Shooting At A Lead Free Gun Range

By Author: Frank Abay
Total Articles: 4
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It is because the commonly used bullets are made up of lead mainly. Lead bullets used in the outdoor firing range are an important cause of transporting lead from the bullet particles to the soil causing contamination of soil. Lead is a very harmful pollutant that can cause severe health problems. It is a very common practice to make bullets from lead as it is very cost effective, performance efficient and easily available. If bullets are coated with copper they cause another kind of trouble in the wet soil called as galvanic corrosion.

Alone in U.S, the biggest cause of lead pollution is shooting with lead bullets leaving behind the major industries except that of the industries of metal mining. This is due to the excessive use of ammunition by law enforcement agencies and army. Tons of lead is produced daily in the environment due to this.

The shooting ranges usually have a design in which there is an impact berm beside the targets. It is to trap the bullets that pass through the targets. When bullets are shot they break, smear or agglomerate there.

How to make shooting at a lead free gun range possible?

Recently, ...
... there are some guidelines proposed by EPA Region VIII that gives following suggestions. Mainly they propose to eradicate lead form contaminated soil and analyze the soils at every level of clean up to make sure that no further cleaning treatments are required. The contaminated soil can also be removed from ranges for landfills etc.

There is another term known as plant-remediation. It is a recent technology in which some plants like pea plant, mustard plant and corn plants are grown in such areas where there is lead contaminated soil. This is because these plants can tolerate large amounts of lead and can store its large amounts in their stems. That is why these plants are commonly called as hyper accumulators.

For shooting at a lead free gun range, it is necessary to prevent lead pollution that is to have a pro-active approach. This may be done by installing better trapping systems, doing preventive soil treatments and using environment friendly bullets that do not contain lead in their composition. Now a day, we have fortunately developed green bullets that are produced to prevent lead pollution. These green bullets are made from tungsten and tin as the metals are non-toxic and are performance efficient as well.

According to a report there are about 1800 firing ranges that are registered in U.S.A. out of which 700 shooting ranges are recently cleaned by U.S Army. It is the need of the time to promote such changes in designs of the shooting clubs and ranges that make them environment friendly. Only green bullets should be allowed to use there. Though these bullets are expensive now but we will be able to produce them at cheaper price as the demand increases.

Lead Free Hialeah Shooting Range and Training Center in Florida, Connect with him on Twitter and Google+.