Cast Bullets Indoor Ban Inland Empire, Cal

To the O.P.
What about powdercoated bullets? Its easy to do, cost very little and acts like a jacket to keep the lead in. Plus, you get to keep casting!
 
I'm a member of and shoot at The Firing Line indoor range in HB, CA. I love it. Great Range Masters, low membership rates, great instructors, very fair rules enforced fairly across the board, not so great lighting though.
 
Funny stuff being said here.

If all of you who think the rules are for others would get together and open your own indoor range,
you can bet I'll be willing to make a trip.

I've never been to an indoor center fire range anyway (nearest is about 250 miles) and have a bunch of steel core to burn up.
My outdoor ranges banned the stuff years ago.

JT
 
We're talking about shooting lead at an indoor pistol range, not knowingly causing damage to a backstop/bullet trap with steel penetrator rounds.

If the rule is specifically against "cast" bullets then whoever made that rule is pretty stupid, because a cast and a swaged pure lead bullet are essentially the same end product, its the manufacturing process they are making the rule against.

If the OP wants to break the rule it's up to him, he just needs to decide if the penalty for doing so is worth it. Get banned from the range, maybe not a great idea... Get a stern talking to and nothing ultimately done, might work for him....

As others have suggested, who's to say this isin't just a rule on the books to make insurance or some other entity happy, but ultimately not enforced. We're all just speculating here...

Sometimes things are not always black and white.
 
I'd be willing to bet their motive for banning lead bullets is an attempt to make their range lead free for health or enviromental reasons.
 
Illogical. Like I said previously, the health issue has nothing to do with the bullets, it's the lead styphnate from the primers when fired in an indoor range.

Don
 
Illogical?

Since when does any private enterprise need to make their rules pass YOUR logic test??
If you want to shoot at any range, you need to follow their rules.

Debating why,
I don't like it,
That's not right,
Civil Disobedience,
Consistent Range Rules everywhere,

Those things only exist in your mind. :p

Airborne Lead from Primers and Lead bullets are BOTH identified as contributors by the CDC an NIOSH
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/ranges/
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/76-130/pdfs/76-130.pdf
 
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USSR said:
Illogical. Like I said previously, the health issue has nothing to do with the bullets, it's the lead styphnate from the primers when fired in an indoor range.

Don
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You believe that, I believe that and many folks here believe that (but it's still controversial, many say it's the lead vapor from hot gasses against the base of a lead bullet that contaminates a range). But just because someone owns a range doesn't mean he/they believe that.

CA has some really weird regulations (state, county,local and personal) concerning anything that may be detrimental to people's health or the environment. I worked for a company the was forced to install extra air filtering equipment (over $100,000) because some painting was going on indoors, but it was 1/2 mile from LAX and the entire area was polluted with and smelled like burnt jet fuel (???).

Good example is the Condor Lead Free areas. Someone convinced the "green" politicians that spent lead bullets were killing the endangered buzzard, ie., California Condor, but not much if any scientific proof was provided.Lead wheel weights were banned because they fly off vehicles and eventually the lead works it's way into the water table poisoning/killing everyone within 10 miles of highway.

Actually, if the range required wearing yellow ball caps and red t-shirts, they can. It's their range, their regulations and if customers don't like it they can go elsewhere.
 
Since when does any private enterprise need to make their rules pass YOUR logic test??
If you want to shoot at any range, you need to follow their rules.
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Marco,

You're completely missing my point. They can pass whatever rule they want, I could care less. BUT, if the intention is to "make the range lead free for health reasons", they are completely missing the boat. Lead must be ingested for health problems, and the airborne lead styphnate from the primers is the big cause of high lead levels with indoor shooters. Eliminating lead bullets will do nothing regarding the lead styphnate in the primers of jacketed bullet ammo.

Don
 
Most places I know of have banned lead shot in shotguns for environmental reasons. Slowly we see more and more ranges banning the use of lead which is another reason why I have such an interest in plated bullets.

This latest one, what is their policy with powder coated or other coated bullets?
 
A business owner doesn't need any scientific proof to make a decision (nor do CA politicians). He can make any decision, regulation on a whim. Whether the regulation can be proven to be correct by a customer is irrelevant. The jury is still out on the primer causing lead pollution vs the bullet base vaporizing, but that too is irrelevant. Whether he is missing the boat or not, it's his business so it's his decision...
 
The jury is still out on the primer causing lead pollution vs the bullet base vaporizing, but that too is irrelevant.
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Sorry Mikld, but lead does not "vaporize" with the short duration of heat involved in shooting target loads suitable for shooting at an indoor range. And, the same people who would ban lead bullets, would also ban gas checked lead bullets which even you would have to admit could not cause "lead vaporizing". I have cast bullets for 35 years, and if their is no lead "vaporizing" with a pot full of lead at a constant 700+ temperature (lead needs a sustained temperature of about 1100 degrees, well above casting temperatures to vaporize), there sure is no lead "vaporizing" from being shot. The argument you seem to be making is that they having the right as a business to ban whatever, in which we are both in agreement. However, you fail to deal with whether their ban is resulting in the accomplishment of their goal of eliminating lead for health reasons.

Don
 
Health reasons, environmental reasons or for no reason it makes no difference to me other than to know Where I can and cannot use lead bullets. I really don't need to know the reasons.
 
The lead ban and/or counter measures are supported by scientific evidence, which has not been disproven, nor even challenged by your 35 years of whatever. Your personal opinions are worth what we paid for it. Its just noise.
 
The lead ban and/or counter measures are supported by scientific evidence...
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Actually, the lead ban measures are supported by scientists funded by environmental groups who have a clear agenda. You can disregard my opinions, which are based on decades of personal experience, such that I am a certified NRA reloading instructor, yet I have heard nothing concerning yourself except for your penchant for derogatory remarks.

Don
 
USSR - I've found that people who have to put their credential in the tag-line on every post they make, tend not to have a great deal of confidence in their posts - and hope the credential gives their post more value.

It is my understanding that the NRA course includes-
- reloading safety
- center fire components
- using a manual
- understanding reloading equipment
- making your first cartridge.
- course review and examination

I don't recall anything about air quality, vaporizing lead, etc.

It's an 8 hour course. You're not a scientist after completion any more than you're a hunter after the hunter's safety course.

Just sayin' :-)
 
If the lead styphnate could cause a problem, the amount in gun shot reside, being minuscule, would take decades of daily shooting and doing deep breathing exercises between strings to have any effect. My opinion stays with other reasons for lead exposure in shooting ranges....

However, you fail to deal with whether their ban is resulting in the accomplishment of their goal of eliminating lead for health reasons.
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I don't remember the OP stating the range owner gave a reason. How do we know what he/they wanted to accomplish, even though the idea of health reasons, while misguided, are the most popular...

You can get a liberal to do anything if you say "it's for the children", or "it's for the environment"...
 
Lead Styphnate residue is the source of water and readily acid-soluble lead compounds in firing residue. That's why the DDNP-based NT (non-toxic) primers were developed for indoor range ammo. We had a member on this board with a friend who tested for lead contamination professionally and who went over all his reloading and casting benches. He found nothing anywhere, not even on the casting bench that alarmed his testing lab with one exception: it registered toxic all over the floor where he separated his dry tumbling media from cases after cleaning. That was mainly primer residue dust.

I don't know that the main risk at an indoor range is how much primer residue you breath in. A well-ventilated range should prevent that pretty well. Rather, I suspect it is the lead dust that is everywhere in an indoor range and especially on the floor out in front of the firing points that could maybe clog the filters they have to put in those ventilators to avoid turning the place where the system exhausts into an EPA cleanup site.

That dust is mostly gas cut lead blown off bullet base edges as either a cast or swaged bullet clears the muzzle, uncorking high velocity gas venting. That dust would also be contaminated by the primer residue, so I wouldn't be surprised if it registered as bad news in a contamination test. And, even though metallic lead itself is not normally very toxic (you could swallow a cast bullet and pass it without your blood lead levels jumping through the roof), lead that is very fine dust has a very high surface area so that even the limited reactivity lead has with stomach acid could scrounge a blood level jump if you got enough of it regularly. At to it that there are lead styphnate combustion products mixed in with it and that it will get on things that people touch before handling food can make it a concern.

I made a front sight extension for my Ruger bull-barrel .22 target pistol decades ago. When I was still active in bull's eye competition, at least once or twice a year, when the mound of lead from that gas cut dust impacting it on its underside built up into an unsightly enough (pun intended) mound that I would spend some time shaving it off with a pocket knife. It stuck well.

Meanwhile, at the indoor range, I've participated in enough post-match clean-ups with a push broom to know the lead dust, contaminated by the styphnate residue is all over the place and blackens the soles of your shoes and anything that touches it and sticks pretty well. You don't want to track it through a house where children live. So maybe range employee safety is another consideration.
 
USSR - I've found that people who have to put their credential in the tag-line on every post they make, tend not to have a great deal of confidence in their posts - and hope the credential gives their post more value.
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Northof50,

You couldn't be more wrong. I am extremely proud of my accomplishments and believe they and my decades of experience does not put me on the same level as some 19 year old kid living out of mom and dad's basement that simply parrots whatever he finds on the internet. I wish more people on this site would give us an idea as to their level of experience, and were more inquisitive in nature. Regarding the question at hand (lead bullet base vaporization), a site dedicated to lead bullets is a much better source of info. I started a thread concerning this question here: http://www.artfulbullet.com/index.php?threads/sorry-but-i-aint-buying-it.3490/ Just saying.

Don
 
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