Lead and steel

[fatelk]

I've been wondering about lead and steel lately. It seems like shooting steel has become so much more popular in the last few years. It is a lot of fun. I even bought an AR500 steel gong myself. I was putting it up recently and noticed gray powder on my hands and it dawned on me that I need to be very careful about hygiene around steel targets.

I thought about it a little several years ago when my daughter was helping me pick up brass out of the gravel at the range. I realized that we'd have to be careful handling large quantities of brass because exposure is so much worse for kids. Then I realized that the gravel we were picking it up out of was where they often sat the steel targets, and likely contained hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of oxidized lead dust. I still pick up brass, and on occasion my kids still help, but we are very careful about cleanliness and only do it when the ground is damp so there's no dust, which is most of the year here in the Pacific Northwest.

Every so often I've noticed that they spread some kind of gray powder all over at the range. I assume that this has something to do with the lead? Anyone else give much thought to this when shooting lead? Do they use any special precautions when they have competitions where they shoot lots of steel?

When I was younger I barely gave any thought to stuff like this, and I don't want to be paranoid, but with young kids in the house and having faced cancer once in my life already, I don't want to take any chances.

[Winger Ed.]

I've started wearing gloves for handling most metal stuff.
Especially Lead, I wear those rubber doctor gloves when sizing or loading cast boolits.

I've noticed when in a yard buying copper or steel, all the people working there put on gloves to handle it,
even stuff that isn't sharp.

[Rich/WIS]

I shoot a lot of steel and it does produce a lot of lead dust/fragments. In front of the plated the ground is covered and you won't find flattened bullets, at most maybe the the base and a bit of the bullet, the rest if gone and there will be a furrow parallel to the plate where the fragment sprayed the ground. When we first installed steel targets we put a cross arm between the wooden uprights on the existing target frames, after a few days the uprights looked like they had been hit by a shotgun, chewed up with bits of lead embedded in the wood.

[lightman]

I never even thought about the lead dust on steel targets. Thanks for posting this. It could be a valid concern for some of us.

[kevin c]

We have a number of plate racks and other steel target stands (to hold steel target plates) that get a lot of use at my range. The spatter from the rounds almost literally recoats the steel tubing they're made out of. The racks have surfaces that catch the spatter, where it can build up into impact welded chunks like those at the base of a bullet trap. Very convenient for range lead miners ;^].

[country gent]

When spotting for other shooter at the longer ranges with lead bullets from bpcr rifles. at 300 400 and 500 yds you see not only a bullet strike but a small cloud of dust particles on the silhouette. This is the bullet disintegrating, paint and possibly a small amount of the steel. When painting targets if you look you will find small discs of lead under the gongs these are whats left of the bullets bases. They aren't very thick.

[Conditor22]

Good point about lead on steel. Don't forget lead from de-priming and dry tumbling brass.

My lead levels go up every time I smelt plumbing lead (19 this last time) I have masks I can wear but they fog up my glasses (lame excuse, I know)

My sawbones gets mad at me. He also tells me to lose weight but he's a bit fluffy to