I'll always be a lead shooter even if they outlaw it. I got tons of my favorite bullet put back just in case someone pays off the right democrat to outlaw it. Lead is in our water along with arsenic and a bunch of things in excess that will cause major health issues. Not only is it in our water it's in the ground itself. So does one ever think about the particals that come from the vapor off of everyone's car battery's. Yeah lead is bad for ya. I've reloaded for ages without washing my hands right away or eating a sandwich while doing so. Well we're all more educated now but the rest of us aren't immediately dying from lead. No worse than the preservatives they stick in the food from the grocery store.
Here's the debate. For years I've seen solid coppers come about and seen the results in the field. I seen a 50/50 good/bad results from solid copper. Some of them don't expand when hitting the animal. I don't know if it's a bad angle and the point don't make a solid enough contact to preform like the manufacturer claims. Even last year I finally found a bull elk that a guy shot using Barnes T Shock 7 hours later and the bull was still alive after taking one to the chest. There was no bullet to recover because it went through the lungs like a FMJ. That elk was shot at 200 yards with a 300 RUM. 2200 Fps is there cut off for expansion. So for most standard calibers that takes you out of the long range game right there. Magnums 400+ yards might work, for standard calibers 350 yards or less would be the max effective range. I use to cringe when someone brought failsafe bullets now I have a bigger list to cringe about. In all fairness there's been some major failures in lead bullets performance but manufacturers tend to correct those after enough complaints. After seeing over 10 bad performances from solid coppers they will never get my vote. I'll save ya'll a bullet next time when it don't open. So you can see what i'm talking about. The last one's went to Barnes with a nice little letter telling them to get there heads screwed on straight.
Maybe solids are accurate to certain distances and maybe they perform well at 100 yard kills. But when it comes to knock down energy and long range consistency in accuracy that field belongs to lead bullets. I'm not bias I hate solids. I'm tired of tracking wounded game from the next best thing they event.
I know what's coming so do your worst.