The last lead smoldering plant in the US was shut down yesterday Dec 3. Price of bullets will eventually sky rocket if any will be even available. Makes one wonder if this is not a back door approach to gun control from this administration. What good is having guns with nothing to shoot out of them.
I have not done any research to see what kind of controls they have for the importation of lead? 
If this is true it is most certainly a strike against guns and sinkers.
The closure does NOT appear to be a big deal, from an ammo perspective…
The Sierra Bullet Company said recently that it’s not worried about the Doe Run closure.
“Sierra uses no primary lead at all and never has, so we use nothing directly from this facility,” the company said in a statement on its website. “[W]e do not see any reason for alarm. We expect our supply to continue and keep feeding our production lines which are still running 24 hours per day to return our inventory levels to where they should be.”
“No impact upon any cast bullet manufacturing operation whatever. We do not use virgin lead, which is what Doe Run provided,” Brad Alpert, operations manager for the Missouri Bullet Company, told TheBlaze in an email. “We use foundry alloy from major foundries derived from scrap sources, purified and cleaned to purity.”
“The jacketed bullets companies (Winchester, Remington, Federal, et al.) use the same sources that we do,” Alpert wrote.
Steve Weliver of Cape Fear Arsenal added in an email to TheBlaze: “We have not begun production at rates that this will impact.”
“At this time we do not anticipate any additional strain on our ability to obtain lead,” Tim Brandt of ATK, the parent company of Federal Premium, CCI, and Speer ammunition, said in reference to the Herculaneum closure in a company FAQ.
Roughly 80 percent of “lead used in the United States secondary market (which is what most ammunition manufacturers use) comes from recycled batteries and another 7 percent to 9 percent of lead on the market comes from other scrap sources,” Owens reported, citing Daniel Hill, Operations Manager at Mayco Industries. “Only 10 percent of the lead in the U.S. comes from mining.”
Simply put, the shuttering of the Herculaneum facility could have an impact as far as demand for primary lead is concerned — but it’s questionable whether that will affect the ammunition market. The lead used in ammunition will still be available and it would seem like a stretch to say that the EPA forcing a Missouri plant to shut down is a “back door” ploy to enact stricter gun control.
Bottom Line
President Obama had little, if anything, to do with the longstanding battle between the EPA and the Doe Run Company. Further, if one is to take ammunition manufactures at their word, it does not appear that the Herculaneum closure will have any affect on the availability of ammunition in the United States.
Now it could be that the Obama administration is cheering the closure of the facility and the possible message it sends. But that’s a maybe. And since many are saying it won’t affect the gun industry, it’s hard to know what message that would be. In short, there is too much that we don’t know.
“Could the lack of primary lead create a little more demand for recycled lead? Sure, but how much is unknown,” the Sierra Bullet Company said on its website. “Could this increase in demand also create an increase in price? Sure, but again, by how much is unknown at this time.”
So where did West get his information? The post that appears on West’s site is based almost entirely on an article from a site called noisyroom.net. The West post originally appeared without attribution to noisyroom.net.
West’s staff later updated his site to include citation to the original blog, telling TheBlaze in an email that the “omission of attribution” was an editorial mistake.
TheBlaze contacted the author of the original article, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, and she confirmed that portions of her article were used without her knowledge. However, she said in an email that West’s staff apologized to her for the oversight, adding that the apology was “sufficient and gracious.”
As for where Monroe-Hamilton got her information, she clarified “the piece was more my opinion than anything else.”
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Makes one wonder if this is not a back door approach to gun control from this administration.
I highly doubt they sit around a big table and say, “Next on our list is that darn sinker plant!” Sometimes plants close for reasons other than those darn Dem’s…
In general lead is slowly getting phased out. Paint, gasoline, solder, shot for waterfall, etc. Relating to health concerns they started with people and are moving down the list.
They use scrap lead but how will that not be impacted. It has to start someplace. There has to be a source.
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They use scrap lead but how will that not be impacted. It has to start someplace. There has to be a source.
It will probably have a stamp on it “Made in China”.
I read yesterday we import a fair amount of lead since the production in the US has dropped significantly in the last 30 years.
This item has been making the rounds of various shooting/hunting boards for months now. While many have been trying to make the case for this being part of an Obama-contrived, back-door gun ban, the conspiracy theory doesn’t hold water.
First, this shutdown was already announced and on the way when Bush was president based on EPA lead emissions restrictions passed when Carter was president. So multiple “pro gun” administrations haven’t seen this as enough of a problem to stop. So much for the idea that Obama cooked this up on his own.
Secondly, it’s a primary smelting plant. It’s nearly obsolete, and the lead ore available in the US requires much more in terms of processing compared to ore available in other countries.
There is no global shortage of lead and as pointed out above, most bullet makers have multiple sources and are using mainly recycled lead because it is cheaper, available, and easy to process.
I will repeat my advice to gun rights advocates out there who seem to be looking for something Obama-related to get all hot/bothered about: Stop wasting time worrying about Obama. He’s a lame duck president with marginal legislative support and MUCH bigger things to worry about other than cooking up some back door gun ban.
If you want something to worry about, stop fixating on Obama and start worrying about the biggest source of current anti-gun laws: State and local governments.
Just look at what’s going on in California, Colorado, etc AND a whole host of new city/county anti-gun laws. None of this has anything to do with Obama and the Feds, this is state and local governments enacting piecemeal bans that eventually could link up to form broad “blanket bans” in certain areas.
Grouse
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