Lead Exposure at shooting clubs

[dodgyrog]

I have a 15 page PDF on this topic - pm me if you want a copy emailed to you.
I'll need your email address
I got this from my Consultant at the RVI hospital (Newcastle) today where I am being treated for lead poisoning!!!

[kennyc]

a guy I know in the states had to leave a job on an indoor shooting range due to lead exposure, not pleasant! his employer wasn't interested in improving ventilation and wouldn't supply masks for when they were sweeping the range after hours.

[Rockhopper]

Is there a risk when shooting .22RF or is it mostly a full bore issue?

[treetop]

I would say that .22 is probably the main culprit..
As twice as many rounds get shot indoors than any other calibre.

[FredB]

Back in the 1980s, my then club participated in a Police Pistol 1 league which was shot on indoor ranges on a Thursday night. Arriving at the range of one of the police forces that took part, we found the organizer, who had started the league was missing. This officer was working on the range for several hours a day, running the police training programme. The turning targets were controlled from a small glass sided booth at the side of the range and apparently the airflow from the extractor system pulled everything through this booth. The officer had collapsed and the hospital had found blood in his leadstream. He was on a high calcium diet and had to give up shooting.
We panicked! Our range did not have any proper extraction equipment, just three fabricated steel chimneys in the roof. Extractor fans were ordered and, it being a company owned range, we went to see the company doctor. He selected three members of different generations for blood tests. All were clear.
Since that time, tens of thousands of cast bullets later, whenever I have had a blood test I have asked for the lead level to be checked. I have never had a problem.
My casting facility is upstairs in the garage and has a large extractor fan. The temperature up there is too high during the summer months and so I work out what next years needs are and cast about 3000 bullets is November. I don't cast for the next twelve months unless I have picked up a new calibre and mould of got the estimates wrong.
Fred

[dodgyrog]

Is there a risk when shooting .22RF or is it mostly a full bore issue?

All calibres it seems

[Mike95]

The EU were trying to ban lead and many USA states ban lead on indoor ranges. Copper plated lead bullets seem to be the answer.

Mike95

[Sim G]

Looking at the exterior walls of my club under the extractor fans shows the amount of lead they pull out of the club!! Initially, we started as a small bore target club and the core of the club are still resistant to anything outside of that. One thing is "jacketed ammo". I'm trying to formulate a case for plated ammo at the minute, so PM inbound for that report!

[Laurie]

I went to a symposium in Imphal barracks, York many years back on range safety and management organised by the army. This was at a time when Landmarc was about to take over MoD ranges and licensing / inspection of non-MoD ranges was leaving the army.

The main speaker expressed the view that outdoor ranges, whether MoD or civilian were inherently safe and well run, but that there were issues with indoors facilities. The forces had had to up its game after the Health & Safety at Work Acts were applied to Crown organisations and he said that more rigorous inspections had found that some MoD ranges had walls behind backstops nearly, or in some cases completely, cut through by 22LR bullets. The amount of damage the .22LR does is minute, but fire thousands upon thousands at the same spot and it'll wear through stone eventually. This saw a large upgrade in bullet capture systems and also in target systems that routinely move points of impact around. However, he reckoned that the greater danger and more insidious one was lead dust and poisoning and warned that many civilian clubs and their officers were in his view risking future injury litigation and possible HSE prosecution over their unwillingness to install lead dust extraction and filtering systems.

As a purely outdoor shooter, I know damn all about this aspect of shooting, but that was the considered view of a professional in range design and management, and things have probably changed a lot since this symposium anyway.

It is not just bullets that create lead. The explosive compound in all ammunition priming systems used to be lead styphnate which produces a very fine lead dust out of the muzzle widely dispersed by the escaping propellant gasses. This situation continues with centrefire rifle ammunition basically because nobody has produced an alternative that meets NATO STANAG requirements for reliability and storage life. (How long before some safety bureaucrat says .. ah, but recreational ammunition doesn't need such rigorous requirements so we need military and non-military standards?) Most (all?) commercial pistol ammunition now uses lead-free primers because of the potential high volume use in indoor ranges. The powder manufacturers had to make some changes to their products as many older powders didn't perform as well or reliably with the new primers. I imagine that all western manufactured rimfire ammunition has also switched to lead-free priming compound.

[channel12]

As (retired) health & safety inspector I know that there was a HSE issued guidance note for enforcement purposes on lead exposure at indoor shooting ranges. It was concerned about employees who worked for long periods of time in indoor ranges and quoted examples were police instructors. As Laurie has correctly identified the source of the lead was from organic lead fume produced by the primers and not the metallic lead of the bullet. The solution for indoor ranges was strong extraction ventilation at the target end of the range so fresh outside air is drawn from behind the shooter thus removing the organic lead vapour from the shooter's respiratory zone.

Recreational shooters were not considered to be especially at risk as it was unlikely that they would be spending prolonged periods of time on a daily basis being exposed to lead vapour from the primers..

To be dangerous to health lead has to be in a form where it can be easily absorbed or inhaled by the body. (Unless it's 158g lump of lead travelling at 1000fps).