Getting ready to cast.

[powderburner]

Probably the ideal bullet alloy and you tossed it into the waterways of the world trying to hit a fish.

[mdeland]

Might want to have your well water tested Brent! Some years ago the NRA did some testing on lead poisoning from casting and they took air samples from directly over a melted pot of lead. They could get only trace readings until the temperature was raised to something like 950 degrees, then they got some lead in their air samples.
As Wayne said most lead poisoning is ingested not breathed in. Smoking while casting was a common way of getting lead poisoned.

[BFD]

I do not have well water. Nor do I have an old house with lead paint.

[mdeland]

I'm curious how many of you have ever gotten a bit of water into your melt? Unforgettable, No? I did, once! It was a sprue picked out of a water drop bucket absentmindedly pitched into the regular sprue pile thinking the heat would evaporate the moisture before the next remelt. Nope!

[mdeland]

I sometimes think it a wonder we are not all dead from the years of leaded gasoline use in the world.

[TexasMac]

Mike,

Several years ago I was happily melting down wheel weights which I had done for years. About half way through “rendering” a 5 gallon bucket of weights I dropped one into the pot & the explosion blew lead all over the place including me. Although some hit my glasses, fortunately none of it hit bare skin. At the time I was well aware of the danger of putting anything containing moisture in the hot alloy but the one wheel weight obviously contained some water, most likely in an unforeseen void. Since then no problems.

Wayne

[Coltsmoke]

I have had water hit my pot, I threw 4 or 5 bullets in a pot that had some damp dirt on them, bad mistake. I had turned the pot on earlier and did not realize it had already reached temp. I thought the top of the alloy was still solid, it had not been fluxed and it was scrap lead so there was some crud on top. I was thinking as it heated up the moisture would dry out and everything would be good, wrong. It was already at temp and the mixture blew straight up like a sparkler. I had 3 or 4 small blisters on my forehead and could have been blind in both eyes, the only thing that stopped that was a pair of reading glasses I was wearing. I still have those glasses with the scared lens on each side. I also have small lead pieces still stuck to the ceiling in my garage. I had not been doing this very long when that happened, it was a well learned lesson and one I will never forget. I'm embarrassed to admit I done something that stupid but maybe by sharing this it will save someone a lot of pain.

[SSShooter]

I've had my blood tested quite a few times and it is borderline high for lead, even though I use best practices with fans in an open garage, wash my hands religiously and my blood levels are still bopping around 5 ppm. Not happy about that at all.

Brent - try leaving out the religious part where you lick your fingers to wet them when washing and see if your lead level doesn't drop.

[Woody]

Every now an then, I will drop a primer on the floor. Once there, the primer monster grabs them and hoards them away someplace out of sight. Once while sweeping up some lead splatter and sprues that had found the floor, quess what that monster had done. Yes he had "salted" my floor sweepings. I was about to dump them into the melt. In fact the dust pan was on the way, when I, for some reason, stopped and looked. I'll never dump floor sweepings into my pot again. I also will not melt range scrap until it has been thoroughly heated to drive out any possible moisture. So far, I've avoided the lead volcano for the past fifty years. Knock on wood. Hey wait that's me.

Woody

[mdeland]

I don't think Brent would ever miss a million or two neurons but I'd be in trouble!

[mdeland]

Now you went and done it Woody! I used to make fun of Bald guys !

[TexasMac]

I sometimes think it a wonder we are not all dead from the years of leaded gasoline use in the world.

Good point mike. Not only did we make extensive use of leaded gasoline which we cleaned just about everything with on the farm with in the '50s and since then until it was no longer available, besides casting lead for fishing and never worrying about washing my hands, brushing with toothpaste out of a lead container, I commonly carried lead pellets in my mouth while stalking the local sparrows or squirrel hunting. It was quick and easy to spit one out for a quick reload. It's a small wonder I'm still around and remember anything of my youth. But if at one time I had accumulated dangerous levels of lead my body must have rid itself of it by the time I was 1st tested around 30 yrs ago.

Wayne

[Woody]

I have to buy lead substitute now for my Model A. Go figure.

There is probably a "lead marker" much like the KT boundary layer that marks the demise of the dino's from the 100 years or so of leaded gas. My understanding is that we, (those of us of the leaded gas generations), literally rolled and played in lead in our yards, ball diamonds, and gridirons, more so than eating lead paint, and swallowing the odd spit shot while tying on a fish hook.

Woody

[kenny sd]

and don't forget mercury
our science teacher used to let us play with it in the third grade.

[Perentie]

Yep, and the Mercury Amalgam fillings we still have in our teeth.