I don't think they should ban it but I do think hunters should put more thought into what they are shooting. There are alot of "conservationists" or like minded on here and they should consider the amount of lead they are putting in the ground and water by using lead shot. Think about this I have been 1 1/8oz shot for dove and typically go through 50 rounds a shoot(yes I'm a bad shot!)and I will typically go out every friday and saturday evening during dove season here in Ohio. So that means I'm putting 7 pounds of lead in the ground/water every weekend! I hunt with two others who do the same so multiply that! This is one small group of people and I know there are quite a few dove hunters around. This year I will be using all steel for my field shooting. Steel #7 shot is $35.99 for box of 100 only $8 more than lead at Dicksportinggoods. I think we all should use more steel or try and switch back and forth. My $.02

BTW, the choice is available IN MY STATE! I prefer lead shot. Fewer cripples and lost birds!
JMNSHO!

Bubba

Dcast, you need to start shooting some skeets. You and your buddies. 50 plus shots for 15 doves is pretty excessive. All three of you are that bad ? This isn't an enviromental issue this is a hitting what your aiming at issue.

I don't have a big problem with lead ban for upland hunting. I do fine with steel on the federal preserves and sometimes resort to it on non-fed land if the available lead loads are too slow.

I have seen birds die from lead poisoning and it is NOT a pretty sight. They suffer for a long time if some predator doesn't find them first (and also injest the lead). Trust me, no critter should die that way. Raptors are the major victims of poisoning from lead shot and admittedly they have pretty much across the board made spectacular recoveries since the ban on DDT. Only a few places and species are still in trouble. Nevertheless, if the raptor problem ever gets out of control I would be in favor of shooting them rather than see them die from lead poisoning. I am certainly glad I have to use steel shot here for waterfowl. There is literally not a SINGLE day when falcons or hawks don't cruise the fencelines over my goose set looking for something to clean up. And I know at this point the farmers DO NOT want those raptors dead. They are rabbit, pigeon, and mice killing machines! I won't begrudge them the odd duck or grouse. There's plenty to go around.

Frankly, I can't see the logic in the governor's position. Since when do fish and game administrative bodies NOT have the authority to set hunting and fishing regulations for the benefit of the resource? Huh? What the hell are they supposed to do in their offices, sit on their thumbs? Well, okay the state's legislature, in it's unqualified lack of wisdom decided to pass some resolution repealing the lead ban, but the state's SENATE then pigeon-holed the bill. IT DIDN'T BECOME LAW and I guess that was because the "elected body" - the state's senate - decided it didn't want the idea to go ahead. The great irony here is the governor is the one excersizing "administrative fiat," and ignoring both due process and the "will of elected officials." Or rather their deliberate lack of will. What a fathead. The article doesn't mention his political affiliation. Let me guess .... Well, I don't think it will take a crystal ball to figure that one out! And I also don't think it is going to take a cup of tea leaves to predict how this is going to turn out when the courts get hold of it. And how do the guys/gals on the state's Natural Resources Commission get their jobs in the first place? In most states where I have resided THE GOVERNOR APPOINTS THEM. Ooooops! Branstad's own hand-picked bureaucrats (or possibly publicly elected bureaucrats?) stabbed him in the back? My guess is this is some kind of personal political vendeta that has nothing to do with steel shot OR the gun lobby. In any event, for the dove hunters it's much ado about nothing. Anybody who couldn't knock down a dove shooting steel shot can't blame the loads. Doesn't take much to bring those little things down.

Good for the responsible minded, commonsense thinking Gov. of Iowa!!! Granstad sure gets my vote! And now that we are officially broke, bankrupt in this country, and the contribution that the EPA has made in creating our bankruptcy, look for a lot of govs. and fed congress folks to be thinking like Gov. Branstad!

Dcast - perzakly!
Ratt
I hunt for my own pleasure, not to set an impressive bird/shell ratio to brag about! Not only that, I get to shoot a lot more than the 90% guys and get the same number of birds!

OHH
Check out what happened to New Jersey's bear season.
Bear/human encounters at an all time high and the anti-hunters appointed to the DOW by a progressive govenor cancels the season!

Sayfu, I don't think you'll need a lot of speed to bring down a dove! If there every was a good candidate for mandatory steel shot use, I'd say it would have to be doves.

So Christy is not a liberal but it's still the liberals' fault the NJ bear season was eliminated? Okaayy... And where was he when it all happened? On vacation?

Ontario Hunter...NO Christy is not a liberal, but he has to function in a sea of liberals. It is like all the liberals that want all the freebies, and massive govt spending in California, but then the go to the polls and elect Arnold S. to save them from financial disaster...can't happen. I seriously doubt that Christy would have supported such foolishness. I rather think that he decided it wasn't his to make a decision on.

Yeah, Safu, I bought a box of those very same RIO slow speed shells last fall in #5 shot. TOTAL WORTHLESS CRAP!!! Couldn't get them to knock a hun out of the sky, let alone a pheasant! I wouldn't advise anyone to try shooting pheasants with those loads. No way! I was so disgusted that I drove forty miles back in to Havre to return the second box. The kid behind the counter agreed "they're not much good for anything but tweeties." I forked over the extra bucks for some Prairie Storm and, as I have written previously, I was flabbergasted! I couldn't fire three rounds without putting a bird in the bag. And I put quite a few in the bag last fall, virtually every day for six weeks. Twelve hundred feet per second and forty yards! Maybe you killed A (as in one) pheasant with those shells. If you shot it in the eye! Those are clay loads. Keep them on the range where they belong and spare the game the pain and suffering, oh ye who in other places so heartily disparages the cruelty of hunting with a .410

And Ontario....clay loads are never made hi-brass. Those RIO's are hi-brass loads. I'd think you'd have a very difficult time with Prairee Storm Loads. They use the Flite-Master wad cup that produces very tight loads. You need a "spreader load" something that adequately covers a barn door.

Man, you need to go back to smooth bore school. Low base lead loads don't have to be poor performers at all. Matter of fact many low brase loads throw very good patterns. Where the problem starts is when you try to push the round shot out the smooth bore barrel.

Faster steel penetrates more because it doesn't have the density slower lead has to carry it the same distance through flesh. Some think that bumping up a couple of shot sizes makes up for it because you have increased the weight of the pellets being thrown at the bird. Yes, but that also increases the surface area of the pellet which, of course, increases the resistance upon impact, thereby reducing the penetration (or "shock" as you would call it) per unit of power. It takes a combination of increased pellet size AND increased energy to attain the same results of slower smaller lead loads ON WATERFOWL. Getting a lot more impacts (i.e. a sweeter density pattern) isn't going to help one bit if the steel pellets don't retain the energy needed to get the job done after the bird is hit. Again, I'm not making this all up. And it's not news. Sir Isaac Newton made the correlation in the 19th century.

The flesh, feathers, and bone structure of most upland birds is much less dense than waterfowl (they don't sit in ice water all day and fly thousands of miles one way twice every year), hence using steel shot for them is less critical. Yes, I found I could get by okay on pheasants with stuff in the 1350-1400 fps range (NOT 1200 fps!!!) but when I stepped up to 1500 fps in lead, holy crap what a difference! I used approx 1400 fps steel on the refuge and did okay, not great. I had a box of Black Cloud (all I could get) on my last day but only had one bird to fill my possession so didn't do a lot of shooting. Only four shots as I recall before Pearl tore her self up on a fence. Just bad shooting. Nothing even close to getting hit. However I made an easy kill in one shot from a bunch of about thirty that got up from the ditch right next to the rig. We'll see next year if the rest of the Black Cloud box makes a difference. I'd be lying if I said I get the same results with 1500 fps steel that I get with 1500 fps lead, but the results aren't bad. For the sake of the environment I can certainly put up with it. And again, the effectiveness difference between steel and lead on doves ... well, given the nature of the critter, that would have to be pretty insignificant.

You seem to be making my point Ontario. Add more speed to the round steel pellet, the pattern blows up, but you say it has to because a good steel pattern with less speed behind it is worthless. So you hope for several hits with steel pellets from a blown pattern?...I think you admit that steel is crap, and so do I.
AND I hope you understand that the more speed you add to steel the pellets just run into more air resistance, and slow down more, all the while you add more cost to the shell.

How does a loon get saved, or a bald eagle if you hunt ruffed grouse, and doves? Too many folks got sucked in by the emotional thing vs. the real substance of the matter.

Sayfu, the big game hunting community adjacent to Grand Canyon were the first in line to agree to banning lead bullets for hunting big game in those areas once it became proven that the condor recovery program was seriously in peril because the birds were injesting lead from gut piles. However, I would say that not ALL the hunting community supported it. Some folks wouldn't accept "the real substance of the matter" if it hit them in the head with a sledgehammer.