In a letter to a friend dated July 31, 1786, Benjamin Franklin wrote of lead's "mischievous" effects on workers. He cited his own encounters with the heavy metal 60 years earlier at a printing press and bemoaned how unsuspecting plumbers, painters and other professionals continued to be exposed and harmed.
"You will observe with concern," Franklin concluded the letter, "how long a useful truth be known, and exist, before it is generally received and practiced on."
Health experts echo Franklin's laments today. They say scores of working adults continue to be exposed to high levels of lead, including recent cases at indoor gun ranges, as regulations lag decades behind knowledge of the metal's health hazards and budget cuts further hamper efforts to prevent poisonings.
It turns out the danger is not from the lead bullets melting into the ground and getting into the drinking water, like the lying pro-gun fanatics said is not really a danger, it's the lead dust that gets into the air from the lead projectiles smashing into their backdrop.
The air in indoor shooting ranges is poison, especially for the workers who breathe it day in and day out.
An interesting article. One question I cant figure out is in the area of state level regulations. In Minnesota for instance, their exposure standards are specified in order to evaluate the environment. It doesn't involve checking lead levels in blood, but determining if an environment is contaminated.
ReplyDeleteThis would allow for instance an indoor shooting range to be inspected to see if it is meeting state lead exposure laws.
As Sarge points out, there are ways to deal with this problem. And yes, it is a problem. When I was in Knoxville, I avoided a certain gun after a couple of trips where I realized I could smell the lead in the air. Met a previous employee who had been taking advantage of free range time every day for a year and got elevated lead levels. That place had not been cleaning out their ventilation system, had not been maintaining it enough, or had not installed a sufficient one.
DeleteI've been to other ranges that do a much better job--places where you can tell that the air is scrubbed well and doesn't have that toxic smell--they even have a breeze from the back to the front where the air is taken in and scrubbed. The newest one has an interesting design for the backstop--it's sloped and has water running down it--apparently this helps stop the bullets, reduce wear on the backstop, and trap some of the lead where it can be filtered out of the circulating water if I understood the owner's description correctly.
Yes, but the point is the standards are not sufficiently updated and inspections are not being done.
DeleteWell, if you're proposing improvement of that process, go for it--I'd rather see my tax dollars go to that than to paying the salary of the guy working the speed trap.
DeleteI wonder if it's really the standards, though, or if it's just poor safety compliance--that's something that would require more research.
"Like the lying pro-gun fanatics said is not really a danger,"
ReplyDeleteDid you just call us liars for stating the truth--that lead bullets aren't going to poison the water supply or soil?
Why? When it comes to indoor ranges, I know that's been mentioned in the past--we don't talk about it all the time because we're usually too busy fighting off accusations that our shooting ranges will poison the earth and groundwater--a charge you have now admitted is false.
The lie was a bit more tricky than that. You guys pretended the ONLY danger was the hard lead in the ground. Rather, as I learned in this article, it's the particles that end up in the air.
DeleteNo, Mike, we said that the lead in the ground was NOT a problem because it wasn't going to leech large amounts in the soil and groundwater to poison people and animals. We were saying this in response to claims by poorly informed people on your side.
DeleteThe only other issue I remember being raised by your side was animals eating bullets and getting lead poisoning, then passing it through the food chain.
Since we were talking about environmental contamination, we didn't talk about particles from impacts because those are diluted so much in the outdoors that it's not a problem. The problem happens when you are shooting inside a confined space without proper setup and safety procedures.
This is also why you need ventilation when cleaning guns--in addition to the solvent fumes, you may have lead in the bore if you shot cast bullets--lead that will be broken up into little particles and aerosolized by your bristle brush. There can also be other heavy metals in trace amounts from the primer compounds, etc. that you don't want to be breathing more than you have to.
We're not Lying if we don't bring these issues of personal safety when discussing issues of environmental impact.
Lying by omission is one of your many tricks.
DeleteIt's not a lie to focus on relevant things.
DeleteAnd again, it's not lying by omission to not bring up a totally different topic that is irrelevant to the current discussion. If you want to bring up lead on indoor ranges, we're happy to discuss it as part of the discussion of lead ammo. Instead, you were bringing up wildlife and the environment, hence we answered with regards to wildlife and the environment.
DeleteMoreover, your charge about lying by omission will only persuade those who haven't seen us bring up tangent points you might use to attack something and give our answers to those preemptively, even if those were more damaging arguments than your main argument on such issues.
You, of course, won't remember us ever doing this--the posts where I've done this are ones where you've complained about them being too long for you to follow since they don't fit into nice, twitter size bites.
It's possible to remove the lead from the air in an in-door range. But you don't state what you want done here.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't bronze, brass, copper, nickel, cupro-nickel or even steel be good enough for target practice?
ReplyDeleteI think when you use those materials, you start running up against the federal laws regarding armor piercing ammunition. However, there is nyclad, a plastic projectile, but not sure if it's supplied in all calibers and it's likely more expensive.
DeleteBronze is used in high-end ammunition, but it's expensive. Steel is against the law in handgun rounds.
DeleteAs has been said, making and selling ammo made from brass, bronze, and steel is a great way to wind up in DEEP trouble.
DeleteA change to the law, whether repealing the AP ammo law or revamping it so that the lines it draws are based on a certain level of hardness, would be decent offers to show that this is an attempt to help improve the environment/workplace conditions rather than an attempt to outlaw different types of ammo piecemeal.
That's very interesting. Thank you very much.
DeleteJunior, and anyone else interested,
DeleteIn case anyone thinks I'm being completely unreasonable by raising the idea of repealing the AP ammo law, it is worth reading up on the different levels of body armor and the effects of different bullets.
People think of AP ammo as "cop killer" ammo that can breech a bullet proof vest, but the real purpose of AP ammo is to penetrate hardened targets. For military and police, AP rounds enable them to more accurately and reliably puncture vehicles to disable them or shoot targets within them.
As for the puncturing of bullet proof vests, bullet shape and bullet velocity can have as much or more to do with this. Almost any rifle round, even though made of soft lead, can puncture a vest due to the bullet's velocity--this is why the military uses hard armor plates which can stop rifle rounds, armor piercing or not.
As for use by the rest of us, a repeal of the AP law we have now would open the option to manufacture cheap, lead free ammo using soft alloys of the banned materials.
Another feature some people like about these other materials is the ability to make a slightly harder bullet that will penetrate deeper through tough flesh--the whole idea between the brass hunting bullets that were recently pulled from the market when they were ruled to not fall under the sporting purpose exception. These rounds were intended for hunting feral pigs and other tough hided creatures because they would penetrate deeper and then deform.
Don't believe them, Junior. Of course there are acceptable alternatives that are cost effective. The gun guys just don't like being told what to do.
DeleteMikeb, how about you show those "acceptable alternatives that are cost effective." We've shown you the law on the subject, including the ban on handgun ammunition that is called "armor-piercing." We've talked about the cost many times. So name the material and name the price.
DeleteMike,
DeleteJunior listed a bunch of alternative metals which was close to being a copy of the official list of "armor piercing" materials.
If you think anything I said was false, I'd like you to tell me what it was and how I got it wrong.
Similarly, I'd like you to list these acceptable alternatives and show their price next to the cost of lead ammo. The only Non lead ammo I have seen is frangible defensive rounds which are expensive as hell. No cheap target ammo.
If you show me a cheap alternative that has similar performance and similar or even low cost, I'll be all over it. However, I can't afford to practice as much as I need to with $1 or more per round personal defense ammo--I'm not DHS.
And since Mike is accusing us of lying, half of Junior's suggestions for lead free target ammo are on the list of banned, armor piercing substances--brass, bronze, steel. The other half--copper, nickel, and an alloy of the two are not. Solid copper bullets are made, but are expensive and limited in range due to density. There are good ones for some rifle calibers, but I'm not sure if they work as well in pistol calibers.
DeleteAs for Nickel, it is not on the Armor Piercing list, though I can certainly see it earning a place if people started making bullets from it since it has a hardness of 4 just like iron. (Copper is 3 and lead is 1.5) The harder the metal, the less it deforms. This deformation increases wound trauma (good in going for a quick, humane kill or stopping an attacker quickly), decreases penetration (reducing the risk of hitting something behind what you're shooting at), and decreases the likelihood of puncturing a kevlar vest if the velocity of the round is close to being able to puncture it.
Harder bullets, made with copper, nickel, brass, bronze, etc. (increasing hardness) would work like using hardened alloys of lead that are selected to reduce or slow deformation, improving penetration for hunting animals with thick hides--bear, boar, moose, elk (North Am.), etc. Of course, for rounds whose velocity is on the verge of puncturing soft body armor, these harder bullets will be more likely to poke right through than a soft lead round.
Finally, nickel might have toxicity issues as well (I don't know enough about nickel toxicity to say one way or the other, just that I'd want to look into it before selling nickel rounds as the "green" option).
Lastly, I'll say that if the AP law was done away with or rewritten to focus on what hardness was acceptable, we would have more options for cost effective green ammo.
I have guns in one caliber where my target ammo is made from mild steel (and a tiny bit of lead for weight, but mostly steel--enough to show economic feasibility). These guns shoot the 7.62x54R round. The steel core target ammo is the cheapest ammo I can target practice with other than .22 ammo. The steel is a mild steel alloy--nothing like the hardened tool steel that the Russians used in their armor piercing rounds.
The only reason I can get this ammo and use it is that there is no-handgun made that shoots it, so it doesn't fall under the ban of the AP ammo law. Without the law, or with modifications to it, similar ammo could be made for other calibers.
Even a soft lead bullet in this round would shred through a kevlar vest, and yet the armor piercing variety that the Russians made, which is similar in performance to our 7.62 NATO AP round and the .30-06 AP round, can be stopped by a vest with a chicken plate.
Mikeb, since you like being told what to do, I order you to support gun rights.
DeleteNo one thinks you are unreasonable, just a toothless grin lying hillbilly gun loon with the brain of a minnow.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, Jim. Nobody thinks you're a carrier, gun owner, or even mature, functional adult; just an immature, insulting troll with an insatiable craving for discord. Mike even knows this deep down, though he'll still keep calling you reasonable since he doesn't mind teaming up with people that hurt his cause. (Of course, he's even pulled it back to "reasonable in his opinions on gun control" rather than "a reasonable gun owner more reflective of the group.")
DeleteThanks for proving my point toothless grin hillbilly NRA gun loon.
DeleteI only looked up the relative densities of commonly mined and available metals. I assumed that lead was desirable for its high density. I guessed that even ceramics could not match the density of heavy metals. I forgot the whole thing about deformation. I remembered from high school physics that force = mass x acceleration. So a denser bullet would fly more true and be less susceptible to wind. None of the metals I listed were quite as dense as lead. Silver, gold and platinum are more dense than lead. Maybe the Lone Ranger had it right. But he was a natural. No practice needed!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with silver is that it's too hard. The same is true for iron and other metals. The rifling in the barrel can't get a grip on the harder metals, meaning that the barrel wears out much faster and the bullet doesn't spin, making it inaccurate. Now a copper jacket would solve that problem. Of course, those metals denser than lead are also rare and therefore expensive. For example, all the gold ever discovered by human beings would fit into a cube some sixty feet on a side.
DeleteJunior,
DeleteI was mostly focused on hardness because of the AP ammo law, but you're right to bring up density since that's the other place lead shines--it's the combination of being soft and dense that makes it the preferred material.
You're very right about the dense bullet being less susceptible to the wind. Density also reduces the surface area, reducing drag in many cases--steel shot used in hunting ducks and geese doesn't have the range of lead shot, so some people are making new lead free shot made of hard, dense materials to make up for this (shot-guns don't have the same worry with barrel wear as rifles).
The solid copper bullets that are out there are all longer than the equivalent weight lead bullets because of the lesser density. In rifle calibers--as opposed to handguns--you generally have more wiggle room for the longer bullet so that you don't have to sacrifice mass and thus power--the interesting thing is that, in this case, the longer bullet has a better ballistic coefficient which reduces its drag and lets it fly farther and more true.
There are all kinds of levels of interplay--hardness, density, bullet shape, etc.
I love how Mike showed up on this thread, called us liars, and then ran away like Laci rather than defending his position--even when we asked him to tell us what these alternatives are that don't run afoul of the AP law.
ReplyDelete