The Army thought a veteran faked his health issues while having lead poisoning
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
A key factor seems to be the body's propensity to produce metallothionein [1], proteins that bind metallic compounds in the body, either to metabolise and utilise them (in the case of beneficial metals like zinc, copper, iron, selenium etc), or to remove them (in the case of toxic metals like lead, mercury, aluminium, cadmium etc).
This propensity seems to be determined by genetic predisposition and/or genetic expression in response to environmental stimuli.
This is why, in a group of people subjected to similar levels of environmental lead exposure (e.g., soldiers in the same military unit, children in the same town with contaminated water), only some will exhibit symptoms.
Here's my own experience:
I have not done any military service as an adult, nor used firearms more than a handful of times. (I participated in army cadets in high school but it was little more than boy-scout training - camping, survival skills, hiking, etc).
But I did spend a few years in my late teens/early 20s working in an electronics factory soldering circuit boards. I grew up in the last few years of leaded car fuel still being commonplace. I also grew up in an old house that may (or may not) have had lead water pipes.
For much of my life, I've experienced a complex set of vague, but moderately debilitating symptoms. Nothing apparently life-threatening, but always frustrating and often painful.
In childhood it manifested as respiratory problems, learning/cognition difficulties (including modest academic and sporting performance even though I tried hard at both and was often assessed as being of high natural ability), social difficulties, anxiety and mood instability, tinnitus, and digestive issues.
In adulthood it progressed into conditions such as depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, endocrine problems, painful muscle tension in the back, head, neck and hip regions, dizziness/confusion/fuzzy vision at times, among other things that have come and gone along the way.
I happened to do a home urine test just this morning, something I do from time to time. It indicated the presence of lead in my urine, which has routinely been the case for the past year or more.
I've also sent hair samples to a commercial testing lab every 6-24 months over the past 10 years, which have consistently suggested accumulations in my body of lead and other metals including aluminium, cadmium, mercury and others.
People may react with skepticism that home urine tests and commercial hair tests are of any clinical validity.
Fair enough.
But, as the linked article explains, you just can't easily get this stuff considered, tested and diagnosed by mainstream doctors.
I've seen multiple mainstream doctors over the years, and the best they can ever offer is anxiety or anti-depressant medication. They'll run tests on all the standard stuff - cholesterol, Vitamin D, iron... that's usually about it. Everything always shows up close enough to normal and they tell you you're fine and send you on your way.
But despite doctors' assurances, I haven't felt fine, and my ability to live a normal life, compared to most other people I observe, has not been fine.
So I do the only thing that seems to be available to me, which is home urine tests and commercial-lab hair tests. And they tell me something thing that makes sense when I read things like the linked article; there's just too much lead in my body.
In the 10+ years since this possibility became apparent and I started doing these kinds of tests, I've done a lot of work to get my physiology to a state where it could remove the metals from my system. I've considered doing chelation therapy but I understand that carries its own risks (i.e., removing important nutrients and moving toxic metals to areas where they can cause more harm), and that you're better off just supporting your body to detoxify at its own pace.
It seems to be working, slowly but surely. That would be why the lead is showing up in my urine now, after not doing so in the first few years; as alluded to in the article, it's been accumulated in my bones and is now coming out.
My health, and life, is steadily improving. People keep saying I'm looking healthier and functioning better. My fitness keeps improving. My muscle tension and pain keeps subsiding. My work performance and career seems to be on the up.
But boy, it's been tough to get through, and all the more difficult through the lack of mainstream medical recognition, and from the ridicule that inevitably comes your way as soon as you start talking about testing methods and healing techniques that are outside the mainstream.
That's probably the toughest part. I'm a scientifically-minded person from a family of mainstream science and medical professionals, yet due to the hand I've been dealt, in the absence of any other options, I've been forced to venture outside the mainstream, and have found myself being the subject of ridicule and scorn at times.
Anyone who has read this far might want to think about that next time you mock someone for seeking help from non-mainstream practitioners like naturopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, etc. You probably have little idea of just how much difficulty and frustration they've been through before winding up there, or what undiagnosed underlying issue has caused their predicament.
I know I'm not alone in having these challenges, and I know plenty of people have it a lot worse than me - particularly those lacking the financial means and family+social support that I’ve had.
With that in mind, it's high time that we started taking this problem seriously.
Knowing what I know now, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out that lead and other metals toxicity is an explanation for a huge amount of the debilitating illness that mainstream medicine is currently unable to diagnose and treat.
> I've done a lot of work to get my physiology to a state where it could remove the metals from my system.
What does this mean? Are you talking about the usual healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, or something more specific to lead exposure?
> It seems to be working, slowly but surely. That would be why the lead is showing up in my urine now, after not doing so in the first few years; as alluded to in the article, it's been accumulated in my bones and is now coming out.
Does the hair test reflect more your long-term overall health? do the positive urine tests correlate with drops in the hair tests?
> What does this mean? Are you talking about the usual healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, or something more specific to lead exposure?
Nothing specific to lead or metals toxicity, no, at least not these days.
Just a steady effort to look after my body and mind.
In short: sensible diet, a small number of supplements, moderate exercise, some breathing exercises, but a big focus on emotional healing work.
The diet just involves eating a solid amount of animal protein and green vegetables, and avoiding junk. I'm not fastidous these days, as my gut is now pretty tolerant of things, even of gluten and grains if it's in well-made food like good quality pasta or sourdough bread. A coffee or two a day for liver/gallbladder flushing - but not too much as it can bring on anxiety and insomnia if I have too much.
The supplements I currently take are fish oil, a combined calcium+phosphorus+magnesium+VitD tablet, zinc and CoQ10 - but that changes.
The exercise I do is basically just walking or jogging 10,000 steps/day on average, and a bit of boxing bag training every week or two to give the adrenal glands a moderate workout and promote hormone production. Also, a weekly pilates session to stretch muscles and strengthen the core. Regular exercise is particularly important when detoxing, to keep the lymphatic system moving.
Breathing exercises might be just long deep breaths, yoga breathing or occasional "holotropic breathwork" (which is also an emotional healing technique). Breath is one of the major toxin exit pathways, so increasing the respiration rate is a good way to increase detoxification.
A major focus these days is emotional healing practices. I've gone really deep on subconscious emotional healing for about the past 7 years, and I am now comfortable in the belief that there is a strong link between deeply held emotions (trauma, worry, fear, anger, resentment, arrogance) and the body's propensity to retain metals and other toxins. Veteran cell biologist Dr Bruce Lipton [1] seems to be the leading proponent of links between emotions/trauma and genetic expression/physiology (though not specifically to do with metals/toxins, just general physiology). I spend about 30 minutes per day doing that, and see a practitioner about once every two months.
When I started out on this journey about 10 years ago, I went pretty heavily into nutrition-balancing diets and supplements programs, as recommended by Dr Lawrence Wilson [2]. For 2 years I basically just ate animal protein and steamed green vegetables, plus lots of sulphuric vegetables - garlic & leeks mostly. I avoided all gluten grains, sugar, alcohol, nightshade vegetables, anything else that seemed problematic. I also undertook a lot of detox practices - daily infrared saunas for sweating and to reduce inflammation, frequent liver/gallbladder cleansing, detox-promoting supplements like Vit C and taurine.
But I don't really do that stuff anymore. I think it was necessary early on when my body and life were quite seriously out of balance, but as every year passes it becomes more resilient and the need to restrict my diet and undertake unorthodox detox practices keeps subsiding.
> Does the hair test reflect more your long-term overall health? do the positive urine tests correlate with drops in the hair tests?
I started writing an answer to this but it's long and even more convoluted than what I've written above, and I've decided it's not the right forum to go deep into it.
The short version: hair testing and urine testing of nutrients and toxins is a complex business but once you've learned enough about it, it does make sense, and yes the hair test results do align with long-term physiological changes and feelings of wellbeing.
Feel free to email me (address in profile) if you want to know more.
[1] Bruce Lipton is a pioneering stem cell biologist from Stanford, who, in his research, observed the way environmental stimuli substantially alter cell function, and has since gone deep on the topic of epigenetics, i.e., altered gene expression based on environment and emotions/beliefs. His theories are explained in his 2006 best-seller, The Biology of Belief. He's dismissed by some mainstream devotees as a bumbling, ageing quack who handwaves too much about quantum physics, and I find that critique has some merit, but in my experience, what he's right about is far more important than what he's wrong about.
[2] Dr Lawrence Wilson is an Arizona-based physician and naturopath who is the leading proponent of hair-mineral testing and nutritional balancing for healing of chronic illness. He was an acolyte of Dr Paul Eck, who in the 1970s did extensive research into the correlations between hair mineral levels and physiological conditions. I find Wilson's ideas somewhat useful, and were very valuable to me early on my healing journey. However they are limited, and inadequate without other ideas and healing practices, particularly the emotional techniques I've adopted more recently (Wilson considers emotional healing to be vital to overall healing, but his recommended technique is limited to a very basic form of meditation, which I found inadequate). Also, Wilson is a conservative Christian, who has some very old-fashioned and conservative ideas around politics and morality. He'a also dogmatically anti-vax, which I'm not on board with.
Learning how to sort the wheat from the chaff has been one of the most important parts of this process :)
I've had a chronic mercury poisoning, fortunately, after self-diagnosing (but I was unsure, I just had no other options so I pursued the only one that made sense) I found a university clinic researcher doctor who thought the data I had from lab tests supported starting chelation to see if it helped. I got DMPS injected. Initially he said I'm in a "gray area" and that there must be something else. He never found anything else, and the chelation provided miracles. For example, I nodule I had had in my double-normal-size right thyroid for decades, unchanging, within a few months completely disappeared. Fortunately I had just gone to an endocrinologist a short time before to reconfirm that nothing had changed, and after there was a lot of "activity" in that area for weeks, starting after chelation, I went there again. The endocrinologist put me under the ultrasound twice because he did not believe it, but the thyroid was normal size and the nodule - gone.
There is a loooooong list of other things, from RSI, dry eyes, warts on the feet, winter depressions, cold hands and feet, psoriasis, digestion, sleep issues (incl. nightmares - my dreams now are incredibly beautiful and interesting, wow!), occasional cramps, longer and longer colds that in the last years before I was diagnosed only stopped in spring and during winter just didn't want to go away, etc etc. which all completely disappeared!
Every doctor ever, and myself too until I was forced to seek an answer because nobody knew what was going on and just declared me "fine", thought that each of those many many small issues was either normal part of live, due to aging, due to office work, due to "head" (imagination/psychology).
Things like that I had significantly decreased mental abilities and was more easily stressed I only recognized when they disappeared with chelation. Note that I called myself "healthy" until the very last day of escalation, when I was forced to start looking into it, and just like OP got not help from numerous doctors who all just went "by the book" - which has nothing about chronic heavy metal poisoning so it doesn't exist. (Also note that I don't fault any of those doctors, I would go again to every single one of the many I visited if I needed to, but now knowing better how to use their definitely existing and very high expertise.)
But I wanted to answer specifically about your concern about chelators.
After DMPS injections I switched to DMSA orally when I felt small doses over a long time where a far better fit for the remaining (and ever-decreasing) issues. DMSA is a key chelator for lead, secondary for mercury.
First, do look at the profile of the chelator in question. Some EDTA variants indeed remove vital things, but chelators like DMSA actually only remove the "bad" metals - and zinc.
However: I took tons and tons of DMSA for years, 100 mg every 3 hours ("Cutler protocol" - but I did experiments to verify that that recommendation indeed worked best for me, I didn't just take anybody's word any more and did a lot of self-experimentation, and my doctor, all those in my country, only have experience with DMPS injections ("pulse dose")). And yet, I never had any issue with zinc. I substituted a little bit, but far less than recommended. So even on an extreme chelation schedule I never saw any issues for the one "good" metal that both my chelators removed.
If you only do "pulse dose" it is a non-issue to begin with. Only a tiny fraction of whatever metal the chelator binds to is available to get into contact with it, most is stored somewhere. They all only work in extracellular space, and even there only reach a fraction of what's there. The stored metal, both good and bad, don't just slosh around in the watery solution of your extracellular body water or at the walls, most of it is inaccessible to a chelator. So only if you don something as extrem as I did with DMSA is it an issue at all.
Pulse dose DMPS injections, when there actually is a heavy metal to be chelated, indeed are a little hard on ones body, for a day or two. People in an already pretty on-the-edge condition may want to avoid it. I found combining DMPS injection followed by DMSA "a la Cutler" for a week helped. Just Cutler was/is far milder, and you can adjust your dose downwards (or start very low to begin with).
DMSA in food grade is pretty cheap when bought in bulk from China, who are the main makers of that chemical (Russians invented DMPS in the 1960s, but other countries make it too, in Germany e.g. "Dimaval" from Heyl, but that's not the main chelator for lead, so just FYI.
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By the way, even though I studied CS and business, I have a significant background in physiology, anatomy, chemistry/org.chem./bio.chem., statistics (and reading papers) so that I am very comfortable with all the basics, even if I know nothing about diseases (interest in how things work, but not in becoming a doctor who knows how things break). So I'm not prone to fall for wild esoterics but actually read papers and talked to scientists such as my researcher doctor.
What I find remarkable is that the problems of heavy metals are actually all known, for many decades. After all, the world abolished lead from fuel (except for small airplanes fuel) - quite a feat when they have trouble to come together to do anything else about subjectively more obvious issues. Also, you can find on many websites from organizations such as the NIH and other reputable sources, the medicinal threshold for lead is zero. Same for mercury. When I took a course about water treatment (Tufts University) the topic "lead" was a whole quarter of the course. A medical professor explained at length why zero is the desirable level.
So, people - doctors, officials, "the Internet" (commenters) - have no problem recognizing it as a problem. However, whenever there actually is a patient going to a doctor, heavy metals never play a role, unless it is one of the exceedingly rare acute poisonings, mostly industrial, and when you ask about it you are a nut case, and not all those ignoring well-established science.
His books are considered "gold standard." They are generally deemed to have better information than most doctors do about safe, proper chelation. You can tell they are still highly valued by people trying to cure themselves after all their doctors have failed them based on their high prices for used paperbacks:
https://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Hall-Cutler/e/B001K8VH30/ref=d...
I ignored all the rest, I think he recommends quite a few supplements. Also, I did not trust any person's advice. I tried it all on myself to see what actually worked. The only thing that I had clinical evidence for, according to my doctor, was the infrequent high-dose DMPS treatment, so for anything else I was on my own (not trusting Internet forum comments reporting success for this or that, including Cutler).
I did quite a few experiments, including a few times attempting to use DMSA capsules pulse dose, >500mg all at once and only one time, which a lot of doctors here (those few that use chelation) recommend. With that method I had significant side effects for days, unlike with the Cutler method. I found the minimum of three days that Cutler recommends to really be the absolute minimum, but I would set a better minimum at five days. I mostly did at least 7 days and up to three weeks at a time - with no little substitution of anything except for some (very little) zinc. No signs of a lack of zinc, ever, and just to be sure I read all I could about possibly symptoms. Of course, different people may have different results, apparently my body can compensate, probably by excreting less zinc and by getting more from food.
Also, I deviated from Cutler in two ways: One, he say that one should stop a round when one misses a dose by more than half an hour. I thought about it and the only way that that made sense was when I see it as a "psychological" rule, he wanted to prevent people from thinking "oh it doesn't matter" because a lot of people would drop a few doses if it was made too easy. However, when you genuinely miss a dose and ignore that larger problem it does not make sense to stop. Second, when my problems became less and my body "learned" the rhythm, and I didn't actually need an alarm any more, and when my body showed that it learned to "use" the rhythm, shortening the periods between waking up in times of greater stress all on its own (and more so at the beginning of sleep), I experimented with turning off the nightly alarm completely and letting my brain decide on its own whether it was better to wake up or to continue sleep past the four hour period. It turned out to feel much better. I have to emphasize that I only did this after my brain had proven for years that it had not just accepted the rhythm, but actively "used it", not just enduring it.
But a word to the wise: Improper chelation has a nasty track record of making things worse. It's not really a good problem space for randomly trying stuff and seeing what works.
For example, there is a pattern that at first levels measured an hour after injection (DMPS is quickly excreted, mostly through kidneys) after the first couple of injections drop, but then suddenly jump up. That seems to be a sign that now the body starts its own "detox", which seems to have been overwhelmed and now, through the DMPS injections freed again. I had exactly this, after the fourth or fifth injection my values tripled after having decreased linearly, and my body became very "active" (including that thyroid, see my initial post).
I also had areas of jaw bone that were severely broken - a subcutaneous needle for buccal mucosa injection penetrated deep into the bone in several places, a very, very bad sign (you cannot penetrate bone with a small needle, not unless it's already severely disintegrating). My doctor injected DMPS right there, not deliberately breaking into bone, only where the needle easily penetrated on its own, with very little pressure. That started a lot of activity in my jaw bones, and after a year he could no longer penetrate the bone. My jaw bone issues, some of them existing for decades, continued to diminish and have now almost completely disappeared (and the rest will be gone too in time). All thanks to DMPS injections.
Opinion of those doctors here doing research and writing the books is that DMPS injections are orders of magnitude faster. From my experience I would agree. I still did (and do) DMPS injections, very infrequently, and there's a lot more happening all at once compared to low-dose DMSA. The method is heavily used here and experiences are good. Those doctors using it communicate quite a bit. I think if they saw danger they would have noticed by now. The method has been in use for decades now. Max Daunderer, a clinical toxicologist, came up with it originally during years of practice and that's the reason this is being used here so much.
Even more: During the harder years sometimes I ran into a road block with DMSA and Cutler. Then taking a DMPS injection quickly removed the symptoms and cleared the way to go back to DMSA and Cutler.
What ended up helping you the most?
As it comes out, make absolutely sure you get enough calcium. People chelating for lead have sometimes been known to end up with a broken bone because the lead was removed from their bones and not replaced with adequate amounts of calcium.
In order to properly absorb calcium, you also need magnesium, vitamin K and vitamin D. Tinnitus can be caused by a magnesium deficiency, so I'm guessing you are likely short on all of the above.
Lead seems to be related to both calcium and phosphorus deficiency, so supplementing both whilst detoxing lead seems worthwhile.
[1] https://iherb.com/pr/enzymatic-therapy-calcium-with-magnesiu...
It's encouraging to get detailed accounts of similar experiences that have positive outcomes.
I like to think I'm coming out the other side with a fairly solid set of experiences and suggestions for others to consider. I hope to be able to share what I've learned more widely and perhaps even get some serious research happening so it can stop being stuck in the fringes.
My email address is in my HN profile - feel free to put your brother in touch if he wants more info or to be kept updated on what I'm doing.
My experience with trying to get a medical professional to actually give a shit about the matter is exceptionally frustrating. Every doctor that I've ever spoken to have all come just short of laughing in my face when I try to self diagnose myself, and without exception, try to send me to get blood tests - which give no indication of lead poisoning except in recent exposure. I really just want some closure on this, since I know there's not much I can do treatment wise. Getting a doctor to take it seriously is an uphill battle...
I started keeping lead-removal wipes in all my range bags after this. The number of times I've seen people go through 500-1k rounds at the range in the morning during a class, then eat a sandwich or something without even washing hands, is..a lot.
.22 ammo is the worst in this regard, just lead everywhere - which given that it's usually used in bulk given how cheap it is...
(I'm pretty much a 9mm shooter (124gr CCI/Speer TMJ Lawman 124gr, or Gold Dots -- or SIG Frangible when I'm at SIG Academy or TR; 5.56 ranging from cheap M193 to M855 to non-penetrator 62gr to 75gr or 77gr TAP or OTM/IMI Razorcore. I also run a fair bit of 12ga. Worst thing I do is a RH X95 bullpup, suppressed, in off-hand drills, which is basically all the exhaust in my face/neck area on every shot.)
Lead can be the cause of mental retardation and blindness in toddlers and babies also.
Make the plunge and pay for a lead test that you'll trust and then be satisfied with the results if they come back OK.
And remember that vitamin C increases excretion of lead in small furry mammals.
For these reasons the Army has expressed an interest in developing a non-toxic rifle bullet that’s cheap enough for their usages. Swaged copper bullets exist, but at ~$1 a pop they’re appropriate for hunters and not for an army that goes through billions of bullets.
Unfortunately many people on the webs are upset about this, perhaps out of the misguided opinion that we’re not being cruel enough in our foreign wars. In reality it’s well within US interests to reduce lead exposure to soldiers and combat zone civilians, especially to ensure that those zones transition better to peace once the fighting is over.
At least that should slightly decrease the concentration of any single material when large quantities of bullets pile up.
Don't worry, then. They've been using depleted uranium rounds, too.
Well, I guess consideration for anything except mission results is too much to ask of an organization like a military...
Depleted Uranium tank shells don’t produce too much dust, because of Uranium’s habit of braking into large pointed shards. This “self sharpening” aspect is why the material is used. But when it’s used in thermobaric arms, watch out.
Has there been a study showing this correlation? As far as I know, countries that were shattered in World War 2, like Japan and Germany, are less violent on average, than the US. And note: the mainland continental US has been relatively at peace, and has not had any major domestic hostilities since 1865.
Also, have bullets always (historically) had lead? Or is this something that only newer ammo (since WWII) have?
Mainland Japan did not see any ground fighting, only firebombing and the two atomic bombs. Therefore, one would not expect the locals to have been exposed to the results of infantry firing thousands and thousands of bullets.
By the time the frontline reached Germany, the war was almost over.
Yes, but the volume has been way smaller before, until the advent of automated weapon in the 20 th century.
Some really early ones used stones or wooden bolts but firearms hadn't really taken off then and they fell into obscurity for a reason.
Before they also had more common /even worse/ practices like casting bullets by campfire for better fit and logistics than early manufacturing.
Even in inhabited parts of France they have an “iron harvest” as plows continue to turn up unexploded ordinance.
US Army switched over to the lead-free M855A1 cartridge back in 2010. The new round has better performance overall and costs only 5 cents more per round than the old leaded M855.
Disappointingly enough, the Marines only just adopted the M855A1 in 2018, and the USAF has no intention to do so.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO#M855A1
To be fair, the USAF doesn't do any ground combat with small arms that I'm aware of. Most likely, the only thing they do with that cartridge in deployment is to give it to their security forces, who are basically just guards and almost never use their weapons in combat these days. I'd be a lot more worried about what the USAF uses in much larger rounds, which they fire from aircraft.
The .30 will reliably put opponents down very well, even with the required FMJ rounds. The .30 stuff is far better at hard barrier penetration than the 5.56. The .30 turns cars and walls into concealment rather than actual cover. The 5.56 suffers here unless it's a crew served weapon that can chew through barriers.
I understand the reasons for going to the 5.56. I lived through the transition from the .45 to the 9MM, which was and is lamented by the USMC. The 9MM is analogous to the 5.56/.30 issue. NATO compatibility is the sole reason, but the troops suffer from the lack of power these rounds offer. In the gas-operated weapons used, recoil difference is negligible, since the system soaks up the recoil pretty well, and when the adrenaline runs, recoil and noise are not really noticed anyway.
Given the rapid growth in hard armor that can take a few 5.56mm rounds before failing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see militaries shift more towards a 6.5 or 7mm cartridge with a hardened steel penetrator.
What most people don't understand is the troop loadout for combat ops. Men are not dripping with weapons and rounds per Hollywood. The standard loadout is an M4 rifle with 6 30-round magazines (180 rounds). If you are issued a handgun, that is 3 15-round magazines for an additional 45 rounds of ammunition, albeit in the "weak" 9mm, which is a get-off-me gun meant for house-to-house, close quarters fighting where a long gun would be unwieldy.
As you suggest, there is a large push to go to the 6mm/243/6.5, which offers SUBSTANTIAL performance benefits over the 5.56. A .243 (6mm) is pushing more ballistic energy at 500M than a 5.56 does at 100M. That's a lot more. And the rounds don't weigh that much more or take up that much more space. Recoil, likewise, is negligible at best due to the gas-operated platform. But, NATO... NATO is sold on the idea of 5.56 and 9mm. I think that DMs should be issued the better long guns to deal with issues the 5.56 cannot handle.
That might be the reason for continuing to use 5.56mm, but it looks like America actually adopted the cartridge first.
Most bullets are fired in training, an copper is recyclable, so cleaning up bullets is feasible. It might even be an opportunity for boots to relieve their boredom and learn about weapon systems
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3464374/
So it wouldn't surprise me if many soldiers would be affected too.
Uranium is probably more harmful in terms of heavy metal poisoning than it is in terms of radioactivity.
Second, the copper jacket on rounds like the cheap stuff you train with tend not cover the back of the round leaving exposed lead - so a lot of lead fouling gets generated by the hot gases atomizing the lead on the tail of the bullet. That makes it into the air, ground, and surroundings when you fire. So you breath some in before the range ventilation ever has a chance. I feel that's probably especially bad at indoor ranges because you've got partitions on either side of you. lead's also great at sticking to shoes, clothes, etc and going home with you. So - de-leading soap ftw!
Some rifles make this worst (especially if shooting suppressed or if you're a lefty) because the gas is much closer and much more in your face).
Most indoor ranges also have subpar ventilation. So if shoot at the indoor range i try to limit my time, ask to be on a range with less other active shooters, use fully enclosed metal jacketed round's, use de-leading wipes when I'm done, and don't bring my shoes into the house when I get home. Really, I just stick to outdoor ranges where I can snag a big private bay. Even then, I still use de-leading wipes on all the things.
That costs extra.
Source: Bitter veteran
It will seem as dumb as using radium paint and radioactive "tonics" except that radiotherapy is a legitimate thing unlike lead therapy.
Lead has a bunch of important uses, such as for solder (lead-free solder has problems with growing tin whiskers and is more brittle, so leaded solder is still used for safety-critical applications). It's safe as long as it's handled safely (e.g., don't do things that will make it airborne and then breathe it!), just like any other toxic substance. There's many, many materials that are highly toxic and dangerous, but are extremely useful, so you just need to handle them safely.
Whoa. 3571 rounds per day for every day for 42 days?
I served 8 years in the USMC and was in a combat MOS. I doubt there was a weapon in the inventory we didn't touch on a somewhat regular basis (individual and crew served). In my units, our commanders were positively insistent we learned not only our own weapon systems, but also those of potential enemies. To that effect, there were a number of captured AK-47s, AK-74s, RPKs, Makarov, Tokarev, Mosin-Nagant, you name it in our unit armory. We learned them all (and cleaned them all). We also learned the weapons systems of our allies, like the British, French, and Israelis when we had military exchange programs, which are tons of fun.
Unless you are in a combat MOS, you are pretty safe being in the rear with the gear, as it were.
The vast majority are techs and support troops.
The USMC has the most strenuous small arms requirements outside of actual special forces. It starts in boot camp and you must qualify every year until reaching E-8 or 0-5, respectively. The Corps is HUGE on marksmanship, and Marines are expected to hit targets out to 500M with iron sights, although these days, the kids get ACOGS, which I didn't have. Pistol out to 25M. Your promotion, in part, depends on how well you do. No one wants to go unq (unqualified) or not much better, wear the lowest level, which is Marksman (referred to as Pizza Box) due to the shape of the medal one must wear on their uniform.
Maybe put down the POG Kool-Ade and take a deep breath?
> although these days, the kids get ACOGS, which I didn't have
If you were the Commandant would you change this? Everyone has an ACOG on their weapon in the fleet; doesn't it make sense to train like you fight?
The ACOG vs iron sight thing has been a discussion for a long time. Basic marksmanship is better taught with iron sights, scopes are awesome for real use.
Do we care about achieving some kind of platonic ideal of proper marksmanship instruction, or do we care about familiarizing Marines with the weapons system configuration they are going to actually use if they one day have the privilege of launching rounds down a two-way range?
To be clear these are not mutually exclusive -- you still learn marksmanship when you qual with an ACOG, despite the protestations of Old Corps internet hardos -- but the latter should still be the priority.
The whole KD range routine is outdated anyway, no matter how much nostalgia we may have for the RSOs' funny hats and the "youmayfirewhenyourTAAAAAAAAARGETappears" spiel delivered over the inevitably shitty loudspeaker.
It's not a "platonic ideal", basic marksmanship is the foundation of all shooting. If you can't do it, you shouldn't be on a pop up range or any other.
I'm not claiming that shooting with an acog is bad, and they're used plenty in training -- but an acog is a crutch if you don't know how to shoot. Anybody can shoot well with a scope, it takes real work to get hits at 500 yards with iron sights. Your fundamentals must be perfect, and that's the standard the USMC has always held.
Sorry for hurting your feelings with my last post.
> The little 5.56 is largely a poodle shooter unless you're within 100M. .30 any day, every day.
Served me just fine in OIF. You ever deploy or are you getting your info from Soldier of Fortune?
Try an M-14 out for size or even an AR-10. World of difference. The power factor between the two calibers is simply apples and oranges.
Mk262 is quite effective and 5.56 is used by many militaries including the US.
"power factor"(that's actually a gun game term as I recall, I've never heard a SEAL/Ranger/Marine or infantryman use it) has nothing to do with terminal ballistics, weight of ammunition an infantryman has to carry, or performance of the weapons.
The AR-10 is notoriously finnicky and there is zero logistics train to support it anywhere in the world as it's not an issue weapon anywhere in the world, the M14 platform is far heavier than the M4 and has a variety of problems that were solved by the M16/M4, etc. etc. etc.
And despite what Old Corps gun nuts might tell you, there is plenty of "power factor" (LOL) in the 5.56 round. It gets the job done....
It's a great round -- I love 5.56.
Being that the average Infantry loadout is still 6 30-round magazines and a pistol with 3 15-round magazines, I'll take the heavier 6MM or .30 since the weight difference is not that great.
The M-249 SAW is a fine weapon and I've used them several times. They are good for what they are designed for, which is laying down suppressive fire for a squad. I still agree with the Russian doctrine of one DM per squad. If every squad had long(er) range capability, this would go a long way to helping squads not have to call in LR support or use the SAW so much.
You're obviously an intelligent man, and I agree with you on some points, but you also have to remember that the Marines and Army do things differently. The tactics and weapons doctrines are much different. The Army does this better in some instances. I admire the FFL and how they do squad and platoon tactics. Those guys are extremely well trained, often better than us, and they don't tend to wait around for permission when the SHTF, something that has gotten many a soldier and Marine killed. Say what you want about the French or Russians, but they give their platoons much more leeway in combat ops. Americans, since Vietnam, need to have almost express permission to engage unless directly fired upon.
Having said all of this, I'm not a war planner or an expert, just one man's experience and observations. We (Americans) can and should learn from other forces. They often do things better. For example, we send the 82nd to French Guiana for jungle warfare. We send troops (A & M) to Israel to learn CQC. The Philippine Marines are likewise excellent jungle fighters.
6mm and 30 are "better" if you don't have to carry it -- you're also forgetting the weapon is much heavier. For the vast majority of infantry encounters, it adds zero capability to the fight.
I'm curious as to when you were in the military, and what military you were in.
Editing to answer forgotten point: The new 6MM AR-pattern rifles weigh no more than their 5.56 counterparts empty, and very little difference loaded. The size and weight of the ammo is likewise negligible. These are being tested by the US at the moment in certain theaters and are well liked. They are being considered as DM rifles, which makes perfect sense. The US is taking a page out of Russia's book to have a DM per squad. This should have been done ages ago. For little weight gain, you add serious capability. The 6MM is no slouch, and has the best ballistic coefficient of any round in the inventory. The facts are out there to read. It's all very interesting.
I'm well aware of the USMC issues and funding.
Yes, the 6mm rifles are the same pattern, I should have clarified that I was talking about M14s in that comment, the difference is that NATO 5.56 is logistically supported world-wide by both us and our NATO allies. Realistically there are only two cartridges for infantry use worldwide -- 5.56 and 7.62x39. 7.62x39 has many issues that make it unsuitable for our uses, and 5.56 is the cartridge like it or not. A huge amount of R&D has taken place in the 5.56 world since 94, and the MK262 and others address all of the issues you've raised with it except for penetration of heavy cover, which is not generally relevant.
The US has used DMs for decades, using M14s or even other weapons. Replacing a DM weapon with another weapon is not what you have been arguing for, and is not relevant to the discussion of general purpose infantry weapon issue, which will essentially always be 5.56 until there is some impetus for all of NATO to change. Given the current state of that world, that's not likely to ever happen.
The M-14 is on the way out as a DM rifle anyway in favor of newer platforms like the HK417 or FN MK20. We can disagree all day long, but ballistics don't lie. The 5.56 is barely an intermediate round. It's still a .22 caliber round with all the inherent faults. The Corps referred to it as a "poodle shooter" when I served. It wasn't well liked. Ditto the myriads of soldiers I know who share a disdain for it.
I find it interesting that of all the people I know who are civilian shooters who were in the military in combat MOSs and who use an MSR of some type, none are in 5.56. They are either in .243, 6.5. or 7.62. You can guess why. They don't trust the 5.56 round other than for nuisance animals like coyotes. I've seen coyotes take 5.56 rounds center mass behind either leg and limp off to die in the bush. Never seen or had this happen to me or guys I hunt with using a .243, 6.5, or 7.62. They are DRT. And we don't hunt with FMJ.
If a superior (than issue) round being used on coyotes is suspect on occasion, you can imagine the troops who actually need decent rounds are hungry for something that actually performs as it should. 5.56 has been shown to be weak and ineffective except in a crew-served hail of rounds scenario or extremely close in. 6mm/.30 allows troops to keep the enemy further out there while still taking them down.
Military is working to get off the 5.56... https://www.military.com/kitup/2018/04/11/marines-working-ar...
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/10/05/the-army...
I'm done with this discussion, as almost everything you're posting is just made up absurdity at this point.
5.56 has been used to great effect since the Vietnam war. It's still in use by the entire NATO alliance and will likely be the cartridge of choice there for the next forty years as well.
Please, stop pretending to be combat savvy because you got to hang out with the FilMars in the late 80's / early 90's. No shame in that, but please stop trying to BS everyone with the tough talk. HN is better than this.
> If every squad had long(er) range capability, this would go a long way to helping squads not have to call in LR support or use the SAW so much.
Are you arguing that >5.56mm precision rifle fires are fungible with belt fed weapons? That having more of the former available means less need for the latter? Seriously?
One concept that appears not to register with you is the USMC's ability and tendency to task organize and adapt in forward deployed environments. DMRs were de facto standard 1 per squad in AFG post around 2010 but were rarely if ever used in OIF (not including the occasional addition of an actual STA team to patrols). These decisions were and are normally made at the company level by young Marines in the field, not by gun nut keyboard warriors on a couch back home.
This is the essence of veteran entitlement that I absolutely loathe. Non-veterans absolutely get to have an opinion about all things military, and they should, given civilian control of DoD. I'm embarrassed by fellow vets like you, USMC or not, who try to lord the fact that they served over others who want to contribute to military-related discussions.
And, in my OPINION, civilian control of the military is one of the reasons we haven't won a war since WWII.
So....you're saying that we should be ruled by a military junta?
You're aware that civilians have controlled the US military for as long as the US has been an independent country, right?