How To Avoid Lead Poisoning

As shooters, exposure to lead can happen without you even noticing and can cause permanent damage, especially in the brain. Lead is a naturally occurring element that is extremely toxic to humans and affects the liver, kidneys, reproductive and nervous systems. Lead exposure happens when shooting, setting up and resetting steel targets, and reloading.

How often do you think about your lead levels? Do you even know what your current levels are, or what level the concentration that OSHA deems “Actionable?” You might not think that these questions pertain to you since you might only shoot occasionally. Maybe you are just a weekend shooter, but when you add into the equation reloading, practice, and where you shoot as variables, your risk for lead poisoning is greatly increased.

Exposure during shooting occurs because most primers on the market (except for “Green Primers”) contain lead styphnate. It is the compound in a primer that makes the “bang” happen. Once the primer is ignited, the lead particulates are disbursed in the air. Another area where shooters are exposed to lead is during the setup or resetting of steel targets. Once a projectile impacts a target, the copper plating/metal jacket/synthetic coating is ruptured and the lead core fragments/spalls on the steel. This coats the steel plates with a layer of lead that gets transferred to your hands when you are setting up/resetting. Reloading is another significant contributor to lead exposure. Lead can be found in and on spent and new primers, dirty cases before you wash/tumble, and bullets themselves (depends greatly on if you use cast/fmj/plated/coated projectiles).

I would like to give you a little background to my story. I started working for Capital Cartridge in August of 2016, and had been shooting competitively for about 2 years prior to getting the job. Capital Cartridge is a spent brass case segregator. We buy spent brass shell cases from gun ranges, run the material through multiple pieces of equipment, and visually inspect them in order to produce brass in single caliber lots. This process emits a lot of dust, which exposes workers to airborne lead particles. In order to maintain a safe environment, all employees are blood tested prior to employment to establish a baseline lead level and then test regularly thereafter to make sure that levels do not increase.

My initial lead levels were at a 35 (40 is the actionable level set forth by OSHA)! Clearly, I was not taking the necessary precautions when shooting and training because I was exposing myself to too much lead. If my levels increased by just a small amount, I would be placed on leave from work, and this was even before I started my job at Capital.

I concluded that my lead levels were that high due to the following reasons:

First, I was not taking the necessary precautions when resetting the target while shooting. I did not use gloves when resetting, and then would eat snacks throughout the day. I would wash my hands before lunch, but it did cross my mind while shooting.

The second problem was the ranges where I shot matches. Some older indoor ranges do not have the proper ventilation and air handling systems to effectively remove the lead dust from the air. Prolonged exposure and inhalation of this type of dust is dangerous, so I need to limit the time spent in them.

The third variable that affected my lead levels was that I did not wear nitrile gloves when cleaning my firearms and reloading ammunition. There are trace levels of lead in many of the components that we use, and we are exposed to lead during cleaning and processing of spent brass cases.

After learning that my blood lead was reaching hazardous levels, I started researching ways to reduce lead levels in the blood. One of the first things I read about is Chelation (Chelation [pronounced key-LAY-shun] therapy. This is the treatment used in conventional medicine for removing heavy metals [including mercury] from the blood. It involves intravenous injections of a chelating agent, EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid), a synthetic amino acid.

I knew that I wanted to avoid going into treatment, so I started looking into natural ways to decrease lead levels. The first thing that popped up was eating cilantro because it removes heavy metals from the body and prevents their absorption into the bones. I happen to love Vietnamese and Mexican food, so this was an easy fix. The next thing that I changed was to make sure that I wear gloves when setting up and resetting steel targets. I also started using a product called D Wipe that are pre-moistened towels that contain an ingredient that removes lead and other heavy metals from your skin. Finally, I decided to limit the amount of shooting that I participated in at ranges that had less than adequate ventilation systems.

By taking these precautions and actions, I was able to decrease my lead levels from 35 to 21 in 3 months. At the time of writing this article I am at a level of 11, and am still steadily decreasing despite continuing to shoot competitively and working at Capital Cartridge.

Overall, I have learned that lead inhalation and ingestion is extremely dangerous, but by taking the necessary precautions and through careful attention to hygiene, you can help control your exposure to lead and still shoot as much as you want. Here is a list of precautions to take your next time out shooting at an indoor range:

• Don’t smoke, eat, or drink on the range. You are ingesting just that much more lead in doing so.
• Don’t shoot on an indoor range that does not ventilate by pulling combustion products AWAY from the shooting line. If you MUST shoot on a range with poor ventilation, use an OSHA approved mask.
• DON’T SWEEP with a broom on an indoor range. The floor is COVERED in lead salts, and brooming puts them back in the air.
• Once you are done shooting on an indoor range, wash your hands immediately. If you can take a shower and change clothes ASAP, all the better.
• Lastly, DON’T go to bed after shooting indoors until you take a shower and wash your hair. Your hair traps lots of lead particles that will transfer to your pillow, and then to your mouth/nose while sleeping.