I was discussing this with a shooting mate the other day. When compared with say shotgun shooters, the amount of lead going into the environment from pest control with an airgun must be minimal.

If you think about it ( and I’m not getting at shotgun users as I’m one also ) the average 12g cartridge holds around an once of shot, a good afternoons pigeon shooting over crops and you could easily use 25-50 carts. That’s 1.5 - 3.0lbs of lead into the fields, mostly in the form of shot smaller than an airgun pellet so more easily ingested by birds and other species.

I can’t see any way a day or afternoons airgun shooting would ever put that much lead out !

I can understand the need to ban lead in shotgun cartridges as the alternatives are available and although more expensive, from what I’ve read they are viable. I don’t think there are any readily available non lead, accurate-in-most-airguns pellets out there ? I think JSB who are one of the most popular pellet manufacturers are marketing non lead alternatives but they only have two versions in 0.177, and one of each in 0.22 & 0.25.
As someone with an FAC airgun in 0.22 I wonder whether the lead free 0.22’s will be accurate as they’re very light at 11.75grains.
They’re all over twice the price of lead versions as well !

I also believe that the proposed ban won’t come into force on airgun pellets for at least 5 years and it looks like the proposals will allow lead pellets on indoor ranges and outdoor ones where proof of pellet capture or regular backstop sieving and capture can be proved ( I think this is right from what I’ve read, but I stand to be corrected if I’ve misinterpreted that. )

To get back to the OP’s question, one of the problems with lighter lead free pellets may be that it’ll put a lot of airguns over the legal limit which would be a major issue, especially in guns that have anti tamper devices.

As an aside I may have to try some of the JSB lead free range ( I have 0.177, 0.22 in legal and FAC and a sub 12 0.25, it’ll be an expensive test but interesting )

Norm