There is gun club in Athol, MA that I would like to join. It has an indoor and outdoor range. Their rules state that you cannot shoot with FMJ ammo at the indoor range. I want to shoot 9mm. Is there any lead round nose or hollow point 9mm any more? I can't seem to find any at least in any Walmart. Thanks.
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Lead 9mm Ammo
- Thread starter jkon
- Start date
The club I belong to in Gloucester has the same restrictions. The only stuff I've found in 9mm is Ultramax, which is reloaded ammo that Dicks carries every once in a while. It comes 250 or so to a box, so it'll last you a little bit. The problem is that they don't have it very frequently, so I just reload for the indoor range now.
The Ultramax stuff isn't the end of the world. Not the greatest stuff ever, but not terrible. I do like being able to load better stuff on my own, though. My range also bans magnum handguns on the indoor range, too....that one is a PITA.
I've never heard of a range that wants Lead and not FMJ. It's usually the other way around because lead produces more smoke and puts more lead particles in the air.
The expense of replacing a backstop vs. members with elevated lead levels in their blood. Seems legit.
Asaltweapon
NES Member
It can be.
icyclefar
NES Member
These guys load 9mm LRN
M & M Reloads
(617) 387-5005
75 Winter St
Hillsborough, NH. 03244
They are at a lot of the local shows and I believe that they hold a MA license and can ship to you legally.
M & M Reloads
(617) 387-5005
75 Winter St
Hillsborough, NH. 03244
They are at a lot of the local shows and I believe that they hold a MA license and can ship to you legally.
There are tons of indoor ranges in MA with retardo restrictions like "lead only, velocity under 1000 fps only" etc, because they have terrible backstops, etc, and don't want to pay to upgrade it.
-Mike
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Ultramax is pretty bad. Every pin shoot someone would be running that garbage and it would jam up their 1911 a few times here and there because of poor QC, etc.
After seeing what I've seen from ultramax, I wouldn't allow that shit anywhere near my guns. M&M is at least passable.
-Mike
Indoor range backstops are big money to do it right, and the smoke thing is a matter of ventilation, not the backstop, although most indoor club ranges have bad ventilation too. The problem is theres a nexus between keeping a shitty range or having no facility, and most members would rather have something than nothing... even if the place is a deathtrap WRT ventilation.
-Mike
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Not entirely, you'll get some lead burning off on the base of the bullet too, when the gun gets fired, although it's typically not a metric ton of it.
-Mike
I used to load 125gr RN lead in 9mm but it would gum up in the seating die and I'd have to clean the die out every 100 or so else the bullet would start to seat too deep. A real PITA when loading a 5000 round lot. Once I stayed with plated and FMJ that problem went away. I can still load it on a limited basis, just not in the volumes I used to.
The issue I have with shipping ammo is not the MA License to Sell, it is having to see the customers valid MA Resident Firearms license in person (prima facie...talk about ambiguous...) in order to sell them ammo so the real problem is not shipping it, rather it is selling it and staying within an arguably badly written law. I'm just a one old guy operation so I won't risk it.
YMMV
The amount of airborne lead from the primers is tiny. Something like 1000 rounds would need to be fired within a 8'x8' cube to produce an airborne concentration above the daily exposure limit. It's the vaporized lead from the base of the bullet & the dust which falls from the spent casings, shavings from the rifling on non jacketed/plated bullets, and the final impact at the backstop (if steel plates and not rubber) which produces airborne lead. If a range is dirty it's not just the lead from your shooting becoming airborne, but all the latent lead in the environment being stirred up which is the major problem.
NIOSH did a lot of studies (police department related) on this showing how shooting unjacketed/plated lead ammunition outdoors is a negligible risk (airborne concentrations were almost nil and the only toxic handoff was surface contamination of the firearms and hands) as long as there wasn't a strong wind blowing towards a busy firing line. Jacketed ammunition outdoors greatly reduced the toxic handoff (they were doing these tests with 9mm exposed lead, FMJ, then TMJ) and lowered the already very low particle counts in the air at the firing line. Indoors the exposure conditions varied on the ammunition, ventilation, cleanliness, and backstop type. NIOSH determined even indoor ranges with crap ventilation which are kept clean would be safe with TMJ bullets (Speer Lawman) + rubber backstop (~200k investment according to Meggit) because of the major sources of exposure (no exposed base, no barrel shaving, no residue in the spent casings, no dust created upon impact at the backstop) being contained from becoming airborne.
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allen-1
NES Member
MSI in Manchester, CT is lead only. The indoor range at my club is lead only. Both because of limited backstops. Academi in Salem, CT on the other hand allows everything up to and including 5.56 
I haven't had any problems running ultramax reloads, (generally pick them up from Dick's Sporting Goods), other than the fact that they tend to burn dirty. I can generally find LRN from Bullseye at Riverview in Windsor, CT and it's just about as dirty burning, but again doesn't give my guns any issues.
These days I shoot outdoors at my club as much as possible, it's much more pleasurable than indoors, and I generally shoot FMJ, (except for some .22).
I haven't had any problems running ultramax reloads, (generally pick them up from Dick's Sporting Goods), other than the fact that they tend to burn dirty. I can generally find LRN from Bullseye at Riverview in Windsor, CT and it's just about as dirty burning, but again doesn't give my guns any issues.
These days I shoot outdoors at my club as much as possible, it's much more pleasurable than indoors, and I generally shoot FMJ, (except for some .22).
I am referring to CASC. I know that you can use plated bullets there, too. Not cheaper than lead stuff, unfortunately.
I wish that CASC could afford to upgrade the backstop at the indoor range, but I know that $$ is very tight for that club (as it is for many). It just makes things a little rough when you can't shoot jacketed ammo at the indoor range and the outdoor range still has feet of snow on the road leading to it.
Agree.
Nope. There are some clubs with this rule for various reasons mentioned above.
Until someone hits the "reportable" level and gov't gets involved.
My first club was "lead only" indoors. I would be the only one shooting indoors and after 100-150 rds, I'd be blowing black crud out of my nose for 4 days afterwards. The air intake was basically non-existent. I eventually quit shooting indoors there and finally quit the club altogether. It was a topic of conversation amongst the BOD for >20 years I belonged. A few years ago one of their serious bullseye shooters told me that his lead level was sky-high and he was trying to get them to fix the problem. No idea if they ever did fix it or not, but I doubt it.
I also shoot outdoors as much as possible at BR&P and of course that is the only option at Mansfield F&G. I do prefer outdoors unless the weather is brutal (like this Winter has been).
If you need (artificial) lube you're not doing it right....
allen-1
NES Member
Q: What do you do if your girlfriend smokes after sex?
A: Slow down and use more lubricant.
Fixxah
NES Member
No way in hell the boolit melts upon firing. I can't imagine that happening in the millisecond heat is applied to the base. If you pick up a boolit from the snow after firing, it would look identical
to an unfired example under a microscope.
to an unfired example under a microscope.
