DK Firearms

Lead nuclear container

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  • Rottweiler

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    Apr 6, 2008
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    Hill Country
    Absorbed radiation.....NO. Y'all are thinking of contamination. I've worked in the nuclear power industry for over 14 years. That lead pig is harmless in regards to anything being radioactive. The mantles on your Coleman lanterns will emit more radiation that lead pig, YES REALLY. An easy was to keep this straight is this. Think of radioactive material as poop. When you smell it, that is radiation, when you step in it that is contamination.
     
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    jordanmills

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    Sep 29, 2009
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    Used = absorbed radiation?

    This is something I was wondering about....

    Only for certain emitters, only for certain objects. It's almost certainly a shroud for a cesium tracker/gamma ray generator used in oil and gas drilling and transport. Gamma rays are capable of ionizing common matter, and generally have enough energy to ionize lead, but lead has four stable isotopes and the unstable natural isotopes have half-lives measured in multiples of the assumed age of the universe, so even lead that is thoroughly ionized from a medium energy source like a gamma emitter is stable. There is practically no danger that the pig is deadly.

    The possible danger is that it has been contaminated. If the emitter vessel was damaged, some of the emitter could have leaked and become stuck in the pig. That is VERY unlikely, as it would certainly have been detected in one of several safety checks. Since nothing was mentioned about lots of people in the immediate area of the open end of the pig dying of organ failure and cancer, we can reasonably assume that it is not contaminated. You could always have someone with a Geiger counter come out to be sure. Personally, at this point, I would consider the greatest danger of handling that pig to be an accidental drop leading to smashed toes, and the second to be absorption of lead through the skin from handling it (lead is a mild neurotoxin).

    Or it could be a weight from a net.
     

    jordanmills

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    Sep 29, 2009
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    Absorbed radiation.....NO. Y'all are thinking of contamination. I've worked in the nuclear power industry for over 14 years. That lead pig is harmless in regards to anything being radioactive. The mantles on your Coleman lanterns will emit more radiation that lead pig, YES REALLY. An easy was to keep this straight is this. Think of radioactive material as poop. When you smell it, that is radiation, when you step in it that is contamination.

    Well there is some poop that will make other stuff poopy from smelling it. Cesium will do it, but lead can't have that done to it unless it's by something that has a much sharper stink than cesium.
     

    Paul5388

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    Feb 17, 2013
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    Rusk County
    Elemental lead is basically inert and it isn't readily metabolized by normal humans, or ducks. The problem is more with lead oxide that was used for years in paint and primers for paint. That also means your property that's next to a highway isn't contaminated from tetraethyl lead used as an octane booster.

    The pig I have is one of 6 I used to have, but some of them have become bullets!
     

    Andy

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    Sep 13, 2013
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    Dallas, TX
    Since I'm not smart enough to find the thread where these were mentioned, I guess a new thread is called for. I've had this last container since about 1984.

    Here ya go, Paul: http://www.texasguntalk.com/forums/reloading/51075-casting-45-rn-bullets-3.html

    My wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and stage 3A lung cancer - we're going through chemo at the moment, with radiation to come. Obviously, I'm not wanting in any way to be insensitive when it comes to the nuclear medicine part of things, but the caster in me is admittedly curious... :)
     
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