Hi Doug, very interesting. Just hopping back to your previous vid regarding the target back-stop material. I qualified as a mechanical engineer designer before moving on to other things, so, since getting back into airrifling, I've been giving the back-stop issue some thought. Loose backfill, after several shot, starts to drop out. I've been trying to think of some substance to loosely bind the fill together, but as yet it hasn't come to me. For my own garden target target, I've woodchip pallet blocks in a wood frame, and I place infront pieces of Kingspan-type foam, scavenged from skips, which is very effective at trapping the ricochets. After a while it does get a bit bitty. What alloy are the pellets, and and it'll be interesting to see how they deform when shooting prey, with the pellet being so light. Does velocity make up for this.
Hi Stephen, my background is in mechanical engineering too, I've spent a lifetime in the oil & gas industry on the materials side. With regard to the target boxes, I fully expect to have to replace the retaining floor tile at intervals. I agree that a secondary "self sealing" foam or rubber layer would help to retain the fill for longer. (as in the self sealing fuel tanks used on WW2 aircraft). Only time will tell as this is a bit of a work in progress. There was another workable solution I found on line, using duct sealing putty but it works out quite expensive due to the cost of the putty. The principle is to line the target box back with the putty. The lead pellets build up a lead plug which can be removed at intervals and the non-drying putty re-shaped to fill the void. Regarding the pellets, this is very much my first step into the world of lead-free, so again, a work in progress with more testing to be done. I gather the pellets I tested were a tin alloy (possibly tin/zinc), I did note that they were somewhat harder than lead, although I could still deform the skirts with sufficient thumb nail pressure. I have noted in other tests I have found on line, that the incidence of ricochets is quite high with the harder alloys. The deformation against a solid object is nowhere near as great compared to lead, I suspect that deformation on striking prey is going to be negligible, but I haven't got to the point of testing to that degree just yet but I'll let you know what I find. I suspect that on air rifle prey, the pellet deformation is not of paramount importance for well placed shots (as they should always be of course). The shock and damage caused by a well placed head shot should do the job regardless of the degree of deformation. I have recovered .22 JSB Hades pellets from pigeon and rats which have shown little deformation.
@@dbppestcontrol5670 The machines I worked on were centrifuges for the continuous separation of solids from liquid, in your industry it was drilling mud, but my main designs were big machines for seperating coal slurry destined for USA powere stations. They were lined with ceramic tiles to prevent wear.
Additional cons so far include the cost and the fact that they will be more susceptible to wind deflection due to lighter weight. The cost per tin is around what you might expect to pay for a tin of 500 lead pellets, these lead free ones seem to come in tins of only 200, so more than double the cost straight away !
All about making shooting more prohibitive and even impeding people's ability to hunt in a couple of years as food prices go through the roof. They certainly won't want a substantial number of poaching-types among the population.
@Anthony Stewart Whilst I see the logic in wanting to stop the use of lead ammunition from an environmental perspective, I can't see why it needs to be banned across the board. The use of lead ammunition on target ranges does not pose an inherent risk to wildlife, nor is it likely to enter the food chain. In my opinion, the same argument can be applied to pest control, I don't see anyone queuing up to eat rats, feral pigeons, foxes or grey squirrels. As long as the shot quarry is disposed of responsibly (as it should already be), there should be negligible environmental risk. Whilst this change is certainly being heralded by the anti shooting brigade and makes things difficult for shooters in the short term, I think with the right investment of time and resources, suitable alternatives to lead will be found, enabling us to overcome this particular stumbling block. We can only hope that the powers that be, respond to the lobbying by the shooting fraternity and don't force the change before suitable alternatives are found and stocks made available.
