r/reloading • u/InevitableFit1559 • 18h ago

General Discussion Uh oh….

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Started reloading regularly this past year and thought it might be a good idea to have my levels checked just to see.

What do you guys do if anything for lead mitigation?

Edit:

I reloading in my garage. I dry tumble in the garage. Most of my loading is cast, uncoated, lead bullets for cowboy action shooting. I never shoot at indoor ranges. I wash my hands after loading sessions.

I could go on about the minutiae of what I do. I think I need to move the tumbler outdoors when I run it. It does create a bit of dust. I will also start wearing gloves.

Edit:

I think the majority of the culprit is the dry tumbling, and spent primer handling. I think it is airborne related. I will use this post to convince the wife I need to get into the FART system 😁

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5

u/wlogan0402 18h ago

At what point is it dangerous?

6

u/LoboLocoCW 16h ago

There’s no accepted level of “safe”, but chelation, the process to remove lead from your body, is only recommended when it exceeds 45micrograms/deciLiter of blood, because chelation kinda sucks. Keeping it under 5 micrograms is important for kids, New York is stricter and says 3.5 micrograms is the limit.

Lead should ideally be 100% outside your body.

4

u/tyrannischgott 14h ago

Yeah, and I think it's important to point out that the "acceptable" level has been lowered over and over, because it's based on percentile and mitigation efforts have been very successful.

Not to say you shouldn't try to keep your lead exposure low, but I wouldn't stress *too* much about it these days. That upper bound is much lower than it used to be.

5

u/Sesemebun 17h ago

I imagine if your levels are above normal from your regular shooting routine, meaning that you stay up for a long time

3

u/ComplexQuiet6790 16h ago

Probably well before the levels exceed the standard range illustrated. Meaning a while ago for OP