Polymer Smoke Health Issues ?

[blkbrd]

Polymer and moly coated bullets are an attractive cheap alternative to the sky rocketing cost of jacketed bullets, while they do smoke alot less than lead or the lead bullet lubricants, they do have some major health drawbacks. The smoke from burning polymer's, moly. and homopolymers may be worse for you than even lead or older bullet lube's.

They don't shoot so well with very fast burning powders:

We use fast burning powders combined with heavy bullets in the pursuit of softer feeling loads, the faster we can go the softer. That's why 320, 310, Tightgroup and Clays are so popular. We have accepted some pure accuracy loss in the pursuit of the holy grail of soft shooting clean loads. The problem is fast burning powders generate more of a pressure spike and heat at the heal and on the bearing surfaces of the bullet. This is why the coated bullet manufacturers recommend slower powders like bullseye shooters would use.

In the guns I have tried them in they are actually more accurate than plated, although not near so as jacketed hollow points. They were horrible and messy in my open gun.

Is lead really the bad guy, not so sure? Checkout the MSDS sheets on those slick coatings.

While Teflon, Molybdenum, and Homopolymers are pretty much inert and safe when in there solid states, they become completely different beasts when heated or burned. The new MSDS sheets on Teflon and the various homopolymers read like a who's who of nasty inhalants when burned.

Teflon:

When temperatures exceed 750 degrees Fahrenheit Teflon will undergo thermal decomposition and will emit ACUTELY toxic vapors. These vapors include Hexafluoropropylene, Perfluoroisobutylene and Carbonyl Fluoride.

Aspiration of these wonderful gases may lead to pulmonary edema. Exposure to thermo-degradation products may cause influenza-like symptoms also known as "Polymer fume fever condition" such as chills, headache, mild respiratory discomfort, shaking of the limbs, and high fever. And after long term, cancer.

Homopolymers:

Homopolymers emit Formaldehyde gas when heated and or burned. Formaldehyde is another well known chronic inhalation carcinogen.

Do your own MSDS checks and decide for yourself. Now I know why I hate the smell of the coated bullets even worse than the lead shooters smoke plumes. The problem is its easy to test for lead buildup but not so for polymer or formaldehyde poisioning.

Its jacketed hollow points ,CMJ or plated for me. JM2C

[Front Man]

When I was young tooth paste came in lead tubes.

Any chemical that ends with ene is bad news from what I understand.

Polymer and teflon should be OK outdoors?

FM

[lmccrock]

Topic comes up on other forums, usually about an AR15 with a CLP which includes Teflon, and/or moly bullets or barrel treatments. Good question would be, how much teflon or moly or polymer is on a bullet and how does it translate into volume of gas?

We have accepted some pure accuracy loss in the pursuit of the holy grail of soft shooting clean loads

I guess I do not keep current. The most accurate load I had lately was Billy bullets (moly) with Titegroup (slow). This load was more accurate than the other bullets I tried since, Rainier plated and Zero FMJ. I am still working on the Zero load; it groups roughly 2" at 10 yards (the Billy loads shot into <1"). Granted, these are 45, not your open loads.

Any chemical that ends with ene is bad news

Maybe not a bad generalization, but had a store-bought banana lately? You had ethylene, which plants generate naturally, and is used commercially to speed ripening of bananas.

Lee

[stubbicatt]

Topic comes up on other forums, usually about an AR15 with a CLP which includes Teflon, and/or moly bullets or barrel treatments. Good question would be, how much teflon or moly or polymer is on a bullet and how does it translate into volume of gas?

We have accepted some pure accuracy loss in the pursuit of the holy grail of soft shooting clean loads

I guess I do not keep current. The most accurate load I had lately was Billy bullets (moly) with Titegroup (slow). This load was more accurate than the other bullets I tried since, Rainier plated and Zero FMJ. I am still working on the Zero load; it groups roughly 2" at 10 yards (the Billy loads shot into <1"). Granted, these are 45, not your open loads.

Any chemical that ends with ene is bad news

Maybe not a bad generalization, but had a store-bought banana lately? You had ethylene, which plants generate naturally, and is used commercially to speed ripening of bananas.

Lee

I used to work in a produce warehouse where the shop foreman would set off those cannisters of ethylene gas to get the bananas to ripen. Between that stuff, which takes your breath away, and those gawdawful banana spiders, I used to hate going into the banana lockers.

All of these chemicals are hazardous to some degree or other. The plated bullets offer a cost favorable alternative I suppose. They shoot more accurately than I can shoot them, but I still like the masterblaster bullets better. The difference is price is pretty significant.

[Joe4d]

Several years ago (POP Science magazine ) a bunch of wiz kids no doubt armed with a fat taxpayer funded grant decided to do a study on toxic chemicals and heavy metals in people in the US.. So like any good scientist they needed a control group. Although they got volunteers from all over the country, rural, city , prison, etc etc, the experimental study was scrapped because they were unable to find anyone with out some kinda contamination.