As firearms go, I would classify most of my hunting rifles as classics; Remington 700 BDL (22-250), Winchester Model 70 (.243), Browning A-Bolt (.270), and Weatherby Mark V (300 Weatherby magnum), all with wood stocks and boring scopes with simple duplex reticles. They are that way not so much by design but more by the circumstance of their age and their original purchase date. There are only two synthetic stocks in my entire gun safe. One on a Savage Model 16, (6.5 Creedmoor) I won at a fundraising event and one replacing the original wood stock on my uncle’s old Remington 11-87 12-gauge shotgun. The latter, the result of repeated duck hunting related abuses most often involving ice, canoes, or Jon boats and ultimately creating an unnatural cast that worsened my aim and couldn’t be corrected otherwise. My career has kept me in tune with the latest developments in shooting sports and politics, but my gun safe remains a time capsule—I suppose you could call me a creature of habit.

Years ago (and I mean many, many years), I developed different loads for my centerfire rifles, refining them to align with each weapon’s barrel harmonics. For consistency’s sake and in the spirit of efficiency, I loaded far more rounds in each caliber than I could ever use just hunting. Even for the 6.5 Creedmoor that I won, after doing my homework and testing various factory bullets, rather than work up a new load I simply purchased 10 boxes of the ammo that worked best. With personal ammo stores like that of unique loads specifically tuned and tested to each weapon, coupled with a dynamic career and a growing family, I struggled to find a catalyst triggering the switch to copper bullets.

For the last 25 years, my go-to, do-everything rifle has been my .300 Weatherby magnum. A gift from my parents for graduate school graduation, I have always appreciated this caliber’s “one size fit’s all” style for hunting. But for aforementioned reasons, I was in no hurry to abandon several hundred dollars’ worth of factory loaded lead ammunition. Nor was I drawn to making the time to shoot it 75-100 times dialing in the perfect handloaded round. And I still cringe (well maybe flinch) at the idea of lobbing all my previously purchased Weatherby brand ammo down range at gongs at roughly $5.00 a pop just to fireform a bunch of Norma brass to reload and shoot again. Enough said. I suspect many of you are in a similar spot with your weapons and ammunition.

The discussion surrounding copper bullets, at least in the conservation space, seems to have moved away from the bullet’s original genesis, performance, and migrated into more purely environmental debates. The data regarding potential risks of consumption of lead contaminated meat to humans or risks to raptors and other wildlife consuming contaminated carrion seem to be the primary topics of debate. For the record, I eat almost exclusively wild harvested meats aside from an occasional foray for a chicken burrito or when my lack of impulse control or time sends me into a fast-food joint. My kids were also raised almost exclusively on wild harvested meats. Fishing trips to Mexico and Alaska, big game hunts for deer, elk, antelope, and bighorn sheep, mixed with a smattering of ducks, dove, chukar, and an occasional pheasant fed my family and to this day continue to fill my freezers. Even now, after visiting, my adult children often leave my home with a cooler of wild protein. And despite my awareness of the ongoing debates surrounding possible food contamination and potential environmental impacts on raptors or other species, for years, I have struggled to find the energy and a sufficient catalyst that could inspire me to switch to a copper bullet in any of my guns. That is, until this year.

A unique opportunity arose this year in which I was afforded the chance to harvest a free-roaming adult bull bison, under the condition that I do so with a non-lead bullet. Let the journey to non-lead ammo begin. A quick search of a few of my top ammo provider websites revealed good availability. To my surprise, non-lead and lead-core bonded ammunition were comparably priced, including Weatherby factory loaded ammo. That was both simple and encouraging. However, despite the factory loaded non-lead loads readily available, I decided to do some more homework and work up my own load. I was drawn to having a load custom to my rifle, but I was also drawn to the journey. I’ll spare you all the details of the journey for now, but I will share two key takeaways I learned in this process. One, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I anticipated and rather than presenting as a burden, it was truly enjoyable and resulted in a great deal more shooting and practicing than I’ve done in years. Two, the origins and genesis of all current monolithic bullets were performance based, not topics of debate I primarily hear about in my circles today, food quality and environmental contamination. The inventors and engineers of monolithic bullets were seeking a bullet that had better weight retention and to avoid cup-and-core separation; no lead core means less separation.

The copper bullets performed perfectly, the petals peeled back as desired and even the “bullet sponge” bison passed quickly and quietly with some well-placed shots. This opportunity and ensuing adventure made me think about my long-standing resistance to the transition to a non-lead bullet and contemplate, if not for this unique opportunity, what else, if anything, might have catalyzed this transition? For many early adopters of copper bullets, performance was the primary reason and potential benefits to health and environment were secondary. Yet today, I hear very few performance-based discussions. Why is bullet performance not often a bigger part of the broader discussion when after all, it was the original intent? What are our core values surrounding this topic that make it such a heated debate? Are the barriers that I perceived regarding this change barriers others in this space also perceive? Issues like cost, availability, performance, food quality, and environmental impacts could each be exhaustively discussed and debated in data-filled arguments. Those discussions and debates never moved me to change. Turns out the catalyst I needed to spend the time and energy switching bullets, was something massive, and neither the copper bullet nor an adult bull bison disappointed.