Yeah, I probably could have made that a little more clear on that, I did mention jacketed bullets help mitigate your lead exposure, and that it’s not necessary 0 exposure from the projectile, but probably could have given a little more details on that

In my defense though, I don’t think I’ve actually even seen unjacketed ammo in person since I was in boy scouts shooting the cheapest bulk .22 ammo known to man at the summer camp shooting range. I’d almost have to go out of my way to find unjacketed ammo around me these days, even most cheap bulk .22 I see is jacketed now.

It’s definitely out there for some rounds though, and of course reloaders.

Closest I’ve seen in some time is softpoint .45-70 my friend has for his lever gun, and now that I’m thinking about that I’m curious how that stacks up against FMJ as far as lead exposure, since presumably that exposed lead soft point probably shouldn’t really be engaging with the rifling or sides of the barrel.

Well you should be washing your hands, and using lead removal soap for washing probably wouldn’t be a bad idea

But with soldering, unless you’re doing something really wrong, you’re not really going to be spraying lead around the room, to settle on your clothes and such and your soldering iron or even a standard blowtorch torch isn’t anywhere near hot enough to vaporize lead, so inhalation isn’t really a risk (to say nothing about fumes from your flux or whatever else you might end up burning, good ventilation is still a very good idea) and hopefully you’re not soldering on any kind of food prep surfaces.

With shooting, there’s a lot more risk of airborne particles and bullet fragments and such as well as fumes from lead based chemicals in the primers, so lead kind of gets everywhere.

FYI, a significant amount of lead exposure from shooting isn’t really from the bullets but from the primers which contain lead compounds.

The lead in the bullet is going downrange, and is often jacketed in something like copper, you’re not gonna come in contact with a whole lot of lead from handling most ammo, and there’s absolutely some amount of fragmentation and fouling and such happening, but lead from the bullet isn’t exactly getting sprayed all around.

But the primer absolutely does vaporize a bunch of lead compounds and you can inhale those fumes and particles settle on your clothes and such. Lead free primers are out there, but they’re not very common, and a lot of people find them to be more unreliable.

Now lead exposure from the actual projectiles isn’t zero, and there’s no real safe level of lead exposure, so don’t get complacent about that either, but in the grand scheme it’s often not the biggest issue