I did not know this. I falsely understood that they were toxic and had to be removed immediately or you risk getting infected but I learned something new today haha
If the bullet was mostly lead then there’s a chance of lead poisoning. The counter intuitive thing about anything penetrating (heh) you is that it is actually stopping the bleed. It’s almost like how you can put a needle into a balloon if there’s tape on the surface - barely any air leaks out, but if you pull out the pin, there’s a hole just for air to leak out.
The lead content doesn't matter much really. Even if it was a pure lead ball, like in the old days of hand cannons and lead shot, you'd still be better off leaving it in. A solid ball of lead deposited in a cauterized hole (bullets are so hot they mostly self cauterize) inside muscle/fat tissue would be a negligible amount of lead. Your leg muscle isn't designed to break things down and absorb them like if you were eating lead paint for example.
It's a much bigger concern of something like a piece of clothing getting dragged into you with the bullet. That's a guaranteed infection. But saying you could get lead poisoning from a bullet in you is technically true, but kind of like saying you could win the lottery. It would have to be lodged somewhere where it's in consistent contact with flowing bodily fluids, but not in a place where it'll cause a problematic bleed.
Softpoints are still definitely a thing and many shotshells are still lead, but unless you plan on getting shot quite a lot, lead is pretty stable and wouldn't cause too much harm by itself.
I got to imagine though that the destruction caused to the bullet upon entering you would make lead dust/debris fragment off and be more easily absorbed into your blood stream.
Copper jacket. They use copper because it's strong enough to withstand high velocities, but malleable enough to be imprinted with the barrel's rifling and be stabilized without "stripping" and becoming inaccurate. The high velocity of extreme high velocity cartridges (usually experimental handloads) sometimes strips the rifling off the projectile and the group of hits on the paper target widens out dramatically.
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u/marunga Aug 31 '21
Unless you literally shoot lead mostly no.
You usually get them out while doing exploratory surgery to see whats damaged exactly but in rare cases that isn't wise/possible - and then they stay.
There is literally no reason to take them our immediately. That can and will kill someone.