lead projectile" bias slipping in with some of the experiments and it seemed to me as though they may have been using some very explosive/varmint type projectiles for their "testing" to make things look worse than they actually are because that would fit in with their agenda.

Dont take this in the wrong way, this is by no means me saying lead is good and not a problem, i use copper projectiles where i can and where they are effective for certain types of hunting i do. So here we go with the experiment.

My partner called around a few vets in our area to see if anyone would be willing to xray some meat for us, explaining what we had in mind & we were lucky to find someone happy to do this for us. Great!

The goal - to shoot a deer in a "worst case scenario" (i usually shoot head/neck or the meat saver in the crease shot where i can) which lines up with the type of hunting myself and alot of others do within nz, and get our own unbiased results.

The below xray is of the front shoulder of a small red yearling i shot, did my best to create a worst case scenario (for me) and hit it square in the shoulder at no more than 30m.

6.5 Creedmoor, 143gr ELDX @ 2720fps. Projectile was found under the skin on the opposite side of the animal, mushroomed and still relatively intact. weighs 119 grains now.

Interesting to see the lead contamination even with hitting hard in the shoulder has stayed really local to the wound channel (an area you wouldnt try eat the meat from anyway) and hasnt spread far and wide like some/the internet would lead you to believe. Again, not condoning lead or saying its a good thing, just pointing out that the meat contamination with a typical used in nz hunting projectile may well not be as bad as some will try lead you to believe.