Mosin Nagant 7.62x54r CA Lead-free Hunting

[freethink]

Hello, a couple of thoughts on this,

One is that I think these California ammo regs as they stand today are fairly ridiculous and shouldn't exist for a variety of reasons,

Two is that (and this second point is the main point of this particular post) I am curious about a couple different things:

a) reloading possibilities

b) manufacturers that have produced 7.62x54r "CA non-lead" ammo

Something I have found in this area is this:
Mosin CA legal hunting ammo [Archive] - Calguns.net

From that I have discerned the following:

Ammo Brothers
Custom Cartridge, Inc.

Seems these are the only two certified companies (unless I am mistaken) that are producing the CA non-lead for Mosins as per
https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/...tion/Certified

Time to learn more about reloading, apparently...

Apparently CA's implementation of AB 711 is basically, this (per the DFG's website):

"Phase 1 – Effective July 1, 2015, nonlead ammunition will be required when taking Nelson bighorn sheep and all wildlife on state wildlife areas and ecological reserves.

Phase 2 – Effective July 1, 2016, nonlead shot will be required when taking upland game birds with a shotgun, except for dove, quail, snipe, and any game birds taken on licensed game bird clubs. In addition, nonlead shot will be required when using a shotgun to take resident small game mammals, furbearing mammals, nongame mammals, nongame birds, and any wildlife for depredation purposes.

Phase 3 – Effective July 1, 2019, nonlead ammunition will be required when taking any wildlife with a firearm anywhere in California.

Existing restrictions on the use of lead ammunition in the California condor range remain in effect while implementation proceeds."

So basically the plan of the California Legislature, evidently, is to screw people all over the state while Gavin Newsom launches his loathsome proposition to try to keep people from even being able to buy ammo at all - for more on that (and to help stop it) go to About FPC Second Amendment Defense Committee - Firearms Policy Coalition Second Amendment Defense Committee

I want to take a moment to talk about the issue of lead as the passage of AB 711 and the banning of lead ammo was portrayed as a must-pass issue based on... the harm that can be done by lead. Lead is, of course, a known toxin that we have already removed from everything from paint to gasoline, and pencils to pipes. However, AB 711 is not the way to address this issue properly, and we should challenge AB 711's implementation, despite the fact that it has been passed into law.

There are all kinds of ammunition this impacts so it's not a black and white issue of "lead vs nonlead," but rather, limits the permissible market to only that which the state will allow which is an incredibly limited range of ammunition on an approved list of manufacturers. This is inappropriate and wrong.

First, the bill comes into conflict with federal law. 10 USC Sec 4684, as an example, which allows surplus ammunition to be sold to patriotic organizations. 10 USC Chapter 443, etc. States can adopt their own laws that provide for more detailed restrictions and regulation but I believe they get into trouble when banning the use of things that are commonly purchased by people across the entire United States. In addition, the federal Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) expressly exempted ammunition from the oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at the time of passage of AB 711. Yet, the State of California feels its wardens have oversight to analyze lead content of ammo and to initiate such assessments in the field, even suggesting that this would include "seiz(ure) (of) the weapon for removal of the projectile under controlled conditions or fir(ing) (of) the weapon into a medium to retrieve the projectile." This would obviously be an unconstitutional and warrantless type of property seizure by the state which would likely be legally actionable by a large number of persons, potentially in a lawsuit against the state.

Then there was a ruling that came out of the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia on May 23, 2013 just before the time of passage of AB 711, dismissing a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and six other groups demanding the Environmental Protection Agency ban traditional ammunition containing lead components. Although that was not binding on the California Legislature, it is hard to imagine that AB 711 would hold up under legal scrutiny if it were to ban all ammunition containing lead components across the entire State, were this bill to be challenged.

Second, if the State wants to reduce the use of lead ammunition during hunting, which the law supposedly intends, it should work with manufacturers to provide incentives for a shift in manufacturing to accomodate that. When people buy anything (or at least when they buy ammo), they look for the possibility of buying in bulk to reduce cost. However, the State does not incentivize anyone, instead, it simply attacks people's rights while discouraging manufacturers and driving businesses out of the state.

Even before the passage of AB 711, the cost of doing business was high in this regard. The excise tax dollars (11 percent) manufacturers paid on the sale of ammunition – the very ammunition some groups chose to demonize – was, at that time, a primary source of wildlife conservation funding in the United States and the financial backbone of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. The bald eagle’s recovery, a truly great conservation success story, was made possible and funded by hunters using traditional ammunition. I am no longer sure that this is the case given the Legislature's attacks on both consumers and manufacturers of ammunition.

Finally, there is the US Constitution: "“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges ... of citizens ... nor ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny ... the equal protection of the laws.” We can thus say, if people have traditionally obtained ammunition through purchase, or made ammunition in their own home, as a part of the exercise of their 2nd Amendment right for sustaining their family through hunting, it is not legal for the state to deprive them of that property nor the use of it. A statewide ban, such as that which is part of AB 711 (in particular, via the State's "Phase 3" which begins July 1, 2019) would raise federal legal, and Constitutional problems, that will make the law one which will not be legally supported. And furthermore, I would also submit that in remembering the history of the Prohibition era in this country, we can see that the Legislature has failed to learn from history, and that we can continue to assert our rights simply by noncompliance with their efforts to remove our rights.

[freethink]

In my original post which started this thread I focused on Mosin Nagant 7.62x54r CA lead free hunting and the issues and problems surrounding the supply given the loathsome and arguably unconstitutional ammo laws that have evolved in California.

However, it occurred to me that there is also some additional information that may provide a solution, as follows:

AB 711 is, of course, an unconstitutional ammo ban bill (bans all use of lead ammo for hunting across all of California) which disregards case law and fails to provides any habitat-specific nexus to its ammo requirement. This bill is now law. It is in direct conflict with case law on this issue. The new law contains (in part) the following language:

"(b) Except as provided in subdivision (j), and as soon as is practicable as implemented by the commission pursuant to subdivision (i), but by no later than July 1, 2019, nonlead ammunition, as determined by the commission, shall be required when taking all wildlife, including game mammals, game birds, nongame birds, and nongame mammals, with any firearm."
The reference to subdivision (j) in the language of AB 711 calls one's attention to another section of language in the bill:
"(j) (1) The prohibition in subdivision (b) shall be temporarily suspended for a specific hunting season and caliber upon a finding by the director that nonlead ammunition of a specific caliber is not commercially available from any manufacturer because of federal prohibitions relating to armor-piercing ammunition pursuant to Chapter 44 (commencing with Section 921) of Title 18 of the United States Code."

While the 7.62x54r lead-free hasn't been rendered commercially unavailable due to federal prohibitions on AP ammo, it has nonetheless been made nearly unavalable because there are now only two companies that make the lead-free ammo, and California's lawmakers are now proposing to make it illegal to purchase ammo online (thus, if we were to follow their logic, we would have to buy from only two manufacturers, to obtain their approved ammo for 7.62x54r, and the transaction would have to take place in person). (Remember, it's also these gun banners' desire to make all semiauto centerfire guns illegal in the State, so then you'd basically only be hunting with your bow or your bolt action rifle, and then they'll get to work on banning those too - and if they can't, they'll get the regulators to ban your ammo / calibers, which is where we are right now and why I'm writing this post.)

Note that even extinguishing the ammunition availability and requiring in-person sales only for ammo wouldn't be enough for California lawmakers, because under AB 711, their adopted language made sure that if there ever was a suspension of the ammo ban, that the suspension itself would be rendered invalid by yet another unconstitutional provision:

"(2) Notwithstanding a suspension pursuant to paragraph (1), nonlead ammunition shall be used when taking big game mammals, nongame birds, or nongame mammals in the California condor range, as defined in subdivision (a)."

Clearly, the lack of availability of lead-free ammunition as described above and the inability even to meaningfully suspend the prohibition on use of lead ammo, coupled with Gavin Newsom's ballot proposition which if passed would outlaw online sales, make California legislator's activities unconstitutional, and certainly make AB 711 (as a bill which has become law) unconstitutional.

The most recent and relevant ruling that I know of on this issue came out of the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia on May 23, 2013, dismissing a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and six other groups that were demanding the Environmental Protection Agency ban traditional ammunition containing lead components. Federal judges dismissed the anti-2nd amendment groups’ serial petitioning and rejected those groups’ attempts to ban commonly available ammunition and hobble gun owners.

In California, the Safer Consumer Products regulations were approved by the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) on August 28, 2013 (OAL File No. 2013-0718-03 S) and have been filed with the Secretary of State. The regulations took effect on October 1, 2013. [AB 711, which is a law (completely distinct from the regulations approved by the State OAL on Oct. 1, 2013), was approved by the Governor on Oct. 11, 2013, and was filed with the Secretary of State (chaptered) on Oct. 11, 2013.]
These OAL-approved regulations regulate lead (though the regulations are not limited to regulating only lead). In full, these regulations are oriented towards 164 chemicals. Instead of targeting specific chemicals, they try to prevent companies from simply swapping in one hazardous compound for another with unknown or potentially toxic effects.

According to these regulations, "The Final AA (alternatives analysis) Report must identify and describe the alternative(s), if any, selected to replace the Priority Product." It should be made clear here that there will be products, including, but not limited to ammunition products -- and some of those products will be surplus ammunition -- for which there will be NO alternatives, and there will NEVER be any alternatives. Furthermore, Californians have the Constitutional right to cast their own bullets. This does not allow the State of California to stop businesspersons from selling those products to interested persons in the State, nor does it allow the State of California to keep Californians from casting their own bullets using lead, for example, and using those bullets to hunt.

Like many gun owners across the State of California, I own only curio and relic and antique firearms. For many curio and relic weapons, as well as antique weapons, there are, by any assessment, nearly zero nonlead options -- (certainly not in surplus form, which is allowed by federal law to be transferred to the general population) for such weapons that is 100% nonlead, though the quantity of lead varies from one ammunition type to another (with the most expensive types having involving the least use of lead) -- and furthermore, there is no legal basis for banning commonly available ammunition (which contains lead) across the State, whether for hunting or for any other purpose.

Thus, the State law known as AB 711 is clearly unconstitutional, and the OAL-approved regulations referenced above, will also be unconstitutional to the extent that they are used in attempts to regulate ammunition.

US (Federal) Constitutional Amendments Violated: I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI

I urge readers with an interest in this issue to contact the OAL, CA Dept. of Toxic Substances Control, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which adopted the regulations discussed above. These regulations clearly need to be revisited and revised, or just plain overturned, along with AB 711 itself.

[freethink]

Hello to Readers of this thread,

As you no doubt are aware, here in California we are facing (unless we challenge it in the courts), SB 1235, an ammo ban bill, which was signed into law on July 1, 2016 by Governor Brown.

Earlier in this thread I went on for awhile about AB 711 (2013-2014), the bill which was signed into law which implements in phases the nonlead ammo requirement in California. However, there are so few nonlead ammunition providers for various calibers, that in effect AB 711 has already become an ammo ban. The subject of this thread is "Mosin Nagant 7.62x54r CA Lead-free Hunting" and I was able to find (out of the two available certified nonlead providers for that caliber) only one responsive provider - Custom Cartridge -- Custom Cartridge, Inc. — Absolutely Awesome Ammo! -- who offer Orion line, 7.62x54mm Rimmed Russian, 150 TSX-BT (MV 2855, ME 2715) with Barnes bullets, nonlead. They are real good to work with. (They are in Montana, and there's no-one in California responsive to my needs for this ammo.)

Due to the passage of SB 1235, Californians will soon (by July 1, 2019, or sooner, by November 8, 2016, if Newsom's initiative statute passes) be banned from being able to order ammo online and have it sent straight to their door. This includes the bullet part of ammo, which obviously I'd need to order from Barnes (which is in Utah) in order to comply with the nonlead requirement under the already passed AB 711 here in California (I'm in a condor protection area so the nonlead rifle ammo requirement is already in effect in my area even though we're not in phase 3 of the nonlead implementation here yet). So effectively, what Governor Brown did, when he signed SB 1235 into law, is he made it impossible for Californians to comply with AB 711 (the nonlead ammo law) because it will no longer be feasible to have it shipped to our door. (It is even possible that the few remaining certified nonlead ammunition producers may decide to stop shipping to CA because of the new requirements of SB 1235.)

I have no plans to comply with this onerous requirement (SB 1235) regardless of whether it is challenged in court or not. I'm not going to get a permit and get background checked for ammo nor am I going to comply with ridiculous demands that I not have it shipped to my door (I don't think I should have to pick my ammo up in person at an FFL, as I will explain below, there is a US Supreme Court case that supports my view that I shouldn't have to do that).

At the same time, until SB 1235 (and Newsom's initiative statute, if passed) are successfully overturned in court, I don't want to get charged with a crime.

So I've gone looking for a way to make my own bullets while buying materials that don't qualify as bullets - off I went to go look for lead free bullet casting alloy materials. The conditions I was looking for from a manufacturer / seller were:

One, is whether or not they consider their Lead Free Bullet Casting Alloy Ingot a "bullet" and if their company makes a policy of reporting sales to the State of who buys such Ingots.

Two, is whether the material is non-magnetic and range safe as I would be shooting in CA and there are numerous ranges that do not allow magnetic projectiles.

Lo and Behold! I found a company that DOES NOT report such sales to the State (of who buys their Ingots), and they don't consider it a bullet (it isn't after all), and also, the material is non-magnetic and range safe.

Here it is: Lead Free Bullet Casting Alloy

Roto Metals!

Lead Free, Non-Magnetic, Doesn't need to be reported to the State. That's what I'm looking for and I'm about to order some in prep for reloading.

The following links may also be helpful for casting technique (they refer to lead a lot, and if you are getting the Lead Free Non Magnetic Ingot from the link above things, temperatures, etc will be different, but a lot of the basics are the same)

How To Cast Your Own Bullets

https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/bul...ng-101-part-1/
https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/bul...sizing-lubing/

Suggested Bullet Mold for casting 7.62x54mmR bullets:
Lyman 2-Cavity Bullet Mold #314299 303 Caliber (314 Diameter) 200 Grain Round Nose Gas Check.)
A 314 Dia. cast bullet can be run through a .312 sizer with no problem (the actual bullet diameter for 7.62x54 is .312).
For sizing, one can use Lyman 4500 Lube Sizer Bullet Sizer and Lubricator (or instead, the RCBS Lube-A-Matic 2 Bullet Sizer and Lubricator) plus Lyman Lube and Sizer Die 312 Diameter.

Note that under US law, reloading for only personal use does not require any licensing as a manufacturer, or other licensing.

---------------------------------

More details on SB 1235 below.


SB 1235 (the recent ammo restriction bill) has recently been signed into law, but its restrictions will not take effect until July 1, 2019, unless the so-called Safety for All initiative statute passes on November 8, 2016, in which case the restrictions of SB 1235 would take effect in early November pending a court challenge.

Bullets (being the projectiles propelled by a firearm, as a general definition) aren't defined in California law, but SB 1235 attempts to prohibit bullets (as well as everything else California defines as "ammunition" from being shipped to a customer's door.

Under SB 1235, “ammunition” means one or more loaded cartridges consisting of a primer case, propellant, and with one or more projectiles. “Ammunition” does not include blanks. Also, under SB 1235, “ammunition” includes, but is not limited to, any bullet, cartridge, magazine, clip, speed loader, autoloader, or projectile capable of being fired from a firearm with a deadly consequence.

I do not intend on obtaining any permit from the State under the now-passed SB 1235, which I consider to be an illegal bill, in part because it would require me to get a permit, pass background, and pay fees, merely to buy ammunition, and also because it would prohibit the shipping of ammunition direct to a customer's door (which constitutes an unconstitutional restriction on commerce (see Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, Edwards v California (1941), and consolidated cases of Granholm v Heald and Swedenburg v Kelly [in which U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, found state laws that prohibited out-of-state wineries from selling wine over the Internet directly to consumers violated the Commerce Clause]).

To wit: “Held: (...) This Court has long held that, in all but the narrowest circumstances, state laws violate the Commerce Clause if they mandate “differential treatment of in-state and out-of-state economic interests that benefits the former and burdens the latter.” (Granholm v. Heald (2005)), (Swedenburg v. Kelly (2005))

[noylj]

History
Bird, think condor, found dead. Had lead shot in gizzard/Stomach.
Without any other autopsy or forensic evidence, cause of death was lead poisoning from eating shot and all lead shot and bullets had to banned from all condor lands.
That worked so well with the native sheeple, they just carried on.
I got the hell out and never looked back.