Are you poisoned? The lead blood levels poll...

[oscarflytyer]

Someone PLEASE tell my wife I can get lead poisoned from casting! If you convince her, I will cast bunches of bullets for you, because she will support me buying tools and materials to go into casting on a commercial basis!!!

[dodgyrog]

My wife cast boolits for me AND lubes them. Go figure!

[Gunslinger]

GREAT thread. Thank you all for sharing. What I find particularly fascinating is reading about several people who have worked in the industry, and about what was regarded as "okay" 20-30 years ago.

I'm 27 and started casting 2 years ago. In that time I have rendered approx. 4000lbs WW, 500lbs roofing lead and 700lbs of range scrap. I have cast and shot about 30.000 boolits. Ohh... and I once single-handedly emptied and indoor 10 range club! I wore a white suit (same as auto painters) and a worthless paper mask. Came out with 20 3gal buckets of ultra-crumbled paper, lead splinters and lead dust! Bad move on my part.....

I got tested last week and the number is 16! The doc didn't have the vials needed and had to send me to the hospital. He said they never have anyone wanting a test for lead. Thanks to you guys I now know what I've been doing wrong:

Sorting WW and using tumbler and media separater inside without a mask, never collecting dust from my moveable casting bench, no calcium & vitamin c in my system, handling large quantities of brass in my kitchen (more on that later), washing hands but forgetting my face, using the same soda can for dross until full, reloading without gloves.... and what I believe to be a big culprit:

smoking while shooting

The last one may seem silly, but think about it? I haven't shot a single jacketed bullet through my guns since i starting casting. The last 15 months I've shot a minimum of 500 rounds a week - all cast mostly 9mm and sometimes 800. Smoking inbetween shooting and while collecting brass... come on, that's not clever For someone who shoots 100 rounds a week it may not matter but for me I think it could. About the brass in the kitchen thing... I've started to soak brass in boiling water with citric acid. I think this eliminates a lot of lead dust. Just don't pour the water in the kitchen sink and dry the brass on an old re-re-re-reused sheet on the floor!


If I were to say something new in this thread, it would be this: What I think we (some of us at least) should remember is that we don't have a single source of lead exposure, we have several and we are exposed to one or more of them many times each week. Shooting, casting, reloading, handling ammo, brass and primers. I load on a Dillon 650, I.got primers and black primer dust on the base of the press, the table and on the floor.

I'll stock up on the vitamin C, wear latex gloves, fix the primer-thing on my press, no smoking on the range, be sure to get a fan when casting, clean reloading and casting area better, do the brass thing outside and hose the s*** out of the brass, that's gotta take care of the dust. I now only tumble the brass with corn cob and polish to make them shine. I'll move it outside from now on along with the separator. Be more thorough using the D-led soap which I have been using for years - except my face remember?!

If these precautions do not help than the source must be another than my reloading factory and shooting frenzy. Some may not regard my number as being alarmingly high but I would like to see if I can lower it. I had some discoloration around my knuckles about a year ago and have seen some of the symptoms although I can't exclude other things causing these symptoms.... but still. I'll get another test in 3-4 months after casting begins.... we'll see.....

[Ole]

I just had mine tested on Monday and it was 7.3 .

[plainsman456]

I don't have any lead in my blood.As long as I don't suck on ingots or put any boolits in my mouth I am golden.
There are many things to worry about today this seems to be one to forget about when you do it safely.YMMV

[maglvr]

* Pain, numbness or tingling of the extremities
* Muscular weakness
* Headache
* Abdominal pain
* Memory loss
* Mood disorders
* Reduced sperm count, abnormal sperm

Hmmmmmmmmm, I had all that before I started casting! Fire up the pot!! LOL

[unique]

Well when I first looked at this poll couple years ago my Pblood level was 19 and was that way for years. I wanted to get it down so I stopped all indoor shooting and after couple years I am now down to 6.

It seems to me that the two most common reasons reloaders can get raised Pblead level if they are not careful is indoor shooting and cleaning brass via tumbler.

[rmb721]

I was tested earlier this year and it was 10. No treatment.

[Ziptar]

I saw this thread a few weeks ago and it got me curious and thinking about what my lead levels would be because over the past year I've:

• Helped clean out an indoor range (wearing proper gear). A couple of tons of lead were removed.
• Smelted 450 lbs of lead (outdoors).
• Cast several hundred boolits (indoors and outdoors).
• Sorted through and processed ~500 lbs of range brass (indoors, my basement that is not well ventilated).
• Loaded ~1000+ rounds, all with cast boolits (indoors).
• Been to the indoor range at my club several times for around 3 hours a stint.

Week before last when I took my daughters in for their school physicals I asked the Doc if she could run a lead test on me. She asked why, so I told her and she said she'd only ever seen high levels in folks with occupational exposure but, she agreed to order a test.

I got the results back this afternoon.

The Doc says the result is "Normal", MY Pb level is 11 ug/dL. We are going to add it to my annual physical going forward just to be sure.

[noylj]

I'm at 6.
I have no idea how people can get high readings except snorting the stuff like cocaine. I could breathing in auto fumes with tetraethyl lead for octand boost.
The "problem" is that the EPA will continue to lower the "safe" level so they can earn their money and control us more.

[P.K.]

* Pain, numbness or tingling of the extremities
* Muscular weakness
* Headache
* Abdominal pain
* Memory loss
* Mood disorders
* Reduced sperm count, abnormal sperm

Hmmmmmmmmm, I had all that before I started casting! Fire up the pot!! LOL

LMAO!

Where is the "ringing ears"?

#'s 3,4 and 7 are the disqualifiers for me, #2 only when I don't want to do the "honey do's." #5 is strickly conditional on what she wanted in the first place. #6 is tottaly dependant on my PC/Pc blood levels or Pre-cafination/Postcafination.

[Arnie]

My doctor ask me if im chewing on these bullets i cast .If not then my test would be fine and it was , very low . Arnie

[alfloyd]

I had my lead level checked last year. Came back as 6.
This year when I got it checked it came back as a 13.
I have been melting a lot of wheelweights and other lead in the garage with the door cracked open this winter. And I have been shooting in an indoor 22 match all winter here in Northern Utah.

The doc wanted me to stop reloading, melting lead and shooting for 6 months and get rechecked.
Well, that is NOT going to happen. So I now clean scrap lead outdoors in the summer. I also installed a vent fan in my reloading, casting room. I am also being a lot more careful about washing my hands and wearing gloves when handling lead.

So come January, when I get checked again we will see if it has done any good.

Lafaun

[imashooter2]

I had my lead level checked last year. Came back as 6.
This year when I got it checked it came back as a 13.
I have been melting a lot of wheelweights and other lead in the garage with the door cracked open this winter. And I have been shooting in an indoor 22 match all winter here in Northern Utah.

The doc wanted me to stop reloading, melting lead and shooting for 6 months and get rechecked.
Well, that is NOT going to happen. So I now clean scrap lead outdoors in the summer. I also installed a vent fan in my reloading, casting room. I am also being a lot more careful about washing my hands and wearing gloves when handling lead.

So come January, when I get checked again we will see if it has done any good.

Lafaun

Did you ask your doctor why he wanted you to change your lifestyle in any way since your lead blood levels are in the low normal range?

[alfloyd]

"Did you ask your doctor why he wanted you to change your lifestyle in any way since your lead blood levels are in the low normal range?"

He seemed to think that a 13 was too high for an old fat guy ( 63 years young ), and it has doubled in the last year.
He is a gun friendly doc, so I do not think that he is trying to get me out of the gun hobby.
I have made some inprovements to my lead melting ways, but not stopping.

Lafaun

[Cariboo]

An off the wall thought on the lead poisoning and (mental) birth defects, maybe the Greenies’ parents lived in areas with heavy auto traffic prior to the removal of lead in fuel and the defects showed up as phobias

[adrians]

i see my "bone doctor " evevry 3 months and he takes 9 viles of blood ( i take humera shots for a bad shoulder) anyway i mentioned to him i handle a ton of lead and asked if he would add an extra vile of blood for a lead test.
so far -so good

[MtGun44]

alfloyd,

The indoor range is the culprit unless you are eating or smoking with lead contaminated
hands. 13 is nothing to sweat.

Bill

[Recluse]

alfloyd,

The indoor range is the culprit unless you are eating or smoking with lead contaminated
hands. 13 is nothing to sweat.

Bill

A couple/three years ago, my lead count was 18.

I'd been shooting pretty heavily three to four times a week, all indoors. Add to the fact that I was also handling a LOT of brass (picking it up off the floor, sorting, de-priming, trimming, tumbling, etc), and my doc, who is an NRA Life Member as is her husband (who also reloads) told me to lay off reloading/indoor-shooting for a few months to determine exactly if it was the casting or the reloading/indoor shooting that was the culprit.

I continued to smelt and cast the way I always did, but laid off the reloading and shooting. Six months later, my lead count was down to around 4.

We ruled casting out.

Now, I shoot less at the indoor ranges and wear disposable vinyl gloves when sorting my brass that goes into the tumbler. As I have a Thumler's Tumbler, I'm seriously considering getting into the stainless steel media which will cut down exposure to the lead styphenate residue even more--plus give me even prettier brass.

[noylj]

Unless you chew your fingers, eat and drink while shooting, and don't wash your hands, the gloves are of NO use.
It is the lead you breathe or ingest. You can pick up lead for all your life and not have a problem, as long as your hands don't go in your mouth and you ALWAYS wash with warm water and soap before eating, drinking, or smoking.
I shoot at an indoor range at least once a week. My lead blood level is 6. I am also a chemist who has been in contact with lots of heavy metals for most of my life. I always wash my hands and have tried to teach my children, no matter what, wash your hands before eating.