It's not so straightforward. While there are solid copper projectiles available in some jurisdictions, most lead-free projectiles have been decried by gun control activists as "cop killer bullets". Lead is extremely soft, and thus uniquely bad at penetrating body armor. Projectile composition is heavily regulated in the US, ironically in favor of the continued use of lead projectiles.

I mean, there are solid-copper hollow-tip bullets on the shelf at the Bass Pro Shop and I live in California. This persecution story seems like a 2A fundamentalist fantasy.

Solid copper doesn't behave the same way ballistically to lead, as it is significantly less dense. You don't seem to actually understand how firearms work and your perspective is based entirely on what happens in California, a notoriously unfriendly state to anyone who doesn't actively hate guns.

Copper bullets did not prevent California hunters from taking tens of thousands of deer, elk, and pigs last year. I honestly don't know what you are whining about. There is a copper rifle round out there for every type of game you can hunt in America.

In NJ for example it is a felony to posses to hollow points (NJSA 2C:39-3(f)) so you will likely face an additional felony if you are ever charged on another gun crime.

The projectile of a piece of ammunition is also used by the feds as an excuse to ban importation if they deem it not suitable for sporting purposes.

That NJ law is for handgun ammo. Do you hunt a lot of game with a handgun? I mean I know people do it, I've just never personally met one.

The classification of something as handgun vs. long arm ammo is extremely soft and discretionary. As soon as one company makes a production handgun that fires a specific cartridge it's enough to get it deemed as handgun ammo.

If someone starts marketing a pistol that fires 180gr 30-06 I’ll have to cancel my plans to commit felonies in New Jersey I guess.

How does that not break your hand?

Even the possession of the hollowpoints would be a felony.

This isn't just a case of laziness. Most lead free I've come across is Barnes straight copper stuff. It's not heavy enough, and drastically changes the way it shoots and also how it acts on impact.

There's not a lot that can be done to fix this today, because cartridges were designed with lead projectiles, and guns designed around the cartridges. To get a heavier bullet, it would need to be a substantially bigger(longer) bullet, therefore not working in any gun.

A reasonable proposition is for a new cartridge to be designed around an all copper(or steel, whatever) bullet. It would take a lot of time to get adoption, though, unless the military uses it.

> A reasonable proposition is for a new cartridge to be designed around an all copper(or steel, whatever) bullet. It would take a lot of time to get adoption, though, unless the military uses it.

The US military has already moved to steel core, lead free projectiles over a decade ago, specifically because of safety concerns about lead contamination. However, steel core ammunition is explicitly illegal in the US, because it's considered "armor piercing".

> However, steel core ammunition is explicitly illegal in the US, because it's considered "armor piercing".

That's... not really how that works. The US has tens of thousands of laws related to guns, and they intersect in different ways in different jurisdictions. Federally, though, at any rate, AP ammunition is only illegal for /handguns/. For rifles, there is no such legal restriction and steel core rifle rounds are commonplace. Most hunting is done with shotguns and rifles, you can easily find steel pellet shotgun shells.

The bigger issues is 1) Increased costs 2) Different ballistic performance.

Again, it's not that straightforward. The ATF has ruled that most common rifle rounds such as 5.56, 7.62 NATO, and 7.62x39 are actually considered pistol rounds, and thus subject to AP regulations, because someone somewhere has detached the stock from their rifle, thus converting it to a "pistol".

The price is usually much higher, hell they sit next to each other on the shelf so "lazy" isn't a part of it in 99% of cases.