Weirauch HW80K vintage???

Billbob, I’m not so sure about that story. The additives in pellets are usually very small amounts of tin and or antimony.
If I had to choose I’d probably take Tin over lead, but I guess neither is the best option.
One advantage of an air rifle over a shotgun is one largish pellet vs many small or even tiny shots.
Much easier to find and pick out, or spit out 😂

I’ve spoken to a vet about this with regards to dogs or cats ingesting a pellet in a carcass, and the vet reccons:
1- the pellet will pass through the animal and come out with the poo in a few hours, so not a problem.
2- if it’s only one or two pellets once in a while, no problem, if it’s multiple a day, every day that might lead to problems.

The reason they have banned lead shot from water fowl hunting is quite different, and once you understand how a birds digestive tract works you can understand why lead has been banned.

Birds don’t have teeth to chew and break down food like we do.
They swallow food whole. It can be stored temperariy in a crop, and/or then moves to the gizzard where muscular action grinds it down. Birds often swallow small stones which stay in the gizzard and assist with grinding the food before it passes further into the Intestines to get digested.
The way Ducks and waterfowl feed is on aquatic vegetation and algae, if there is small lead shot on or in the vegetation the ducks will ingest it, it will then sit in the gizzard and help grind food, but will also slowly get ground down so the duck is ultimately eating /digesting tiny particles of ground up lead shot over a long term.
As apposed to a dog who eats a rabbit with a pellet in it, swallowes one large chunk of lead pellet, and will poop it out 6 hours later.

I read once that it's very likely you will get Leander poisoning from air rifles pellets due to the additives they use to make the lead harder for use in air rifles and other projectiles. The lead they use in roofs and lead windows are a purer form of lead and therefore softer and breaks down faster if digested.

Pauly... rabbit is home grown, free range, antibiotic free, just about as healthy as you can get.
Same with hare and possum.

Ive been skinning and dissecting a lot of rabbits for this sub 16 comparison video, its a lot of work, especially caping the heads to see what the head shots do.

PS: dogs eat rabbit skin, and fur they've been doing it for as long as they've been eating rabbits, which is about the last 10 million years!

You have to be careful with that. A lot of places will not take dead carcasses if they have been shot due to lead been still there. I looked into that a couple of years ago with the place up the road and thats what they told me

A friend of mine tried Pukeko. And I watched a programe where they cooked it. Very gamey was what my mate said.

I'd go duck sux (never liked it) pidgeon is delish, quail very white, clean meat, pheasant the top. Rabbit is ahh, hare really is a good meat.
Pukeko in a crock pot for about 5 hours sorts the meat, I wouldn't drop it as a food source, but never use it as one.

NB Pigeons aren't bad but Doves have so little meat and so little flavour I don't bother any more except they seem to be breeding up and displacing some native birds around here so i night have to start nailing the pests. Maybe my cat will eat them.