Testing targets, sabots, priming.

[GGaskill]

Lead is a shielding material an doesn't absorb radiation.

Actually it does absorb the radiation but it does not re-emit it fast enough to be a hazard. 

Your math is more or less correct; I got 45 years with the assumption that there was no loss of material in the melting/casting process but that is a minor detail.  It will keep you busy and that is important once you have retired.  Lots of people retire with nothing to keep themselves busy with and end up drinking beer and watching TV and die within three years.  So make sure you have a reason to get up every day once you stop going to work.

[Double D]

Thanks for George for checking, I am look forward to shooting the last bullet from these at 107 years old.

There is a bit of a fudge factor built in.  The weight of 3.2 lbs is an average of 10 weighing from 1420 grams to 1490 grams, Plus  a rounded off total count.  I also got 28 smaller containers weighing about 20 lbs plus one other oddball.  I am still unloading them from the truck.

Here is an interesting website on these.  http://www.fellingfamily.net/isolead/index.html

[dan610324]

a nuclear bomb I know what it is , but this is the first time Ive heard about nuclear rifle ammo 

[jeeper1]

Double D wrote
and every one knows when you run out of ammo you die.

In that case I will live well past the century mark. Heck I might see my 150th birthday.

[Double D]

I should know better than to trust a farmers count!  My life has been cut short.  I just finished unloading the truck and all the lead.  There are only 192 of these not 292.  So that means there is only 614 lbs of these  So that means only 8960 bullets, enough for 29.63 more years.  Looks like I will run out of ammo in my 91st year...start planning the wake!

[gulfcoastblackpowder]

Better yet...start planning to restock!

[dan610324]

I got approximately 1200 lbs of printing types , you get it for free if you come and get it 

[Cannoneer]

These excerpts are from the link DD originally posted on the British Militaria Forum.

Radiation Hazard
There has been some concern regarding radiation hazard from this lead. The lead generated by the pharmaceutical industry is used to house a variety of isotopes. The longest lived of the common isotopes has an 8 day half-life. The shortest is 13 seconds!

Once removed from service, the lead is decayed until two seperate gieger counters register only background radiation at their highest setting. This will take as long as 2 months. If you are concerned about radiation, decay it yourself for 60 days after you get it.

I wonder if there is going to be a flood of phone calls to hospitals across the country?

[Double D]

One of the things my contact did was get the Geiger counter out and check everything. 

[Cannoneer]

Oh, I think the lead is safe, Douglas; it sure sounds like the person that wrote that information down had done some research.

What kind of surprises me is that some regulatory agency like EPA doesn't have guidelines that prohibit the hospitals from choosing to let citizens have it.

[GGaskill]

The only things that I know are emitted by medical isotopes are alpha particles (helium nuclei), beta particles (electrons) and gamma rays (high energy photons.)  The first two cause no change to the lead and are simply slowed down or trapped in the lead.  The gamma rays are probably trapped by the lead electron clouds and transmuted to lower energy photons until harmless. 

I am not a professional particle physicist so this may be oversimplified (but I did put in a question at a radiation shielding site about this) but I don't think there is any real danger from these things.  More likely a contamination issue from spilled reagents than a radiation issue from the lead.  Most all of the half lives are really short and the material will decay to irrelevant (less than background radiation levels) in a relatively short time.

[Double D]

Oh, I think the lead is safe, Douglas; it sure sounds like the person that wrote that information down had done some research.

What kind of surprises me is that some regulatory agency like EPA doesn't have guidelines that prohibit the hospitals from choosing to let citizens have it.

Oh but do read the link in post 27...I suppose as soon as I say it's bullet metal the EPA will run for cover, after getting spanked again this week over messing with bullets.

[GGaskill]

Here is a question I submitted to a professional and his answer:

QUESTION: "Lead containers used for shielding medical isotopes are frequently released to the public for other use instead of being recycled by the medical establishment.  How are the gamma rays trapped by the lead and how are they ultimately released?  The alpha and beta particles are ordinary harmless particles once their energy is lost.  Is there any real risk of allowing these shielding containers to be released to the public?

ANSWER: The only concern you should have regarding possible radioactive contamination of the lead is whether the sources that had been stored in the lead containers had ever leaked any of their radioactive contents. This can be determined readily by taking wipes (small filter papers are convenient) of the inner surfaces of the containers and counting them on an appropriate system. If no radioactivity is detected you should be safe to release the containers.

The radiations, including all gamma radiation, released by any of the medical isotopes that had been stored in the containers would not have been capable of producing any radioactive species in the lead. All of the possible radiations that were released would have interacted in the lead by ionization and excitation processes. These processes would have resulted ultimately in small amounts of heat being released in the lead, but no radioactive species would have been produced. The amounts of heat generated would have been undetectable by touch, and the heat would have dissipated in a short time. There are no residual products that should prevent you from releasing the containers. Make sure, however, that any labels that identify the containers as containing radioactive material have been removed.

[Victor3]

 Years back I was given all of the lead inventory/scrap at our company after they outsourced lead parts (some of which was shielding for Americium 241 sources, emitting alpha & gamma).

 I had a similar question about the safety of the lead and asked our Radiation Safety Officer about it. He gave me a similar answer to what your expert said.

 Far as I know, all of the radioactive material used in medical implants is permanently encapsulated in tiny metal tubes. The lead cases they're stored in do not come into contact with the material itself; they just prevent radiation emitted by the material from escaping the local area until they're implanted. The encapsulated radioactive material does on occasion leak from its capsule, but the quality and safety controls are so stringent that it's very, very rare. I was told that in 20+ years of doing wipe tests on the sources my company used, there was never a leak detected.

 Interesting story our RSO told me...

 He was a consultant, and was called in by a company in Mexico to determine what problems a small AM-241 source (size of a watch battery, he said) might cause if it were processed with a quantity of scrap steel made into rebar. Long story short, it caused big problems. Among other things, they found that a large, multi-story building recently had the foundation made with the stuff. It was so hot that the building couldn't be occupied and had to be torn down. Some of the rest of the rebar had already gone off to parts unknown...

[Cannoneer]

Oh but do read the link in post 27...I suppose as soon as I say it's bullet metal the EPA will run for cover, after getting spanked again this week over messing with bullets.

I had only read the first couple posts on the British forum, so I went back and read the whole thread, and I see what you mean.
That's also what I was saying about some of our government's overzealous agencies; not even taking the radiation into consideration at all, they're so down on lead itself at this time that they don't want any mere civilian to be able to handle it.   

[Double D]

Having a good deal of training and back ground on nuclear interdiction and being trained and later teaching at Interdict Radacad I have a pretty good idea what I was dealing with.  

The story about the rebar Victor tells is referred to at Radacad.  There are plenty of others, that can't be told for security reasons...the security issue being more about how much they would scare people than any real threat.

There was less an issue with the radiation warning symbols--a concern, than here was that the patients name was obliterated before the containers left the lab.

Southpaw and I built a pin punch for use with his arbor press. I made a round anvil to hold the plastic cover and let the inner lead container drop through/  Southpaw weld a pin onto a piece of square tubing  that fit the ram to punch through the palstic and push the leadout through the anvil.

Work pretty slick as we clear 192 pairs in about 2 hours.  The container that didn't have plastic a covers were just spray painted black.





Results a little over 600 lbs of lead alloy.



There never was any concern about contaminated material as the machine used to to unload the seeds monitors and checks for stray radiation and sets off alarms when detected.  The room had radiation detector and they even had a Geiger counter-old technology as a back up.  

Southpaw and I now have enough lead to last as long time...and I heard from him that he may have a source for more bowling balls.

We will have enough ammo to live to a ripe old age.