Asbestos Danger in Cold War Era Soviet Bloc Iron Curtain Military Surplus?

[randydandy]

Hello and thank you all for having me here! Ive bought/collected a lot of this old military surplus and had a question about asbestos dangers in this gear. I feel this will be a particular important thread because it could possibly save peoples lives from dangerous asbestos fibers. All of you Im sure are at least aware of the dangers of asbestos and most of it has been banned (NOT ALL) in most countries. However lots of old Cold War era Soviet Bloc stuff can be highly questionable.

My question today is does anybody have any knowledge or experience in any of this military surplus and know what to look for that could possibly have asbestos in it? What is in question today is this Cold War Era Soviet Bloc jacket. The liner in particular. Its a Hungarian Army jacket M65??? (not sure exactly) with an outer and inner liner. From what I gather its from the 70s to 80s time frame and cant find much info on it from the surplus supplier. Ill add pictures if im able to for you to see below.
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Im only aware of the Cold War Era gas mask cartridges containing asbestos. Thats all that I know to watch out for on the used military surplus market. If any of you are aware of ANY surplus that has asbestos in it please post your comments below. Any help would be greatly appreciated and potentially save peoples lives. Thanks!

Information

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[matthanne1]

The only asbestos I have encountered was used as muffler wrap, mounts and dampening agent for heavy mounted weapons and engines, paneling in trucks or similar on their vehicles, where you could expect normally elevated operating temperatures. Some uses were in firefighter protective coats and mitts, but I've never encountered it in your basic clothing materials. It is in mask filters. They knew it was a danger too and other than for specialized use, it doesn't really have a good application in clothing. I believe you may find a lot of synthetic materials as well as natural fibers like cotton and wool, but asbestos in a liner would be new to me. M65 Hungarian is predominately cotton/canvas but has synthetic components.

Once saw a Combloc generator kit getting fired up for testing some equipment when a crack in the muffler forced a cloud of asbestos fiber out the pipe. Had to shut the bay down for a month to remediate.

Now there are other factors to be aware of- radiation dangers posed by night sight sets, switches, panels and dials used in darkened environments (think aircraft, tank or otehr armored vehicles) people routinely miss those.

[browningautorifle]

We did have mitts for handling the .50 barrels so long ago that were stated to be "Asbestos mitts"...

[RCS]

The glove or mitt issued with the M60 m/g that was used to change barrels was asbestos

[muffett.2008]

Those mittens were good BR, except when soaked in diesel.....tended to give some pretty nasty burn blisters as the oils boiled while you were changing barrels.

[browningautorifle]

Most of ours had burned spots so I'm not sure how fire proof they actually were. .50 barrels were pretty unforgiving, I tried not to touch them much.

[Eaglelord17]

To be honest your more likely to encounter asbestos in your house than in surplus. It really all depends on what the item is. As mentioned they had asbestos gloves for handling hot barrels, but other things that could have it were brakes, possibly vehicles, etc. Your average clothing isn't likely to have it at all.

For example my house has drywall with plaster over it (just before they figured out they didn't need to plaster over it), odds are my plaster has some asbestos in it as most pre-1990 has some in it. That doesn't 100% mean that is the case though. Anything built before the 90s in Canada has a decent chance of having asbestos somewhere in it, be the wiring insulated with it, having tiles built with it, the insulation having it, plaster having it, etc. I would say the risk of encountering it in surplus is minimal at best, and even if there is some it likely is in the very very low category, not pure asbestos rather having maybe .5% or less mixed in somewhere. If you get asbestosis I sincerely doubt it will be from the military surplus in your life.

[browningautorifle]

Your average clothing isn't likely to have it at all.

I wouldn't have thought so either, unless fireproof clothing...and we didn't see anything like that regularly.

[old tanker]

M1942 asbestos mittens were used in the US Army through Viet Nam. They are a somewhat dirty white color and a tight weave.

The US GI hot mittens that replaced them in mess halls and machine guns are yellowish and have looped frieze kind of weave to them.

The new ones do not handle the heat as well as the old ones.

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[browningautorifle]

Sort of looks like them...except they need the burn marks...