One should see the proposed bill and discuss its merits and shortcomings:
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3590?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22HR.+3590%22%5D%7D

is it just the claim of a special interest group who may or may not be scam to separate well meaning but naive people from their money like these guys:
http://www.wildhorsepreservation.org/
FWIW, I have never seen cattle grazing in the Red Desert or on White Mountain.
Many government scientists, including biologists from California's game dept, question the methodology and validity of anti lead research.
I'm agnostic on the subject until the science convinces me either way.

but lots of WA state is now regulated to non-lead shot for birds. At this point, I am surprised that the industry has not gone that way already.

migratory birds since 1991. I remember reading scare stories about bursting gun barrels etc.

hunters were firing those rounds in full or extra full chokes.


http://www.chuckhawks.com/steel_shot_barrel_damage.htm

(formerly) Bismuth -- highly frangible bismuth, coated in tin plate to keep the bismuth from shattering everwhere, even as it scrunches down similarly to lead. Works well, but expen$ive. There is a move to toward conventional iron, as opposed to Heavyshot iron which is also expensive.

Winchester now has cubed-shaped shot, like highly camfered dice to aid in shot cohesion (less clumping & fewer fliers) once in flight.

Just gassing, but the future may be larger and more massive iron shot with cups which are better able to keep the unforgiving metals from damaging my old Stevens db and 53 yr old Wingmaster. And do so at a reasonable cost.

a few yrs back, and he said that within a few more years, most hunting ammo would be non-toxic. I also read in F & S where copper bullets for big game performed similarly to lead-based bullets. Nothing new, here.

and a few other countries banned lead ammo for hunting years ago. With the exception of Netherlands, the other three have fairly large gun ownership rates, at least higher than Florida's, so there should be a good sized market for them. Many militaries use lead free for various reasons.

even though north Dakota doesn't require them in rifles. After trying the Barnes x I will never go back to lead(several other companies are making copies of this bullet now). Same with their varmint bullets. Better accuracy and far more effective than lead bullets. As to shotgun shells, steel shot was terrible at longer distances and I almost gave up waterfowl hunting. That was until I tried Remington's wingmaster HD, this ammunition is better than lead shot. So, I don't really have a use for lead projectiles of any kind anymore. The non toxic alternatives are just way more effective. I don't know why anyone would even want to use lead now that we have this more lethal ammunition.

then that portion of the bill may be a response to EPA's various trial balloons about restricting lead ammunition in general, not merely F&WS restrictions on what you can use when hunting. If you look at the bill's table of contents (below), it covers recreational shooting and marksmanship training also, not just the small niche that is hunting.

Hunting rounds are a very, very small subset of the ammunition market; the vast majority of gun owners are nonhunters, and target shooters shoot a lot more than hunters do. For nonhunting ammunition, there are *not* good alternatives to lead that are both affordable and legal.

In handgun calibers and small to intermediate rifle calibers, many of the best lead alternatives are banned by Federal law as "armor piercing", and would be prohibitively expensive for large-scale target shooting and plinking even if they were un-banned.

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?q=bill/hr-3590-the-sportsmen-s-heritage-and-recreational-enhancement-share-act-of-2013

Here's the bill table of contents: