Anybody have any info about this?

http://www.winchester.com/products/newitem...px?productid=74

Tin???

I suppose they will kill a ground squirrel or a crow as long as they are accurate. I don't think the .22 Magnum round will be much use on coyotes, but I'm sure someone will try it.

Well, I guess this might be a really good thing for the folks stuck it the areas of California where lead bullets were banned.

If I see them around here I'll pick a box up. They might not be available in Ohio tho. If not I know where I can get a box for groundhogs this summer.

At 28 grains that's a 6.66% reduction in weight from the "standard" of a 30 grain bullet at 2250 fps. If you're close enough to begin with it may not be too bad. Being a tin alloy bullet I'm wondering about the frangibility. Could be interesting.~AMMOe

Well then I guess we need some testing done on groundhogs!! I wonder who might be interested in doing that this spring.

Any volunteers??

lead-free

I can't embrace it

I really can't either but I'll at least buy a box to help them sell it.

With the lighter metal, I think penetration on a coyote will be poor if the bullet breaks up. Lack of momentum.

No doubt we will know by this time next year.

Unfortunately for the coyote the only way to prove or disprove will be to shoot them.

For coons and such inside 50 yards I imagine it'll work. I don't believe bullet selection matters all that much for critters of that size at close range. For coyotes, it's my opinion that every advantage you can get with a 22M is a plus, bullet selection is much more important. It's a "borderline" cartridge in that it will kill coyotes, but it's not the optimum caliber. Like Andy, I wonder about down range energy and stability with the tin bullet, say 80-100 yards.

I'm afraid this whole politically motivated "Lead-Free, save the butt ugly vulture" BS could sweep the country

Yes it could Mike. Very easily too. I'll shoot some 100yd groups with the only WMR I have & see what they will do for me. I'll try them on groundhogs too. If I had a place where I had to use a WMR for coyotes I would opt for the 40gr lead bullets. I honestly don't expect them to work on coyotes at all.

I just moved back to CA a couple of weeks ago. They are encouraging hunters, to use non-lead ammo throughout the entire state, claiming that all animals can become ill and die from consuming lead. I have also heard that due to condors being released in AZ, they too are thinking about it. A friend of mine told me that he heard NV was doing the same. So ... yes, I think it will eventually sweep across the country, initially in the western states. California is ... and always has been a trend setter, you know!

This sounds like it could get serious.

I'd like to see one legitmate report that supports the fact that any animal has died from eating lead bullets. I don't think it exists. It's just another way for the anti's to screw with hunters and shooters.

Once those laws are put into place, they'll likely never be changed.

A reduction in weight may not be so bad guys. You will have a bullet with more or the same density with a higher velocity. I shoot barnes bullets in the the big game rifles for that reason. If they'll expand well they'll kill well.

28 grains at 2200 fps is no gain for the 22magnum.

If these shoot anywhere near the lead bullets I'm using now I'll load every other one in lead. That way I can have a good solid backup shot on a groundhog.

I agree. The notion that condors were ingesting bullets from gut piles is just b.s.

First, how many bullets end up in gut piles? Most animals are shot broadside and the bullet passes through or ends up under the offside skin. Even on a frontal shot, the bullet might not be in the guts.

Second, how many gut piles are eaten by condors? I bet coyotes eat more gut piles than any other scavenger. Want to find out if bullets in gut piles are causing lead poisoning? Check the coyote population.


Yeah, but the Barnes bullets are made for big game. If the Winchester bullets are made for varmints and fragment, it's a different story.

Most condors have been killed by electrocution. It's a fact but they don't make the power companies fix that problem because they're big business. Also more condors have died from eating bottle caps and broken glass. Did you know that California has a program for feeding the condors because they can't fend for themselves. They have a program that takes stillborn calves from selected dairy operations and uses them at feeding sites for the condors. You know it is our fault they are going extinct. It happened this way. Condors first fed on dead whales, seals and sea lion cascaras. But then whalers over hunted the whales for their oil and killed most of the seals and sea lions for their oil and pelts. But about that time California was booming in the new cattle business so the condors moved from the ocean life to cattle which regularly died on the range on huge ranches. But now the cattle business isn't like the old days and you don't find many dead cattle as the ranches have gotten smaller. Now the condor has trouble feeding itself. This is all true you can look it up. But only one condor has truly tested positive for lead poisoning. It is just a way to take away our guns and to reduce hunters and hunting in general. Little by little, step by step.

and that's the way it usually happens.

Sad but true. Lets just hope we don't end up like England or Australia.

Besides the fact that the lead issue is all BS and trumped up from the small elite that has a pervers adgenda.

I like the lead free idea. It's kind of interesting how the bullet companys are responding to the idea.

I wonder...

It was Olin who got the lead shot ban started initially because they held the patent on making steel shot at the time. I'm not saying that it was necessarily a bad or good thing, just that they had a huge interest in pushing for the ban. They used antiquated data in order to bolster their position that waterfowl were being poisoned by lead shot. At the time there was more up to date data available written by the same people who had done the original study that contradicted what they had found originally. Basically admitting that their first study had not taken all factors into account and their first study was flawed. Olin (Winchester) did not present the data from the second study. Next thing you know we were paying $10 for a box of steel as opposed to the $5 we had been paying for lead back in about '78 or '79

FWIW, The first study said that ducks were being poisoned by lead. The second study said that while it was true that some ducks were getting some lead poisoning, it was such a small amount as to be negligible and that ducks generally would not live long enough in the wild to suffer the effects anyway.

I've found more dead geese in the last 5 years around here than I've ever seen. A goose is a tough bird to kill with all those feathers & their breasts can take a lot of shot. I think steel shot has sent more geese off to die a slow death than lead ever did.

Shooter John,

Being here in the mid-west, nowhere near California, I'm wondering if any groups are actively fighting against the lead ban out there?

glen, some of those birds may have been diseased if you are seeing alot of them. if there is no evidence of being shot, i mean. so be careful not to handle them

351-- I could see the blood stains on their breast & wing feathers. I just kicked em around to look at them. I don't care much for touching something that I don't know how long it's been dead.

yep, sounds like a clear cut case of steel poisoning

They rusted solid in mid flight!!