How harmful are lead pellets?

[EvilE]

I always read the warnings about lead pellets, and lead in general, that it takes very little to mess a person up. I am just wondering how much a risk is it really shooting and plinking with lead pellets all the time?

[Bullit]

For your own education,  you may wanna check out the various shooting sites, and read the FDA, CDC, etc. reports.
i feel comfortable after 50 years of using lead sinkers, lead bullets, lead anything.  I just washed and never ate them!
Your call.

[amb5500c]

I've been shooting pellet guns for well over 40 years and I find that they are far more dangerous to the critters I shoot than to me.
Richard

[magnum]

After 40ish years of lead pellets i have seen no big issues. I try to aware of lead danger  do not eat or breath lead are the main things, i.e.normal stuff like no rubbing eyes mouth eating and make logical good choices
more airgunning is better , Tony.

[RedFeather]

Don't leave dropped or spent pellets laying around.  Get a good trap and clean up after yourself, too.

[Onebaddj]

As said above dont eat them or lick your fingers after playing with them and your fine.

[Scotchmo]

How harmful are lead pellets?

It depends on how fast they are moving.

Seriously though - I try to use pellet traps to catch most of them but I don't worry too much about a few strays.

[QVTom]

I'm careful to wash my fingers real well after shooting.  Pellets give a lot of lead to finger contact compared to PBs.  Most PB bullets are clad and you usually grab them by the brass case because it's usually bigger than the bullet.  My fingers are black after a shooting session.  Shooting for 35 years and still no lead poisoning

I am curious about the lead that lands in the dirt with respect to ground water and my well.  Probably not enough lead to make a difference but I still wonder if I'm slowly killing myself.....

-Tom

[Ol'DeadEye]

I personally don't worry about every warning I read on products.
I worked with raw lead for years working for the phone company repairing lead sheathed cables damaged by squirrels.
I worked with old time lead solder for years, breathing the fumes off the soldering irons.
I worked with buckets of methyl-etheyl-ketone in the Air Force, without gloves or respirators, washing air filters for test consoles.
I smoked Kent cigs in my younger years, reported to contain asbestos in the filter.  True or just misreported, I don't know.

I'm as healthy, or more so, as any other 66 year old.
Face it, life on planet earth is hazardous to your health.  No one gets out alive.

You can always shoot copper coated  or non lead pellets.  Your choice...

[Mark@]

First, do not underestimate the affects of lead, especially if it has been digested.  As a 45 acp shooter, we noticed high levels of lead in the blood stream from shooting indoors (with exhasut fan), but most of it probably came from handling and sorting the empty shells.  That said, I was advised by a fourm member (retired chemist?), that most of the black on your hands is the graphite coating on the pellets and NOT actually lead dust. 

If it were lead, and in the amount that is getting on your hands, it would not be visible to the human eye.  My wife, an environmental litigation specialist, has handled many lead poison claims and agrees with the latter statement.  You would not be able to see it if it were actually lead on your hands from a pellet.

Use common sense.  Keep your hands clean and don't put your fingers in your mouth, eyes, or your nose for that matter.   In being careful, you get a bonus and will have less head colds as well!

[Mark@]

I'm careful to wash my fingers real well after shooting.  Pellets give a lot of lead to finger contact compared to PBs.  Most PB bullets are clad and you usually grab them by the brass case because it's usually bigger than the bullet.  My fingers are black after a shooting session.  Shooting for 35 years and still no lead poisoning

I am curious about the lead that lands in the dirt with respect to ground water and my well.  Probably not enough lead to make a difference but I still wonder if I'm slowly killing myself.....

-Tom

The pellets are coated, so I wonder what it takes to remove that coating and actually get down to the lead that in there.  Then, that lead would have to make its way into the well water.  How long were you planning on sticking around?  I took up cigars, in the hope that I won't live much past 80...

[SAADE]

Ya...what he said! Washed my hands in M.E.K. and Trich, welded without a respirator and have shot 10's of 1000's of pellets and PB rounds for many years. Last years physical/blood-work was nearly as good as the previous 30 years.

Warnings are mostly lawyer-speak based on some chemical and physical science. Lead and many other substances are toxic by mass ingestion or other absorption methods over extended period of time. If you were to read the Fedreal TSCA listing, about all you would ever touch or eat is oatmeal and pasteurized milk.

Don't put lead pellets in your soda pop or on your sandwiches, wash your hands before eating and you are good for 50 + years of shootin.

[LeadHead]

I would say the air around me after I eat my carne asada burrito is more deadlier than lead...and why worry? We'll all fade away from this messed up world we live in before you get any complications from lead. WAIT! If your body does contain high levels of lead from pellet shooting that just might help you after an apocolyptic event!  LMBO

[breakfastchef]

Inhaling lead dust particles in a manufacturing plant or eating paint chips containing lead gives this common earth element a bad name. Just follow standard accepted handling protocol and pellets are safe.

[SAADE]

Nothing like a good Methane "hit" from the guy eatin his burrito at the next table! Ay carumba!

[Mark 611]

I agree with the guy's here common sense and like Richard said I find lead pellets more harmfull to anything I shoot than to myself LOL!!!!!!!

[RedFeather]

I wouldn't worry about stray pellets contaminating your ground water.  I believe it was Virginia Tech that performed a study on leaching from lead bullets and found that, once it makes that white coating of oxide, it pretty much stabilizes.  I have old Civil War bullets that were dug up and they are practically still to specs, so the oxidation must be fairly thin.

Just don't go carrying spare pellets in your mouth, LOL!  (Don't laugh.  A lot of round ball shooters used to do that for timed matches, etc.)

[WhitleyStu]

Same results as SAADE.  Handled over 400,000 .45 ACP lead SWC since the mid 80s and now a LOT of pellets.  Just had an A1C test for my diabetes and asked for a lead test also.  Lead test came back "within normal range".  I wash my hands after reloading for my .45 and do the same after a shooting session with my pellet guns.

[BenjiHunter]

Wash your hands after shooting.
As long as you don't put your head down a pellet can and inhale you should be OK.

[donderkop]

For the past sixty years I've been shooting air guns, as a kid it was general practise to put/keep the pellets in your mouth! As a reloader I made my own shot, .45 bullets and bullets or my .303. At 65 I am still healthy and are enjoying my air guns once again![not keeping pellets in my mouth anymore!! ]