Drop the lead weight
AS the shooting season draws to a close this week, one Norfolk farmer reckons that letting his Purdeys go to America is the only solution, ‘while they work exactly as they did when my great-grandfather bought them in 1894. They’re likely to struggle with steel shot. Better to send them somewhere where there’s no looming lead ban—let a Midwestern gent use them for quail’.
As first-world problems go, this one is up there with the ancient Bentley being hit by the London Low Emissions Zone charge en route to the club, but ever since Britain’s shooting organisations announced last year that they were backing a transition to using non-lead cartridges, fine-gun owners have been concerned.
The move has been a long time coming— too long, many argue. Lead fishing weights plumbed their last in 1986 and lead paint disappeared from Britain’s shelves in 1992. There’s no question that the stuff is effective
—its density means it kills birds efficiently —but it must be recognised that tens of thousands of birds die every year due to ingesting shot that’s fallen across the countryside. Equally, it’s starting to be shown that lead traces in game meat harm human health.
What to do with those grand old Purdeys? The issue with steel shot is that, due to it being lighter, greater pressure is required to propel the pellets and the worry is that this will cause barrels to bulge. However, another son of Norfolk, Simon Reinhold of Holts Auctioneers, which puts thousands of vintage guns under the hammer each year, reckons the Purdeys might not need to be packed off to Illinois after all.
It’s probable, he explains, ‘that they’d be perfectly capable of firing standard steel, but they ought to go to a good gunsmith to have the barrels’ condition checked.’ What about the average Norfolk partridge? Would standard steel be capable of bringing them down cleanly? ‘So long as the boy shoots straight.’
According to Chris Horne of shooting business Guns on Pegs—and other commentators—the move is essential if the sport is to have a future. Mr Horne advises the British game marketing board and has recently been tasked with finding 800,000 birds for two of the country’s biggest recipebox companies. This is a welcome request when, generally, the amount of game being shot far exceeds demand for the meat. The only catch is that they must have been killed with steel. ‘I’m struggling,’ came his answer when asked how he’s getting on. The transition cannot come fast enough.