Lead poisoning

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missuramoss

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Hey guys...Just a simple question here....Ya think its possible to get lead poisoning from a few round balls just sittin around, and not encased? I know the basics...washing hands after handling...etc etc...Just wondern if a few balls layin around on a bench could be throwin poison out??
 
Lead doesn't "throw" anything out. The danger comes from handling/ingesting it. If you do handle raw lead, it's a good idea to wash your hands afterwards, but unless you're juggling the stuff ten hours a day and then licking your fingers afterwards, it's not really that big of a deal.
 
"Hey Gabe, look yonder! Over thar! I seed some redskins skulking 'round! You all loaded and ready?!"
"Yep. All powdered up and patched and balled! Got some extry ball's right ch'ere ready to go. Hold on thar jest a bit! Handled all that lead and need to wash my hands!!"
 
Not unless you live in California.

Lead throws poison out in California, but no place else in the world. :rolleyes:

rc
 
Fumes are your biggest problem.

Fumes from shooting, fumes from melting lead.

Have good ventilation when shooting and casting and you will never experience a problem.
 
Im 77. As a kid, I had lead "BB" s. We kept them in our mouth to spit one down the bore of a single shot Daisy air rifle. I had a pocket full of lead sinkers all summer long.. I lived in an area where lead was mined and played with lead soldiers and toys. lived in houses with lead paint on them. Im paying for it now. When I sit down and get my butt below my knees, its hard to get up. I know where all the lead went.
 
Some good points.

Hey There:
NO way.. But RC did have a good point . If you live in CA, You might be a , Ah you get the idea.

Here is a fact.. Most big {and even some small} cities still have some lead pipes in there buildings and no one has died from drinking that water yet..

Yep , Real honest to goodness Lead pipe.. I am a baby boomer ..
Funny Our Mothers Smoked and drank, we had toys made with lead parts and lead based paint on our baby cribs, never had a bike helmet, and shot each other with BB guns, our basements likely leaked radon gas and by rights we should all be dead now. :banghead:
 
Lead from shooting comes from the lead styphanate(?) in the priming compound that ends up in the air during indoor shooting plus lead spatter from the backstop.
 
Lead from shooting comes from range cleanup, dust particles in the air get inhaled. Few other sources of lead contanmination

Vehicles, old paint, car paint (yes still uses lead in automobile paint), any type of lead processing, i.e. casting, battery companies etc..

Sweeping indoor ranges produce lead dust, casting bullets produce lead fumes that will linger for many hours.

Few other facts, kids pose the greatest risk of lead exposure. They absorb lead in the body much faster and a greater % than any adult can which makes it the greatest risk of all. 10% in adults and 50% in children. Lead absorption is enhanced if diet is poor in iron or calcium.
 
Question: "What 'lead fumes' do you get from shooting?"

Answers (I think):
"Lead from shooting comes from the lead styphanate(?) in the priming compound that ends up in the air during indoor shooting plus lead spatter from the backstop."
"Lead from shooting comes from range cleanup, dust particles in the air get inhaled....Sweeping indoor ranges produce lead dust,.."

Do you have any data on the concentrations for those sources and the comparison of those concentrations with medical guidelines?
 
Yes and no, what makes it super difficult is the ventilation in the room. Many indoor ranges will turn off the exhaust to save $$ and only turn it on when multiple shooters are in the bays.

Sweeping a dry floor will indeed produce dust clouds. Shooting lead at the backstops will fragment and send particles in the area, most of the sweeping that is 'bad' is down range and near the backstops. Another area is cast bullets will fragment in the barrel as it is pushed down the barrel. Also from the primers.

http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/

http://www.utexas.edu/safety/ehs/msds/lead.html


The OSHA recommendation for the maximal acceptable level of lead in the air we breathe is 50 mg/m3. By comparison, the air lead in major American cities averages about 0.2 mg/m3.
Click to expand...

this is old levels,

this is for children.
The lead poisoning threshold was lowered in 1985 to 25 micrograms per deciliter and, in 1991, was further reduced to 10 micrograms, where it stands today
Click to expand...

few other things to look at as well.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-08-21-lead-poisoning-cdc_N.htm

Fact remains, removing lead from household paint removed and reduced lead poisoning my leaps and bounds. Now days the biggest lead contamination you hear about is from industries handling lead, i.e. battery companies.
 
They've discovered that waterfowl and other animals get more lead in their system from drinking contaminated water from old landfill runoff and improperly disposed materials than eating shot from the bottoms of ponds, making the requirement to use steel shot useless. The same thing was found in California when they were voting on non-toxic hunting bullets, but the politicians ignored it.

If you eat a hunk of lead, it will pass through before too much damage is done. If you get shot, the bullet is left in if it's too deep. Removing the bullet does more damage. The body will grow a sheath around foreign objects.
 
a big problem was that many casters would clean bullets off with carbon tetrachloride and similar products, those chemicals did a 1 2 punch on the user. they had toxic fumes that screwed you up. and they would chemically combine with the lead, soak into your skin and let the lead into your body.

most hand lotions and body lotions with "moisturizing agents" work in the same fashion, so dont use those chemicals when you play with lead, and stop eating it, stop inhaling over the melting pot and ladle, and stop using lead ingots as a homeopahtic remedy for hemerhoids and you should be ok.
 
Wow !

I have cast 100s of thousands of bullets in the 700 plus degree range and zero lead poisoning issues. None was detected in any blood test after casting .
Yes I had a blood test that was not related to the casting issue but asked for a lead count also.. None found..

Lead fumes can get bad at higher temps 900 plus. But , casting bullets at 900 degrees is stupid anyway. The bullets are junk and there is no reason to cast at that temp.

The federal max level of Nitrates for a legal water well is 10 PPM. Parts per million.
Check out and see how many Nitrates are in a Hot Dog or a Bowl of Ice Cream.

If 10 PPM is bad a Hot Dog followed by a Bowl of Ice Cream would kill you.

The whole issue of Lead poisoning boils down to common sense thing. Sniffing a Hot Pot of melted lead is probably not the smartest thing no matter what the temp is. But could be Natures way of weeding out stupid casters.

Sorry for being a smart Butt here but sometimes the truth hurts.
You did do the right thing by asking about something you were not sure about.. Keep that up and you should survive... :)
 
Lead, sitting there, is not a threat unless you're doing the old trick of putting the roundballs in your mouth for storage. I don't think anyone is crazy enough to be doing that these days. The big risk is when you are casting large amounts. Fellows around here have gotten high lead levels from failing to ventilate. But as noted, common sense applies.

As far as exposure from shooting, I'm sure there's some risk. Esp. if you're a tube-blower like myself. Don't eat or drink when you're doing range shooting. On the plus side, there are no priming compounds if you're a flintlock shooter! Flintlocks are the organic food of the shooting world.
 
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As far as exposure from shooting, I'm sure there's some risk.
Click to expand...
Why?
I've still seen no data showing how much lead exposure there is from shooting. None. I can't believe that in today's media dominated 'the sky is falling' society that someone hasn't identified this hazard and characterized it. If it truly is a hazard. Maybe it isn't....
 
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