Absorbing lead thru the skin ?

[jski]

While watching YouTube videos on reloading I would occasionally see some guy using rubber gloves to handle lead ingots and lead bullets. And he'd mumble something about too much "direct contact with lead". So I went to OSHA's website and found this:

"Lead (except for certain organic lead compounds not covered by the standard, such as tetraethyl lead) is not absorbed through your skin. When lead is scattered in the air as a dust, fume or mist it can be inhaled and absorbed through you lungs and upper respiratory tract."

Is this consistent with your understanding?

[JimB..]

Yes. I’ve always thought that gloves with lead was to prevent injestion, specifically you get lead on your fingers and then enjoy a biscuit without first washing up well.

[buckshotshoey]

Ditto. Or a cigarette. This fear of lead thing is Kalifornia and liberal based. They should change their slogan to..... "Living causes cancer"!

Just use common sense. Wash your hands. And don't use an angle grinder or a sander on an ingot of lead! Lol

[6bg6ga]

Last year I had a lead test done and the results were within standards (low to none). I handle bullets and reload with no gloves and I was starting to wonder if I had a lead problem. As long as you don't eat without washing your hands you should be ok. I doubt that smoking cigarettes is going to be a factor. I used to smoke.

[Beagle333]

I don't wear gloves when handling bullets or ingots, and my lead levels are really low as well. From my understanding, as long as you don't put your hands near your mouth, the only danger from lead is the old lead that has turned white and dusty. I have read that the white oxidized lead can be absorbed through skin, but since I avoid handling that, I can't prove it. But I do know for certain that the nice silver boolits and ingots won't hurt you. Happy casting!

[Hickory]

When handling lead for with your bare hands you will get lead on your skin, but it will take several hours for the actual absorption to begin. Wash your hands several times after handling lead. The pinkish-gray stuff that you see going down the drain when you rinse your hands the first time is lead.
Wash and rinse your hands 1 or 2 times after that to be sure you get it all.

[Thin Man]

Many years ago when I was a LEO I was assigned early on to make the corrections to our agency's firearms. Many times this meant nothing more than to clean them because so many of the people there either did not know how to do a thorough job of this or they were just too stinkin' lazy to do their own work. These were the days when every one of us carried a revolver and the agency's issue duty ammo was lead projectile RN factory material. Training ammo was lead wadcutter ammo. Some of those revolvers could build up enough lead splatter to make the actions cramp. I had my hands full of lead and solvent on a regular and frequent basis. After years of this I was in my doctor's office for a routine visit and requested a check for lead in my system. The report came back saying there was none to be found. I was relieved and discounted all the old chatter about handling lead with bare hands. Side note - the lead-free report did nothing to convince SWMBO whether that contamination had not settled in my **** - something about the honey-do's not getting enough attention. We still disagree on that one. Beyond that I had this test repeated recently after having increased time for smelting and casting, same results as before. Go ahead and enjoy yourself with casting.

[buckshotshoey]

Last year I had a lead test done and the results were within standards (low to none). I handle bullets and reload with no gloves and I was starting to wonder if I had a lead problem. As long as you don't eat without washing your hands you should be ok. I doubt that smoking cigarettes is going to be a factor. I used to smoke.

It might. Get lead on hands, transfer to cig, cig to mouth. It depends how you handle you cigarettes I guess.

[buckshotshoey]

Oh.... And be sure to wash your hands before playing with your wanger!

[charlie3tuna]

I don't wear gloves when handling bullets or ingots, and my lead levels are really low as well. From my understanding, as long as you don't put your hands near your mouth, the only danger from lead is the old lead that has turned white and dusty. I have read that the white oxidized lead can be absorbed through skin, but since I avoid handling that, I can't prove it. But I do know for certain that the nice silver boolits and ingots won't hurt you. Happy casting!

Plus one !!! Same stuff formerly used in white paint (lead oxide) that was banned by EPA. Only decision of theirs I agree with, offhand....charlie

[Tom_in_AZ]

Yes. I’ve always thought that gloves with lead was to prevent injestion, specifically you get lead on your fingers and then enjoy a biscuit without first washing up well.

This is my understanding


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[Beau Cassidy]

I always wash my hands after handling lead but that is mainly to get the dirt off my hands. It just makes sense not to eat after handling lead due to the transfer from hand to food to mouth. Now when I worked trauma ER i met a lot of folks who got some lead poisoning thru direct contact with their skin but it was usually from penetrating direct contact. Got a few with metal poisoning the same way. Ironically they were all just sitting on the porch reading their bible when they got poisoned.

[ascast]

About a year ago I had a lead test done, specific for lead. My results were "low to none-nothing to worry about". I have never believed that casual contact gets lead on your hands. And smoking after handling bullets, casting is a joke. I have for many years actually licked bullets or blocks of lead to demonstrate my disdain for the ridiculous belief that casual contact will kill you. Watch for the white stuff, or the skimming from your casting pot, wire wheeling you casting pot, poorly ventilated, heavily used indoor ranges. have fun

[blackthorn]

In the 1960's I worked in a plywood manufacturing plant. One of our products got painted on the edges with a yellow colored lead based paint. The painting was done by an East Indian gentleman who did not use gloves when cleaning up the painting equipment. He got a very bad case of lead poisoning. On investigation, we determined the lead entered his system via the paint thinners used in clean up. It may also have been, at least in part, his hygienic procedures.

[tazman]

I worked with and around solid lead and molten lead(1500 degrees F) for 40 years in a heat treatment facility and never got enough lead in my system to worry about. We were tested every year by OSHA requirement.
Lead will not turn to vapor until high temperatures are reached. It will however, form an oxide on the surface that is exposed to the air and become dust particles at lower temperatures. These dust particles are the larger issue.
We only had one man in that period of time who got lead into his system in enough quantity to get removed from the department. He was a serious smoker and refused to wash his hands before he smoked or ate his food.
Simple precautions will prevent any significant lead absorption.
Venting above the lead pot gets the lead dust(not vapor) out of the air where you breath. Even a small fan blowing slowly across the work area is enough to remove it.
Always, always wash your hands before you smoke or eat anything. If you are drinking from a bottle, never handle the mouth of the bottle and always put the lid back on so no dust particles get in.
Change your clothes when you finish smelting or casting and wash them as soon as you can. The dust can get on your clothes and get back on your hands when you handle them or wipe your hands on the pants.
These things are easily done and prevent any lead absorption through your mouth or lungs.
There are similar dust particle issues at indoor ranges that don't have sufficient ventilation and air movement. Many shooters who shoot several times a week often get lead into their system from this type of situation.
Especially for revolver shooters, there is a small amount of lead dust blown off the base of plain based cast boolits as they leave the cylinder and barrel. Look at the front of the cylinder, the top strap, and the forcing cone after a session and you will find small amounts of lead adhering to the metal in these areas. The dust that didn't stick is blown out sideways and some of it ends up on your hands and arms. You need to wash your hands after a range session.

[clintsfolly]

The only guy I know to get lead poisoning was a carpenter that had real bad hygiene( never washed his coverall all winter or two) smoked like a chimney. That winter we tore down a old steel bridge and he would get behind a beam or anything to get a wind break. Using a Torch to cut beams and braces was his job! The whole bridge was covered with lead paint. So he would be behind a windbreak cutting 80yrs worth of lead paint with a torch. The others in the crew all doing similar work but staying up wind if possible ALL had little or none in their blood!

[Rcmaveric]

Its pretty tough for your body to absorb lead if it its not in a soluble state. Moral of the stories is practice some form of safety, good house keeping and I wont make funny of anyone for being too safe. You could probably eat a bullet and it wont hurt but you if gobble up a TBL spoon of lead oxide (what lead paint is made of) you might want to let doc know. It mostly boils down to repeated long term exposure. It takes awhile for the levels to build and they cant get out. Just look at California's Condor research....they blamed the bullet and banned the bullets and after a lot of years the condors are still dropping like fly's with messed up babies. Come to find out they messed up in their conclusion and it was the lead based paints on a lot of the water towers (birds eat paint chips too, who knew). The research paper changed their conclusion but lead bullets are still banned. If you get shot you more things to worry about than if that bullet in you is gonna poison you.

[quail4jake]

Metallic lead is safe to handle as long as you wash your hands, I use D-lead soap with EDTA. Carbonates , hydroxides and acetate of lead are lipid soluble and bioavailable but these compounds are generally not formed in our usual casting procedures. Smelt outside and be careful handling dross since it forms oxides which have some limited bioavailability and can be absorbed by ingestion or inhalation. Cast on, my plumbic friends!

[frkelly74]

At a physical I had a few years ago, after working construction in all kinds of old and some nasty buildings for 35 years and then taking up casting fairly recently I asked for a blood test for lead. They were taking blood anyway. It came back at 12 ppm and the doctor kind of had a cow and just knew it was from all those horrible nasty bullets I cast. I think it is probably lower now, but I am working in a 101 year old house so maybe not.

[buckshotshoey]

My cousin still has lead bird shot in his back from when he was a teenager. Long story. But the doctors said it would do more damage to remove it. The body will form fat sacs around it to seal it off. No lead issues.

As for the lead at indoor shooting ranges, i think that is mostly from the powder. The burn is hot enough to vaporize the base of a boolit, and it is deposited down the barrel, and into the air. This is where a good percentage of barrel leading comes from. Some shooting ranges only let you shoot TMJ's because of lead vapors. This is what "Boots" Obermyer said anyway.