A more expensive copper-based bullets will the only kind of ammo being made in the states as the EPA has banned lead ammunition due to the environment..and there’s not a single iota of performance increase from switching lead out for copper:
FOX NEWS – When the last bullet-producing lead smelter closes its doors on Dec. 31, it will mark a major victory for those who say lead-based ammunition pollutes the environment, but others warn ‘green’ bullets will cost more, drive up copper prices and do little to help conservation.
The bid to ban lead bullets, seen by some as harmful to the environment, started slowly more than a decade ago. But with two dozen states, including California, banning bullets made of the soft, heavy metal, the lead bullet’s epitaph was already being written when the federal government finished it off.
First, the military announced plans to phase out lead bullets by 2018.
Then the federal Environmental Protection Agency, citing emissions, ordered the shutdown of the Doe Run company’s lead smelter in Herculaneum, Mo., by year’s end.
Whether by state or federal regulation, or by market forces, lead bullets will be all but phased out within a few years in favor of so-called green bullets, experts say. While many believe that this will help the environment by keeping lead from contaminating groundwater, others say switching to copper-based bullets will cost hunters and sportsmen more and have little effect on the environment.
“Whatever the EPA’s motivation when creating the new lead air quality standard, increasingly restrictive regulation of lead is likely to affect the production and cost of traditional ammunition,” the National Rifle Association said in a statement.
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Jim Yardley a retired financial controller and blogger for americanthinker.com, estimated it would cost $18,431,000 to replace the lead with copper.
“Nearly $20 million, not to improve the effectiveness of the ammunition used by our troops, but to protect the environment,” Yardley wrote.
In 2010, Doe Run settled with the EPA and state regulators for $65 million and a pledge to close the 120-year-old smelter by year’s end. Doe Run General Manager Gary Hughes said the company tried to bring its smelter into compliance so it could continue to produce lead products, but abandoned plans in 2012 due to federal regulations.
“We hoped to be building another such plant by now; however, constructing a full-scale plant, given other regulatory compliance spending requirements, puts our company at financial risk,” he said.
This is nothing more than the federal government using the environment to make ammunition more expensive and less available to American citizens. It’s all about gun control. If they can’t ban it outright, they’ll just make you pay more to get it.