This thread about depleted uranium contains the following comment:
This reminds me of something I used to be a bit paranoid about. When I was a teenager, a friend and I had air rifles and used to do a lot of target shooting in enclosed spaces (big sheds and the like) using .177 and .22 pellets. I remember the smell of the dust from the barrels - we used to think it was kind of cool gently blowing a curl of what was presumably lead dust from the barrel like they do in the films. (Hey, I was about 13.)
A few years later, I started to think, “Hmm, I must have breathed in a heck of a lot of that dust at the time. Is it still sitting in my lungs?”
I’ve never suffered any ill-effects, but I wonder what is the elimination time for lead from the body? Pretty slow I’d guess. Anything to worry about?
The way folks talk about lead these days you might get the impression it’s Instant Death to even touch the stuff. It’s not. I mean, don’t eat it, or snort it, or use it for body piercing but occassional low-level exposure is not going to cause horrific damage.
Truth is, there’s a lot of ways to get exposed to it. By the age of 12 I think we can assume you had given up eating old paint chips, but other sources include lead solder, leaded gasoline (there is still some out there) and, yes, guns and ammo.
If you aren’t showing signs of lead poisoing you’re probably OK. But if you’re really concerned you can have a blood test done just to be sure. Expect some resistance from the doc if you aren’t showing symptoms, but you can talk him/her into it if you’re really worried. If you do show elevated levels there is a therapy that can help speed elimination of lead (and other heavy metals) from your system. Otherwise you are correct, it takes a long, long time for your body to dispose of it.
I’ve cast lots of lead and suffer no ill effects. I really don’t think a pellet gun would generate any lead dust in the barrel. What you thought was lead dust was probably atomized oil,