Pellets - indoor safe?

[kaushiknfs]

Hello folks,

I just ordered SDB frontier air pistol for fun plinking, mostly indoors, I also ordered 2 bags of local pellets from the same guy. I'm yet to receive the stuff, but had a curious question.

Are the pellets made of lead or tin or iron? if its lead, is it safe to store them indoors? any lead poisoning concerns? also if there are any left over lead pellets on the floor from indoor plinking, is it safe from lead poisoning? There are no kids or pets at home yet.

Please advise. Thanks

[essdee1972]

As long as you wash your hands after handling pellets, and ensure that there are no leftover pellets on the floor after plinking, there shouldn't be any issue. Do get / make a pellet trap to save yourself / others / stuff from ricochets, as well as to get over the trouble of sweeping up spent pellets.

When you do get kids and/or pets, keeping them out of the plinking room during a session, till cleanup happens, should ensure no lead poisoning issues. I have a kid and a dog, and none of them have till date, ingested a pellet. My kid has been shooting, on and off, since he was 7 or so.

I don't like to go against accepted medical wisdom, but seeing that any gun user of olden times probably handled lead bullets or pellets without any precautions, plus lead pipes being the default option for carrying water till a few decades ago, I do have my doubts over the lead poisoning scare.

However, better safe than sorry!

[kaushiknfs]

Thanks a lot @essdee1972 for the detailed answer.

About the other question, are pellets we buy, by default lead ? unless specified?

Thanks,

[ofbiro]

Dear colleagues,
The danger of lead poisoning has been enormously exaggerated by the media.
With the exception of certain American swamps where waterfowls had been shot for centuries (before the introduction of industrial breeding) no cases of lead poisoning due to bullets, shot, and pellets happened.
In Italy, where I live, the only areas where water and soil contain traces of lead are in the Center and in Sardinia, where lead mines existed.
The regions where WWI was fought in 1915-1918 do not show any dangerous concentration.
In Greenland, where people consume the highest quantity of venison per head (try to be vegetarian with that climate) children shwwed dangerous concentration of lead in blood. Right, but don't forget that Greenland is rather rich with lead ore (there are mines). It is not known whether the lead is coming from projectiles or water.
This not a reason for chewing lead, neither for keeping food and beverages in lead containers, but these are elementary precautions, like not eating a rotting fruit found in the garbage!
Trust in Lord and keep the powder dry!

[essdee1972]

About the other question, are pellets we buy, by default lead ? unless specified?

I think so, unless you go for the premium (or weird, or imported, or match, or something I don't recall) models. They do have some alloying (there are threads here, but I am having a lazy Friday afternoon!!) but I believe the bulk of the alloy would be lead.