Do you let your dog into your reloading room?

[Bush Pilot]

It may sound like a foolish question. My dog used to spend hours "helping" me in my reloading room until I noticed him licking his paws. With all the lead residue generated with the various processes it didn't seem like a good idea to expose him to possible lead contamination. Has anyone else ever thought of this?

 

[SSN Vet]

I'm in a basement shop and hope to set up a dog bed for him to hang with me down there eventually (I'm still finishing the room and it's still chaos in there right now).

When I get organized I'm going to become anal about keeping things tidy (i.e. no kids allowed) and because I use the RCBS covered media seperator tumbler so I think the dust levels are under control.

IIRC, Richard Lee tells the story about a guy who had elevated lead levels and when they surveyed his shop the only place they found elevated lead was around the tumblers... and they were very high there. So I poor the tumbler into the seperator and quickly close it up. Then I let things settle b4 opening the seperator up. Still a little dusty, but much better than b4 I got the clamb shell seperator.

This room doubles as my wood shop, so I have a ceiling mounted air filter as well, which should help with airborn tumbler dust.

My only press is a LCTP, and with the 100% of the primers landing in the tube, I can empty the tube into a coffee can without ever handling them.

My only two problems are:

1. Dog is afraid of the basement stairs

2. Once down there he's likely to visit the cat's litter box for a snack

 

[Meta]

Well, in short, if I had a dog, no I would not net him in the reloading room. I think it's also good advice to wear a seperate pair of reloading room shoes that don't migrate to the rest of the house where you would likely be tracking lead around. I'd worry more about my 3 year old than a dog. Also, something to keep in mind, I think it's a good idea to do all of your tumbling and especially sifting/sorting through used tumbler media outside the house. That is likely to be the single highest source of contamination where dust containing a witches brew of bad stuff will settle on everything. Keeping the floors clean with a good wipe down once in a while is a good way to reduce what lead is going to be released during de-priming. Other than tumbling/sorting and depriming, there really is not much else in the reloading process that releases lead.

 

[elandil]

The dog, yes.
The cats, no.

All tumbling is done in a seperate location. Dog does good about sitting at my feet and staying quiet.

Cats, on the other hand, tend to want to jump on the bench to see out the window, causing havoc.

 

[Fishslayer]

It may sound like a foolish question. My dog used to spend hours "helping" me in my reloading room until I noticed him licking his paws. With all the lead residue generated with the various processes it didn't seem like a good idea to expose him to possible lead contamination. Has anyone else ever thought of this?

I've been giving this a LOT of thought lately. My Cattle Dog is my velcro dog. He wants to be next to me ALL the time. This includes while I'm reloading.
Naturally, he wants to lay right where I dump spent primers.

I think the only solution is to keep him out of the area.

I'm in a basement shop and hope to set up a dog bed for him to hang with me down there eventually (I'm still finishing the room and it's still chaos in there right now).

My dogs have beds in every room, including the garage. I have pictures of them laying on the bare concrete RIGHT NEXT TO THE BED!

 

[gab909]

Yes she does, and causes very little disturbance now. At first she was curious, just a puppy and now she just comes in to make sure I am ok, and when she realizes my attention is elsewhere, she goes and finds mom. Every once in awhile she does found a hull or two for me and brings them to me. Already chewed up of course. Dang retrievers.

 

[loadedround]

My mixed breed dog "Lucy" usually follows me wherever I go and when I'm in my loading/work room, she curls up on her doggie rug and stays there until I'm finished. Fortunately my wife throws Lucy's carpet in the washer once a week. Matter of fact she 's curled up under my desk now as I type this. If I shut the door on her, she would carry on something awful until I let her in.

 

[esheato]

Yes. Golden retriever.

My son and her are practically inseparable.

 

[psyshack]

Our old dog, younger cats and even grandchildren are allowed in the reloading room which is my office and a converted bedroom.

One of the reasons I got a cheap Ultrasonic cleaner was to help lesson exposure to lead and other toxic elements. We shoot very little lead, 20% or less is solid lead or lead base exposed bullets.

I take my range brass and throw it into the Ultrasonic for 8 min's, rinse, dry a tad. Then resize and decap. From there the brass can be reloaded or polished up in a tumbler.

 

[gamestalker]

My dog is always at my feet. I don't load with non jacketed bullets, so I really don't consider lead as a high risk.

 

[ljnowell]

I reload in my bedroom, so yes, I even let my wife in. Sometimes.

 

[Meta]

Actually, no matter what you shoot, lead or jacketed, the priming mix is a lead compound and this is what causes lead exposure during reloading if precautions are not used. Tumbling brass in a living area should be avoided, plain and simple. Sorting/sifting brass/media in a living area is far worse as lots of dust containing very high concentrations of lead dust from the priming compound is released into the air where it settles on surfaces to be tracked and moved around the home. Considering how easy it is to at least sift/sort your brass from the media in the outdoors, I see no reason not to even if the benefit were extremely small. Depriming is the other area where lead exposure can be a problem if minimal precautions are not followed. Minimal precautions like cleaning/wiping up the bench and area under the presses with a damp paper towel with a little cleaning spray like Fantastic, simple green, etc. No brainer in my opinion.

 

[ADKWOODSMAN]

Dog, yes. She would also lay on the range just behind me when I would practice high Power. She was never bothered by gun fire

 

[Shadow 7D]

HELL NO
anybody wanna guess why rotties have their tail docked?

Well, I can tell you that a rotten lab, has a tail that hits like a broom handle and is happy most of the time, She cleans the deck banister.

I like living, I dislike having hasmat strewn, and that is a FOR SURE if that damn dog got near a jug of powder.

 

[Shadow 7D]

elemental lead isn't that dangerous, OTOH, organic compounds of lead, and oxidized (white lead) IS dangerous. Still, I would avoid lead in the living areas, not even the cancer risk, I'd rather like to keep my kids smart.

 

[MCMXI]

My dogs (two Rottweilers) are often with me in the reloading room but they don't go anywhere near the presses. I run the vacuum cleaner (Dyson) when I'm pouring tumbling media and cases into a sieve, while I'm using the sieve to separate the media from the cases, and as I'm pouring the media back into the tumbler. I hold the nozzle near the media and I can see a stream of dust heading into the vacuum never to be seen again. However, I should probably move the tumbler and all related parts into the garage to be safe, but it's just so convenient keeping everything under the bench in my reloading room. My Redding single stage, RCBS progressive and Hornady progressive all have primer collection systems that either dump the spent primers into a tube or directly into a trash can.

 

[MCMXI]

So is it better (safer) to deprime and then tumble? I've been tumbling and then depriming since '92 but I'm always open to better ways of doing things.

 

[Otto]

Yes. My dog is trained to detect squibs, flipped primers and double charges. He's a Relabrador.

 

[Fishslayer]

Excellent thread. I'm grateful for the tips.

I'll be putting a rug down where Dingo likes to lay, wash it frequently, and I'll be doing my tumbling outdoors.

This guy says thanks!

 

[snuffy]

Try keep him outa the loading room. Actually, he seldom comes all the way in, he just lays in the doorway and watches. "Velco" is a good description of him, he seldom lets me out of his sight.

Actually, no matter what you shoot, lead or jacketed, the priming mix is a lead compound and this is what causes lead exposure during reloading if precautions are not used.

That lead compound is lead styphonate. It is a lead salt, that is easily dissolved AND ingested into the body. It would just as easily be ingested by a dog.

elemental lead isn't that dangerous, OTOH, organic compounds of lead, and oxidized (white lead) IS dangerous. Still, I would avoid lead in the living areas, not even the cancer risk, I'd rather like to keep my kids smart.

Yup! That would be a lead salt! Heck, I'm no chemist, but I did stay at a holiday inn------once!

 

[MCMXI]

What's the consensus on those fancy stainless steel wet media tumbling gizmos? Tumbling in a wet solution should create a lot less hazardous dust.

 

[Shadow 7D]

yeah, it does, but the water has to go somewhere, a filter pitcher actually might not be that bad of an idea, you can buy one CHEAP (or a least alot cheaper) if you look into stone tumblers on Harbor Freight.

 

[Uniquedot]

My dog is usually in the reloading room when i am. I recently learned that it was a bad idea to leave shotgun wads out when leaving the room. She must have thought they were big bags of chew toys! It was no fun picking up a couple thousand 12 ga wads which were strewn everywhere and it was even less fun sorting through them to discard the chewed up wads.

 

[scythefwd]

snuffy - I just looked at the msds for cci large rifle primers and here is some good news for ya:


Copper *
Zinc *
Diazodinitrophenol (DDNP)
Strontium Nitrate
Nitrocellulose
Nickel +


The DDNP is what replaced the lead styphonate. It looks like any new cci primer is using a lead free compound (I think they are calling it clean-fire, they have removed ALL heavy metals). They also make a lead free labeled primer. I have a request for more info with them right now in regards to when they made this change.

 

[MCMXI]

scythefwd, this may not be good news for those of us still working our way through tens of thousands of primers bought 15 to 20 years ago. Most of the primers that I've bought over the past couple of years are CCI or Wolf. Any idea if Wolf uses lead in their primers? I don't recall seeing an MSDS with them but can probably find one online.