California Proposition 65 Notice

This page carries the California Proposition 65 warnings that apply to ammunition and related products, explains which products they cover, and sets out practical steps that reduce your exposure to lead.

Phase 1 note: this document is a structurally complete template. It has not yet been reviewed by counsel and must be before any real sale is made.

1. What Proposition 65 is

Proposition 65 is the informal name for the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, approved by California voters as a ballot initiative that year. It is a right-to-know law. It does not ban any product and it does not set an exposure limit that a product must meet. What it requires is a clear and reasonable warning before a Californian is knowingly exposed to a chemical that the State of California has listed as causing cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.

The list is maintained by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), part of the California Environmental Protection Agency. It currently runs to roughly 900 chemicals and is updated at least once a year. Lead and lead compounds have been on it since the late 1980s, listed for both cancer and reproductive toxicity.

The duty to warn falls on the business that sells or distributes the product into California, and the standard is deliberately conservative: the warning is required at exposure levels far below those at which harm has actually been demonstrated. That is the reason Prop 65 warnings are so widely seen in California — on parking garages, hotels, coffee, and a great many ordinary consumer goods — and it is why the warning by itself tells you very little about relative risk. This page tries to give you the rest.

2. The warning for ammunition

Most ammunition contains lead. It is in the projectile core of conventional full metal jacket, soft point and hollow point bullets, in unjacketed lead bullets and lead shot, and in the priming compound of most centrefire and rimfire cartridges, which historically uses lead styphnate. Brass cartridge cases are a copper-zinc alloy that typically contains a small amount of lead as a machining aid.

Handling ammunition transfers trace lead to your hands. That is the exposure route this warning is about, and washing your hands afterwards addresses most of it.

3. Firing, cleaning and reloading

The larger exposure is not from handling a cartridge. It is from what happens when one is fired, particularly indoors.

When a cartridge fires, the primer and the base of the bullet produce airborne lead particulate, and friction in the bore produces more. In an indoor range with inadequate ventilation that particulate is in the air you are breathing and settles on surfaces, on your hands, on your clothing and in your hair. Cleaning a firearm afterwards disturbs deposited residue, and reloading — handling primers, casting or seating lead bullets, tumbling brass — is the most concentrated exposure of all.

This is not a hypothetical risk that exists only for regulatory purposes. Elevated blood lead levels are a documented occupational finding among indoor range staff and frequent indoor shooters, and it is the reason well-run indoor ranges invest heavily in downrange airflow. Section 7 is the practical response.

4. Which products this applies to

A Proposition 65 warning is provided with the following categories sold by TAS:

• All ammunition — centrefire and rimfire, handgun, rifle and shotgun, including lead-free and frangible loads, because most still use a priming system or components that can expose you to a listed chemical.
• Components — projectiles, primers, brass cases and loaded reloading supplies.
• Spent brass and range brass, which carries deposited firing residue.
• Cleaning products — solvents, bore cleaners, lubricants and cleaning patches that come into contact with lead residue, and some of which contain listed chemicals of their own.
• Some accessories, where a specific component contains a listed chemical — certain flexible PVC and vinyl parts, some coated fabrics and cables, and some metal platings. Where that applies, the warning is provided with that specific product.

Where a warning is required for a particular item, it is provided with that item’s listing. This site-wide notice does not replace a product-specific warning; it explains it.

Phase 1 note for review: California requires that, for an internet purchase, the warning is displayed on the product display page or through a clearly labelled link, before the purchase is completed. Product-level display is not yet implemented in this build. It is a launch requirement for any product sold into California and should be treated as a blocker alongside the compliance table.

5. The chemicals involved

Which chemicals are present in a specific cartridge depends on its manufacturer, its primer type and its projectile construction. If you need to know for a particular product, the manufacturer’s technical data or safety data sheet is the authoritative source, and we will help you obtain it.

6. What this warning does not say

It is worth being precise about the limits of a Proposition 65 warning, because it is routinely read as saying more than it does.

• It is not a statement that the product is unsafe or defective. It is a disclosure that a listed chemical is present and that use of the product can expose you to it.
• It does not mean the product violates any safety standard or legal limit. Ammunition sold by TAS is lawfully manufactured and lawfully sold, and Proposition 65 does not set a product standard for it to fail.
• It is not a California-specific product defect. The same ammunition is sold in every other state without this warning because no other state requires one. The chemistry does not change at the state line; the disclosure law does.
• It does not quantify your risk. Prop 65 warning thresholds are set with large safety margins — for reproductive toxicants, typically at one-thousandth of the level shown to have no observable effect. A warning tells you an exposure can occur, not that it is likely to harm you.
• Equally, it is not meaningless. Lead exposure from shooting is real, it is cumulative, and it is measurable in blood. The warning is worth acting on, and section 7 says how.

Nothing on this page is medical advice. If you are pregnant, may become pregnant, are breastfeeding, or have a child who may be exposed, discuss lead exposure with a doctor. Blood lead testing is inexpensive, widely available, and the only way to know where you actually stand.

7. Reducing your exposure

The exposure routes that matter are ingestion — lead on your hands reaching your mouth — and inhalation of airborne particulate. Both are substantially controllable.

While shooting

• Shoot outdoors where you can. An outdoor range with natural airflow is the single largest reduction in inhaled lead available to you.
• Indoors, check the ventilation. A well-designed indoor range pushes air from behind the firing line downrange and away from shooters. If you can smell heavy smoke on the line or see haze hanging in the air, the ventilation is not doing its job. Ranges that require lead-free primers or frangible projectiles are managing exactly this problem.
• Do not eat, drink, smoke or vape while shooting, reloading or cleaning, and do not do it on the firing line at all. This is the most direct way lead gets from your hands into your body.
• Keep your hands away from your face and do not chew on anything while handling ammunition.

Afterwards

• Wash your hands, forearms and face with cold water and plenty of soap before eating, drinking, driving home or touching anything else. Cold water rather than hot: hot water opens pores and leaves more residue on the skin. Lead-removing wipes and soaps formulated for the purpose work better than ordinary hand soap, and a nail brush is worth having.
• Shower and wash your hair after a long indoor session. Particulate settles in hair.
• Change out of range clothing before you get home, or as soon as you arrive, and wash range clothing separately from the rest of the household laundry. Do not carry range clothing through the house or leave it where children or pets can reach it.
• Leave shoes at the door. Range floors are one of the main routes lead gets into a home.

Cleaning and reloading

• Clean firearms in a ventilated space — a garage with the door open, a bench near a window, or outdoors — never at the kitchen table.
• Wear nitrile gloves when cleaning or handling bulk projectiles and primers, and dispose of them afterwards.
• Wet-wipe surfaces rather than dry-sweeping or vacuuming. A household vacuum redistributes fine lead particulate into the air; a damp cloth captures it.
• Tumble brass wet, or vent a dry tumbler outdoors. Dry media tumbling produces a fine, lead-bearing dust, and the used media is contaminated.
• Casting lead requires more than this page covers — proper respiratory protection, dedicated ventilation and temperature control. Read the equipment manufacturer’s guidance before you start.

8. Storage and children

Keep ammunition out of the reach of children. That is both a safety instruction and a lead-exposure one. Children absorb ingested lead far more readily than adults do, and the developmental effects occur at lower exposures. A cartridge is exactly the kind of object a small child puts in their mouth.

• Store ammunition in a locked container, separately from firearms, and out of sight.
• Keep spent brass, range bags and cleaning kits out of reach as well. Range bags in particular accumulate residue.
• Do not let children handle ammunition, spent cases or cleaning equipment, and wash their hands immediately if they do.
• Keep ammunition away from food preparation and eating areas, and never store it in a kitchen.

Supervised youth shooting is a legitimate and well-established activity. The guidance in section 7 applies to a young shooter with more force rather than less: outdoors where possible, hands washed immediately afterwards, no eating on the line, clothing changed and washed separately.

9. Lead-free and low-lead options

If you shoot indoors regularly, reload in volume, or are managing a specific health concern, the catalog carries options that reduce exposure:

• Lead-free primers — often sold as non-toxic, NT, or lead-free primed ammunition. These remove the largest single source of airborne lead at the firing line.
• Totally metal jacketed (TMJ) and fully encapsulated projectiles, where the jacket covers the base of the bullet as well as the sides, so the exposed lead core is not vaporised by the propellant gases.
• Frangible and solid copper projectiles, which contain no lead at all. Many indoor ranges require one or the other.
• Steel and bismuth shotshell loads in place of lead shot, which are in any case required for waterfowl hunting under federal law and on many public lands.

Be aware that “lead-free projectile” and “lead-free primer” are different claims, and a cartridge can be one without being the other. Only ammunition described as lead-free in both respects is free of the exposure this notice concerns, and even then a Prop 65 warning may still be provided because of firing residue in the barrel from previous ammunition or other listed components. If you need certainty for a specific product, ask us and we will get the manufacturer’s specification.

10. Shipping to California

Two things are true at once here, and it is worth separating them.

TAS does not ship ammunition to California addresses. California requires ammunition to be transferred face-to-face through a licensed vendor with an eligibility check at the counter, which no direct-to-consumer shipment can satisfy. Ammunition orders to California addresses are blocked at the address step of checkout. That is explained in full on the Compliance & Restrictions page.

Accessories do ship to California, and Proposition 65 applies to them where a listed chemical is present — cleaning solvents, certain vinyl and coated components, some platings. Those products carry a warning whether you are in California or not, because we do not maintain two versions of a product page.

This notice therefore serves everyone. If you are a California resident buying ammunition through a licensed vendor in your state, the warnings in sections 2 and 3 apply to that ammunition exactly as they would to ours, and the guidance in section 7 is worth the same regardless of where you live. Lead does not respect state lines; only the disclosure requirement does.

11. The official list and further reading

We are not the authority on any of this, and you should not have to take our summary on trust. The official sources are:

• www.P65Warnings.ca.gov — OEHHA’s public warnings site, including plain-language fact sheets on lead and on specific product categories.
• The Proposition 65 List — the official, current list of chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, maintained by OEHHA and updated at least annually. It is the authoritative source and supersedes anything summarised on this page.
• NIOSH guidance on occupational lead exposure — federal guidance relevant to range staff and high-volume shooters.
• Your firearm and ammunition manufacturer’s own safety and handling documentation, which is specific to the product in your hands.

Broader firearm and ammunition safety — safe handling, transport, storage and range conduct — is covered on the Compliance & Restrictions page and in the manufacturer documentation supplied with each product. This page is about chemical exposure specifically.

12. How to contact us

• Proposition 65 questions, or a request for a manufacturer’s safety data sheet for a specific product: compliance@topammosupply.com
• Order support: support@topammosupply.com
• Support hours: Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm Eastern.
• Postal: [Registered entity name], [Registered business address].
• Related reading: Compliance & Restrictions, Shipping Policy, and the Help & Support page.