Most U.S. gun owners use lead-based ammunition and primers, and nearly half don’t engage in any post-shooting hygiene behaviors such as changing their clothes or showering, a study found.
The sad part is that it’s not that hard. No food or open drinks at the range, wash your hands/forearms with lead removal soap, change and toss your clothes/gloves into the washer with lead removing detergent. It’s a ritual my household performs whenever we finish shooting and it means my preferred range clothes and gloves are always clean for the next visit.
Lead removal soaps and detergents are affordable and abundant. If you’re exposed to heavy metals either through shooting or work then pick a few up.
Edit: also lead removal wipes! Super convenient when you’re somewhere without water for washing. They come individually packaged as well.
I don’t when I solder. But I do use lead removal soap and/or wear gloves. Washing my hands after soldering doesn’t take much time and I figure it’s better safe than sorry.
The issue with shooting is rarely bullets, like people think, it’s the primers. Most primers contain heavy metals that get blasted out into the air, which means you end up with a nice microscopic coating of the stuff on your skin and clothes. Touching lead probably isn’t an amazing idea but won’t do much unless you’re, like, chewing on it. But microscopic particles are a different story.
They’re blasted out the barrel, that shit is not going back at your face in any meaningful amount. That would be the worse design ever if hot gases came back into the face of the operator. The only real danger about aerosolized lead is if you’re running a suppressor and in an indoor range with shit ventilation, and those are usually shut down pretty quickly. The fire Marshal will shut that shit down in a heartbeat if the ventilation is shit (unspent gunpowder is stupid flammable).
If you think 100% of the gasses from a primer strike shoot out of the end of your barrel and don’t go anywhere else then I’m not sure what to tell you because that’s just not the case. Or you’re shooting some very bizarre guns.
Sure not 100% but it’s going to be 99.99% of it. There is very little material in a primer in the first, and of that material only 40% of it is lead based. You’re going to get more lead exposure from handling fishing weights made from lead than gas exposure of vapor from a primer.
I don’t have hard data on how many microns or percents of primer heavy metals are ending up in my gas tube or on my clothes or hands. But from what I know it’s a nonzero amount and I take precautions accordingly like I would for any nonzero amount of heavy metals. Lead is cumulative, so every tiny bit adds up over the years.
If you don’t think that’s an issue for you, then rock on my friend. Keep doing it the way you want.
I get more lead exposure from being outside in a city during a dusty day. On top of that, you can literally reduce your bodies ability to absorb lead by eating healthy foods with calcium or rich in iron.
Well you should be washing your hands, and using lead removal soap for washing probably wouldn’t be a bad idea
But with soldering, unless you’re doing something really wrong, you’re not really going to be spraying lead around the room, to settle on your clothes and such and your soldering iron or even a standard blowtorch torch isn’t anywhere near hot enough to vaporize lead, so inhalation isn’t really a risk (to say nothing about fumes from your flux or whatever else you might end up burning, good ventilation is still a very good idea) and hopefully you’re not soldering on any kind of food prep surfaces.
With shooting, there’s a lot more risk of airborne particles and bullet fragments and such as well as fumes from lead based chemicals in the primers, so lead kind of gets everywhere.
The sad part is that it’s not that hard. No food or open drinks at the range, wash your hands/forearms with lead removal soap, change and toss your clothes/gloves into the washer with lead removing detergent. It’s a ritual my household performs whenever we finish shooting and it means my preferred range clothes and gloves are always clean for the next visit.
Lead removal soaps and detergents are affordable and abundant. If you’re exposed to heavy metals either through shooting or work then pick a few up.
Edit: also lead removal wipes! Super convenient when you’re somewhere without water for washing. They come individually packaged as well.
Jesus, am I supposed to be doin all that shit after soldering with leaded solder? I just wash my hands with regular ass soap like I just pooped.
I don’t when I solder. But I do use lead removal soap and/or wear gloves. Washing my hands after soldering doesn’t take much time and I figure it’s better safe than sorry.
The issue with shooting is rarely bullets, like people think, it’s the primers. Most primers contain heavy metals that get blasted out into the air, which means you end up with a nice microscopic coating of the stuff on your skin and clothes. Touching lead probably isn’t an amazing idea but won’t do much unless you’re, like, chewing on it. But microscopic particles are a different story.
They’re blasted out the barrel, that shit is not going back at your face in any meaningful amount. That would be the worse design ever if hot gases came back into the face of the operator. The only real danger about aerosolized lead is if you’re running a suppressor and in an indoor range with shit ventilation, and those are usually shut down pretty quickly. The fire Marshal will shut that shit down in a heartbeat if the ventilation is shit (unspent gunpowder is stupid flammable).
If you think 100% of the gasses from a primer strike shoot out of the end of your barrel and don’t go anywhere else then I’m not sure what to tell you because that’s just not the case. Or you’re shooting some very bizarre guns.
Sure not 100% but it’s going to be 99.99% of it. There is very little material in a primer in the first, and of that material only 40% of it is lead based. You’re going to get more lead exposure from handling fishing weights made from lead than gas exposure of vapor from a primer.
I don’t have hard data on how many microns or percents of primer heavy metals are ending up in my gas tube or on my clothes or hands. But from what I know it’s a nonzero amount and I take precautions accordingly like I would for any nonzero amount of heavy metals. Lead is cumulative, so every tiny bit adds up over the years.
If you don’t think that’s an issue for you, then rock on my friend. Keep doing it the way you want.
I get more lead exposure from being outside in a city during a dusty day. On top of that, you can literally reduce your bodies ability to absorb lead by eating healthy foods with calcium or rich in iron.
https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/fight_lead_with_nutrition
I’m a rural Texan so I’m pretty rarely in a city at all, much less on a dusty day.
But I didn’t know about food combatting lead exposure, thanks for the link! I’ll look into it.
I usually use antibacterial hand soap but I’m gonna have to look into ass soap. /s
But not the fancy ass soap, just the regular!
I inherently use dumbass soap. </selfdeprecatinghumour>
Oh sorry, I just deal in the fanciest of ass soaps. You want Clean That Butt on 3rd
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Well you should be washing your hands, and using lead removal soap for washing probably wouldn’t be a bad idea
But with soldering, unless you’re doing something really wrong, you’re not really going to be spraying lead around the room, to settle on your clothes and such and your soldering iron or even a standard blowtorch torch isn’t anywhere near hot enough to vaporize lead, so inhalation isn’t really a risk (to say nothing about fumes from your flux or whatever else you might end up burning, good ventilation is still a very good idea) and hopefully you’re not soldering on any kind of food prep surfaces.
With shooting, there’s a lot more risk of airborne particles and bullet fragments and such as well as fumes from lead based chemicals in the primers, so lead kind of gets everywhere.
Nah I only grind aluminum and plastic near my food prep station, I don’t solder there.
No. There’s a hysteria about lead recently, it’s nuts. Surgeons leave bullets in people all the time.