Review: Bio Ammo & Alt Ammo Shells
Doing the right thing can be a double-edged sword. I used to darn near ruin hunts trying to avoid littering—in focusing on where my spent shotgun shells landed, I lost track of where the birds went down. After losing a couple birds, I quickly realized that my priorities were off. The game is what’s most important: a clean kill, securing the downed bird, not wasting the meat.
But the littering bothers me. As hunters and conservationists, we don’t litter any other time, so why litter when we’re partaking of one of the purest interactions with nature a human can have? Of course, I do pick up my shells when I can find them. But that’s not always easy, especially in the heat of the moment, tracking a fast-moving bird, and surrounded by thick prairie grasses, wetland reeds, or forest undergrowth. The difficulty is compounded by an automatic or pump shotgun that ejects shells who-knows-where, or even a break-action shotgun with ejectors that send them flying over your shoulder.
Another, less obvious problem is the wad, which separates the gunpowder from the pellets inside the shell, and flies off somewhere after the shot. It’s typically made of clear plastic, making it about impossible to find. Wads invariably embed themselves in the soil or wash into nearby streams, adding more plastic pollution to the natural environment.
Obviously, I’m not the only one who leaves shells and wads in the field. You see plenty when out & about: scattered in the grass, bobbing in a quiet corner of the river, pressed into the trail by a boot, particularly at popular hunting spots. Clearly, this is a common problem—but if hunters have helped solve so many conservation problems, surely we can do something about our own litter?
Enter BioAmmo—both the shell and the wad are biodegradable (and compostable), and they shoot as well as any other shotgun shell I’ve used. Alternatively, consider Alt Ammo shells—while not biodegradable, their wads, made by Eco Shot, are. Although not as readily available as traditional shells, both BioAmmo and Alt Ammo can be purchased online, and the former can be found at some outdoor retailers.
Admittedly, biodegradable ammo is more expensive. Doing the right thing often comes at a cost—there’s that double-edged sword again. But the environmental benefits are well worth it. And like steel shot and copper bullets, the more of us who ask for and buy biodegradable shells, the more available and cheaper they’ll become.
Available at bioammo.es and eco-shot.com.
