doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com leaded bores

I remember friends across the seas and on other continents who came to assist when Britain was taking a fierce lead pasting from the Luftwaffe, and 20,000 dear Londoners being killed by the smog a few years later brought the community together against pollution to make the city a gleaming landscape, salmon entering the Thames as far as Richmond. No man is an island . . .

London sure has changed from the first time I saw it in the early 70s to the last time I saw it in the mid 90s

Years ago when I was teaching at Butler University we had some HgCl2 tablets in storage; they were in the shape of coffins.

Drew -- I think the photo you posted was in a story about Cadmium poisoning not lead. Nevertheless soluble lead is clearly a toxin.

jlb

jib (Jerry?): The Chisso Minamata factory first started acetaldehyde production in 1932. The chemical reaction used to produce the acetaldehyde used mercury sulfate as a catalyst. Starting August 1951, the co-catalyst was changed from manganese dioxide to ferric sulfide. A side reaction of this catalytic cycle led to the production of methylmercury, which was released into Minamata Bay until 1968.
The company's own tests showed that its wastewater contained lead, mercury, manganese, arsenic, thallium, copper, and selenium (no mention of cadmium).
BTW: Chisso installed a Cyclator purification system in 1959 with full knowledge that it was ineffective in removing organic mercury, then later hired Yakuza to beat up the locals when they started protesting.

As we know, the last LEAD smelter in the U.S. was shut down in Dec. 2013, as were lead recycling facilities
https://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/s...ry-lead-smelter
Old U.S. lead batteries are now recycled in the ecological paradise to our south, Mexico, and Brazil.
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/lead-battery-recycling-has-moved-to-mexico/
And once again the kids pay the price for the greed
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/science/earth/recycled-battery-lead-puts-mexicans-in-danger.html

2016 report on informal (as in unregulated ie. we bribed the inspector) lead acid battery recycling
https://www.slideshare.net/e4sv/edinburgh-may16-citrecycle-informal-lead-acid-battery-recycling
Mexico 50% of children suffer from lead poisoning. Brazil 16.5% of children suffer from lead poisoning. Chronic lead poisoning has been declared a national public health emergency in China. 25% of the Indian population tested positive for lead poisoning.

Too depressed to go on, but at least were back on topic Guess I'll go eat a Lithium battery

Actually, Johnson Controls just opened it's Florence, S.C. lead smelting facility in Sept. of 2012

http://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/lead-smelter-johnson-controls/

This new state of the art facility smelts over 130,000 metric tons of spent lead batteries per year. Lead acid batteries are America's most recycled product, with over 99% of lead batteries used in the U.S. being reused and recycled. There are quite a few other lead smelting and recycling operations in the U.S., where laws governing pollution are much more strict than either Mexico or Canada. The vast majority of lead for the lead shot and lead bullets we use comes from U.S. lead recycling facilities. However, as a result of strict controls here, and as a result of insane trade deals like NAFTA, a lot of former U.S. smelting and recycling has moved to Canada and Mexico. One out of five scrap car batteries now finds it's way to Mexico, but the vast majority are still recycled right here. A loss of control of the southern border has also been responsible for increased transport of scrap lead going to Mexico where Drug Lords operate dirty, polluting facilities as a means to launder drug money. Liberals who may feel good about driving away lead smelting facilities here are mostly blissfully unaware that their actions have sickened many more children and adults than they have helped. Bunch of racists and misogynists if you ask me.

Obviously, responsible lead recycling involves much more than simply saying lead is bad, and as a result, tightening regulations here, thus driving the trade where regulation is lax. But all of this nasty lead pollution in Mexico should also make California shooters wonder just how it can be possible that the California Condor is being reintroduced in Mexico.

https://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm/...pread-to-Mexico

Thank you Keith. I did not know about the Johnson Controls facility. It should also be noted than Doe Run, even after closure of the "from the mine" smelter continued to operate a recycling facility
http://www.doerun.com/what-we-do/metal-production

I had also forgotten (uh...slipped my lead contaminated mind ) of the possible association with ALS, which I'm embarrassed to say is old news
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16909025
http://kbia.org/post/end-lead-laced-era-polluting-smelter-close-after-120-years#stream/0

Drew and others -- sorry about my dated memory. The Japanese tragedy I was thinking of was itai-itai (it hurts-- it hurts) disease resulting from cadmium poisoning in the drinking water from the Jinzugawa River basin. I do still have the memory of the photo you showed being used in a story that must have included a section on cadmium.

jlb

Mercury can get you other ways too!

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.pyrotechnics/2005-12/msg00095.html

The Rise and Progress of the British Explosives Industry
Published under the auspices of the VIIth International Congress of Applied Chemistry, 1909
Eley Brothers, London

By 1828 the demand for these accessories gave promise of opening an almost unlimited field for inventive ingenuity. William Eley, the founder of the present firm was early attracted to this interesting branch, and literally devoted his life and fortune to mechanical inventions. To him is attributed the once-famous wire cartridge, which by delaying the dispersion of the pellets, effected the same purpose in the guns of the period as in now produced by choke-boring.
At the age of forty-seven he fell victim to a disastrous explosion of fulminate of mercury which simultaneously destroyed him, his laboratory, and its contents.

And to make amends for wandering OT

Before



Same section after scrubbing with a piece of Big 45 Frontier Metal Cleaner on the end of a cleaning rod chucked into a cordless drill, then soaked with KleenBore Formula 3 Gun Conditioner. BTW: the wrinkles are elastic deformation as the steel stretched prior to the blow out.

Actually, Doe Run Lead Co. operates several lead mining, smelting, recycling, and processing facilities in the U.S., as do numerous other companies. One Doe Run facility is the main supplier of lead for Sierra Bullets. It is indeed unfortunate that old lead smelting plant referenced in one of the links provided was not up to date in their safety standards. I suppose the same could be said of a lot of industrial plants in a lot of different industries ranging from chemicals, to steel, to uranium and plutonium production, and nuclear power generation.

But I do encourage everyone who is concerned about efforts to ban lead ammunition to read those links Drew provided. They provide wonderful insight and evidence of what a couple of us were attempting to get through Larry Brown's thick skull last year when he was blaming deer hunter's bullet fragments for lead poisoning in eagles. The link above has a map showing a map of an area a mile in diameter around that old plant that was blanketed in dust containing 30% lead. Certainly there had to be lesser concentrations ranging miles away. I seriously doubt if all the deer hunting ever done in this country since the Europeans settled it could leave so much lead, in such a high concentration, over such a large area.

Consider also that lead dust is many times more bio-available than expended bullets, shot, or fragments. That means it is much more readily absorbed into tissues and cells where it causes symptoms of toxicity and poisoning. Consider also that this one out-dated facility is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to industrial and commercial sources of lead that dwarf anything ever deposited by shooters and hunters. There were millions of tons of lead used in paints, gasoline, chemicals, pesticides. These sources of lead contamination, on a molecular or atomic scale, are also many times more bio-available than expended shot or bullet fragments. They are more easily inhaled, absorbed, or ingested. And don't forget that volcanic activity has blasted millions of cubic yards of vaporized and super-heated elements into the atmosphere over millions of years, including lead, mercury, cadmium, etc.

Don't ever make the mistake of allowing anti-gunners and anti-hunters to use the red herring of contamination caused by your ammunition in their under-handed efforts to eliminate guns and hunting. If they ever succeed, we won't have to worry about pitted barrels anymore.