Quote Originally Posted by Muskett View Post
When Lead pipes were put in by the Victorians, many went straight to the pond/water pump. There is loads of agricultural lead piping about in fields, though most dug up for the scrap. They didn't know better. A load of farm ponds were filled in and might well include a few Lead batteries.

I think the legislation is either about fishing and Lead Shot, or about shooting wildfowl over wetlands.

You might get ricochets if you can get low enough an angle. Certainly a .22LR will.
The threat to wildlife or birdlife is slim. A .177 is a bit too big as bird grit! Wild ducks rarely live long enough to be effected by any Lead poisoning. The Lead would need to be highly concentrated and it would take exceptional circumstances for it to happen. Plenty of clay grounds have ponds where Lead concentrations are probably a tad too high; but can be sorted when dredged. Ask the Dutch as they reversed anti Lead legislation on shooting over water/in general. Plenty of daft science on the subject from Cambridge University!

Just watch the ripples for wind calls.
This guy has it right. Lead toxicity is greatly exaggerated. Mostly for political and capitalistic purposes. If lead was so toxic, millions of people would have chronic health issues. For probably a hundred years untold millions of people have been drinking water from copper pipes soldered with lead solder. Before that it was lead pipes.

Just shoot and have fun. Nobody or anything is gonna suffer unless you hit them directly with the pellet. The pellets will ricochet at shallow angles but will keep a similar direction and angle at touchdown. Sometimes it's fun to see how many times you can skip a pellet before hitting a floating target. The RAF excelled at this in WWII with their Dambusters. The US also used skip bombing on a lot of shipping targets in the Pacific theater.

Anyway, don't listen to paranoid people sold on globalist junk science. Just use common sense and have fun.