Bob Frye / Tribune-Review
Still looking to kill a deer this season? If you’re turning to your flintlock, researchers say you should expect its ammunition to perform differently than a modern rifle bullet.
Hunters have been using black powder rifles to kill deer and other game for centuries.
Has that been more to their benefit than they knew?
In the past half decade or so there’s been some research into the idea that modern lead bullets, upon impact with hitting a game animal, scatter what is essentially lead dust over the carcass. To what degree, if any, ingesting that impacts humans or scavenging wildlife has been hotly debated.
A couple of states now require hunters to use non-lead alternatives, though.
Researchers in the department of fish and wildlife at Oregon State University took a different look at things. They examined how bigger, slower-moving muzzleloader bullets perform.
Their conclusion: they fragment less upon impact and may leave less lead residue behind than a modern high-velocity rifle bullet.
Researchers evaluated a traditional .54 caliber round ball and a.54 caliber conical bullet of more modern design, as well as two types of .45-70 caliber black powder rifle cartridges. They compared what they saw with Remington Core-Lokt .30-06 rounds.
The .30-06 bullets retained about 57 percent of their mass upon impact; the remainder of the bullet fragmented, they said.
The black powder rounds all maintained 88 to almost 100 percent of their mass upon impact.
“We tested penetration and fragmentation for each bullet type in both water and ballistics gel,” said Dana Sanchez, a wildlife Extension specialist and lead author on the article.
Questions remain, though, she said, suggesting that researchers next need to conduct “follow-up tests on game animals harvested in actual hunting situations.”
As to why muzzleloader bullets react differently compared to modern ammunition, it’s a matter of speed and size, said Clinton Epps, a wildlife ecologist at the school who’s also a rifle builder, ballistics specialist and a hunter.
“The speed of a bullet is a key factor in fragmentation, although there are other variables,” said Epps. “Black powder cartridges and round balls don’t go as fast, so they have to use a bigger bullet, which tends not to break apart as much.”
That’s good in at least one way, he added, as there are really few alternatives.
There are non-lead bullets available for modern rifles, if hunters want to or need to use them.
But “non-lead options for muzzleloaders and other older-style firearms are still limited and may not function well in all rifles,” Epps said.
