Air quality and lead vs. hard cast.

[wallenba]

Upon learning that one of the indoor ranges in my area was relocating to within a half mile of my home, I paid a visit. I inquired if the move would involve changing their policy of banning cast boolits. They will still ban them, and wanted to quote me some EPA standards and test data. I said ,don't bother.
I got to wondering if the EPA used only commercial off the shelf lead ammo in their tests, and whether they even bothered with testing hard cast alloy boolits. And how they would compare, properly loaded, against pure lead commercial bullets. Is that data out there?

[geargnasher]

Most commercial boolits are "hardcast", so I don't follow you saying "pure lead commercial bullets". Either way the lead alloy boolits are still subject to gas-cutting. Just because you can make lead alloy boolits relatively hard doesn't really affect the rate of airborne lead particles. And primers are still made with lead compounds for the most part. :neutral:

Sounds like what the range needs is a really good air ventilation and filtration system. There might be various standards to which they must build, with the cheapest excluding all but fully jacketed ammo, I don't know much about it. Do they allow reloads at all?

Gear

[wallenba]

Most commercial boolits are "hardcast", so I don't follow you saying "pure lead commercial bullets". Either way the lead alloy boolits are still subject to gas-cutting. Just because you can make lead alloy boolits relatively hard doesn't really affect the rate of airborne lead particles. And primers are still made with lead compounds for the most part. :neutral:

Gear
I am not refering to bulk unloaded bullets, but the brand stuff, bought off the shelf ready to use.
The commercially loaded "lead" ammo I am familiar with appear to be very soft, swaged unalloyed material and appear almost black. My assumption is, those are pure lead. My intuition is that they would be more susceptible to gassing off lead fumes than harder cast alloy bullets would be. That's what I'm trying to find out. I'd really like to find some scientific data, but it appears there is none. At least none that I could find searching the net.

[MikeS]

A local indoor range doesn't allow lead boolits, but it's not a written rule, and they don't ask what you're shooting, so I just go there, and shoot what I have, lead boolits. The only time I had a problem was when I brought a rilfe there to shoot. Normally they require rifles to shoot their fragmenting 'range' ammo, and the last time I was there with my rifles, the owner of the range (who used to be a personal friend of my fathers) told his employee I was 'ok', and I stupidly made the comment "It's not like I'm shooting FMJ bullets, just lead ones I cast myself" and when hearing that the range owner freaked, and told me that lead can't be shot on his range as it screws up his hepa filters, and that his range is the cleanest in the county, etc. So I stayed away for a couple of months, and when I went back I only brought pistols, and nobody questioned what I was shooting.

If I can manage to wake up early enough, I want to go shooting tomorrow, my problem is that after working nights for several years I've turned into a night person, and I have trouble waking up early enough to do most things, as I normally go to bed around 6AM or so, and wake between 4PM - 6PM and the range closes at 6, so I would need to rush to get ready to get there by 5PM. Due to various health conditions, when I wakeup it takes me at least an hour till I can function (I have several hand problems caused by diabetes, and it takes an hour or so after waking up till my hands work enough to get dressed).

When I do go to the range, I usually take all my handguns with me (A PT1911, and 3 45LC single actions. I then shoot them alternatively so that no gun gets too hot, I'll shoot 6 from one SA, then 6 from the next, then the last, then the 1911. I figure if the barrel(s) get too hot that there's a better chance of leading, but I could be wrong, and am just being over cautious.

[Old Caster]

It is quite possible that hardcast is worse than pure or low antimony because pure lead melts at a higher temperature and it shatters less which might put less dust in the air. It would be difficult and expensive to prove and the difference might not be worth mentioning.

[wallenba]

Well...I've decided to just keep driving to my cast boolit friendly range, ( about 10 miles) for now. I'm tinkering with copper plating though. A video posted over on Daywalker's ATG forum shows how it's done. I have a few ideas of my own to (hopefully) simplify it. I tend to work slowly on these kind of things and it's still in the 'thinking stages'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KM_hr5eCNo

[btroj]

It isn't off gassing that is the problem. Could be smoke from lube? Could be ignorance? Could be fear of lead dust, although jacketed rounds will release same on I pact.

[AggieEE]

IIRC the NRA had an article that stated that most of the airborne lead at the firing line was from the primers. Again, like gearnasher said a good ventalitation system should take care of it. Years ago, there was a range in Houston, may still be t here, they had a Colt day. You could shoot any colt pistol/revolver on display. You had to buy your ammo from the range, and I think that included the members PO guns also. Not sure why, they had a snail trap system so it's not like you could blow a hole in it and from what I understand about the snail systems is they keep the bullet whole. I guess it's a case of my ball my rules.
AggieEE

[wallenba]

I'm certain that ignorance about the issue is part of the problem. It was not too long ago this summer, I was at the cast boolit friendly range shooting, when they were setting up the little black boxes and filters to sniff the air. The range passed, despite my 'offensive' cast rounds.
I'd really like to arm myself with some recognized authoritive information. I have a lot invested in my casting, and access to indoor ranges is really being whittled away up here over the issue. They all use state of the art filtration systems, and advertise it. Perhaps it is because of local ordinances. I suspect too, that a desire to sell ammo is a part of it too.