Dangerous Games we Play.

[nutz]

this is worse than the superbolt... lol just messing around.. have those cocker guys experimented with other materials yet??

[tysonmachado]

About two years ago I took a Nuclear Physics lab. During the safety discussion we passed around a 'hot' piece of uranium ore from the Czeckoslovakian (I'm pretty sure I misspelled that, sorry) mines. The point being made was that it is safe to handle as long as you don't ingest it and make sure you wash your hands before handling food.
There are three types of radiation; alpha, beta, and gamma. Gamma radiation has a long wavelength which means that it penetrates material easily. Since radiation only transfers energy when it fails to penetrate, gamma radiation is relatively safe. Most of it will pass all the way through your body without transfering any energy. Alpha and beta radiation have much shorter wavelengths, so they do not penetrate very well. In fact, they do not even penetrate the dead layer of skin covering your body. The danger is when they come in contact with the sensitive membranes such as stomach lining or lungs. So don't swallow or breathe radioactive materials.
In short, the radiation from depleted uranium is harmless in the dose you would recieve from such a small source. It sounds like it is actually a hammer with a du core, meaning that it is encased in another metal and thus shielded. In theory this is harmless.
I do not, however, think this is a good idea. Radioactive material is a very sticky subject. Due to general misconceptions this product might be difficult to sell, and it is likely that field owners will be reluctant to allow such things on their field. It could also become ammunition for those who wish to ban paintball. "Our children are running around the woods glorifying violent behavior and playing with radioactive waste..."
This could also be a serious health risk for whoever is manufactuing the parts. If the DU is being milled in a shop there is a high likelyhood that the machinist/craftsman is being exposed to airborne particles as well as residue on the hands and clothes. Since this person or people would be doing this for hours they do risk long-term exposure if they do not take all of the proper precautions.

Long story short, I doubt this will lead to any deaths but it is still not a great idea. There are less controversial material which could be used to produce results which would be indistinguishable for even experienced players.

[cphilip]

tysonmachado you did learn your Health Physics pretty well to be able to sum it up. A bit oversimplified but it works! Nice job. And now I will over simplify the reast of the story for you...

Depleted Uranium is basicaly the left overs from production of Uranium. The mine tailings with residual amounts of natural occuring activity. It is not highly radioactive nor is it spent fuel in any way. And yes you can obtain it and you can even make products out of it...but...you have to have NRC and State Regulatory oversite to do so. He did not, I think, have that. That involves a full licensing and Health Physics Program that is first approved and then regularly reviewed. And that includes monitoring of the personel and facility. And since Uranium, even in depleted amounts, is toxic if ingested it is a harmfull substance so you must comply with all the EPA regulations too in your process and discharges of effluent from it. And register with the EPA as a Generators of waste. And your Local POTW as well. VEry complicated and costly to be a manufacturere that uses a substance like this. It can be done. But it is fraught with legal pitfalls if you do not have an environmental person who knows both EPA and NRC regs to head it up and has written and licensed programs for these two agencies...like me! I fear the profit area would be too small for the bother anyway.


But trust me...it's not realy something to be worried about and its not spent fuel or something like that. Far from that.

[Butterfingers]

Actually early forms of DU were derived from Spent Uranium Fuel Rods the US Gov stopped doing that for obvious reasons.

[Butterfingers]

Stolen from my own posts on PBC.

We don't know what ethan is using, that is the concern. If they are spent nuclear fuel rods they can contain plutonium. In that case it is dangerous.

I am well aware of the radiological effects of DU, you get more radiation than a medical X ray than a years exposure from DU. But if the source of the DU is tainted it could pose a health risk. In the case it is not a 120mm M1 Abrams Sabot round or any other source of pure DU that could be a problem. You need to know your sources. Having bought it from a "waste dealer" concerns me. Plutonium is orders of magnitude more radioactive. 100,000 times if my memory serves me correctly.

Conclusively PURE and only PURE DU or inertly alloyed DU does not pose a radiological hazard. You get more radiation from cosmic rays annually. Thats a fact. If you lived on the highway of death from Kuwait City to Basra Iraq for one year. Your total radiation exposure would be less than a chest x-ray.

But thats not the only hazard DU can pose. The military seems to be a bit sketchy on heavy metal hazards. Thats where private research comes in...

(IE) tank crews cleaning up afterwards and inhaling large amounts of DU particles as a result of the aftermath of sabot penetration has been a subject of controversy concerning the gulf war syndrome.

Health effects of DU can be seen by internalization of particles. A form of heavy metal poisining.

DU does pose heavy metal toxicity, just like lead. If you inhale or injest it or otherwise find ways for it to get into your bloodstream it can cause kidney damage. No risk for players, but it could be quite a risk for machinists that have to mill this stuff.

Ther has also been speculation that internalization of DU multiples the radiation hazard. DU decays primariy through weak alpha an beta particles that are considered safe because they cannot penetatrate the thick epithelial layers of the skin.

Beta particles can penetrate the thin layers of the aveoli in the lungs and the intestines. This beta radiation has enough energy to cleave DNA and cause other such mechanical modifications to the human genome. When this happens and if you cells don't undergo genome correction or apoptosis, folks we have cancer.

Im not sure how much force is required for pyrogenesis but impact forces cause DU to burn and turn into DU oxides which pose a hazard. Pyrogenesis of metal is what makes it so effective as an armor penatrator. It burns and self sharpens as it works its way through metal. Essentially melting through metal exactly like a hot knife through butter, spewing massive amounts of suspended airborne DU oxide particulate matter in the process. Chances are that impact with your valve stem wont produce enough force to cause this but I include it so you can get the full picute of DU's properties.

[Gunga]

Read this today:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0203120277mar12.story

[Blennidae]

OK, let me first say that I'm not a cocker expert, nor do I know much about radioactive substances.

From my viewpoint, this is almost a "you're kidding" kind of idea. I mean is it really necessary to have a part of a paintball gun made out of a possibly dangerous substance? Is this part going to revolutionize the cocker as we know it, or is this whole thing just for the "gee whiz" factor. It has been said here on AO that Titanium really has no use in paintball guns, as the benefits aren't worth the cost. Shouldn't the same logic apply to DU?

If I want to kill a tank, give me DU. If I'm trying to hit a guy 30ft away from me with a paintball, steel, aluminium, or delrin is fine with me.

Of course radioactive substances may mutate the elves, and that could be a real issue...

[cphilip]

That was kind of my point realy when I said this:

Originally posted by cphilip
...Very complicated and costly to be a manufacturer that uses a substance like this. It can be done. But it is fraught with legal pitfalls if you do not have an environmental person who knows both EPA and NRC regs to head it up and has written and licensed programs for these two agencies...like me! I fear the profit area would be too small for the bother anyway.

[Butterfingers]

On a lighter note...

I think it would be a tactical disadvantage.

Just go on the feild with a geiger counter and you will know where everbody is.

[cphilip]

True but the activity is so small you would be well within in Bunker range before you knew he was there by that method!

You can start to pick up a range above background of a bottle of powder of this stuff with a GM meter at about 3 feet. But barely and its logrithmicaly higher and more noticable at about a foot or less. GM meters even with large detector surface areas are only like 20% efficent at best.

[Blennidae]

Originally posted by Butterfingers

Just go on the feild with a geiger counter and you will know where everbody is.

Hey is that an upgrade for the IR3?

[cphilip]

HA! Good one!!! Who knows... it just might be?

[Butterfingers]

Phil the IR3 will have a geiger multiplier which multiplies normal readings 100,000 times. The readings will then be correlated with the optional on-board GPS mapping system on the optional heads up display so you know where the culprit is to the nearest milimeter. So you DU people are pretty much screwed.

[cphilip]

Good to know Butter. I am buying me one of them IR3's now! I want the one with the built in toaster oven can opener in the handle.

[lazyrider77]

i still believe DU is more harmful than we think. It is also used in as balast for mnay commercial jets and the FAA put out a warning a few yrs back that anyone cleaning up wreckage at a jet crash had to be in full chemical waste gear. so here we have the gov admiting that it is dangerous and deadly. meanwhile, they are blowing all of the balkans off the face of the earth w/ DU shells.