Lead or FMJ for target ?

M

MR.G

New member
Which do you shoot the most when target shooting, lead or fmj ?
Jacketed is cleaner, but does it cause more barrel wear?
 
The harder the bullet material, the more it will wear the barrel. But even FMJ will require hundreds of thousands of rounds to cause wear in a handgun.

Lead is cheaper in most cases and about 98% of my pistol shooting is with lead.
 
These days I primarily shoot TMJ -- to reduce airborne lead. I've got an elevated blood lead level. It costs more than lead, but I hate scrubbing lead deposits out of barrels.

M1911
 
For Bullseye target work.
Lead wadcutters probably best.
Clean, easily scored holes.
Accurate.
Easy on bore. 50,000 rounds/year common for serious shooter.

Sam
 
bullets for target work

A jacketed bullet costs as much as two or three leads..
Simple calculation.
 
-lead-

Cleaning the copper residue a jacketed round leaves in the barrel is a lot more difficult for me than getting a small amount of lead out. Using a slovent (solvent even ;)) like Ballistol, I've found that it will get underneath any lead deposits that may be in the barrel and "float"(for lack of a better term) them allowing a patch to remove the deposits. With copper residue, and even using a good copper solvent, I've always had to resort to using a bronze brush to scrub the bore. Now, I don't mind the work involved in scrubbing the bore that much, it's the idea that scrubbing is a good way to nick the crown. With that in mind, the less time a rod/brush/jag spends going in from the muzzle end, the better, is how I feel.

Semi autos, where I can work from the breech, are a bit of a different story. There, I use lead simply because I feel it's a better bullet.
 
Since I'm a handloader, I shoot mostly lead bullets at
all of my target's. I prefer Mangus hard cast bullet's,
for my target work; particulary in .38 Special,
9m/m, .357 magnum, .44 magnum, and .45 ACP.

Best Wishes,
Ala Dan, N.R.A. Life Member
 
I shoot jacketed ammunition through the revolvers with the higher velocities and lead through the ones with the lower velocities--hard cast, of course.

I use jacketed 100% in my auto-loaders.
 
Lead bullets are more accurate, in my experience.

The .38 Special, 148 grain wadcutters, 158 grain semi-wadcutters, and 158 grain round-nose lead bullets are the most accurate in the Model 10, Model 66 and Model 638.

I shoot mostly jacketed bullets indoors, to avoid the lead exposure.
 
Wadcutters make nice holes and are cheap but in my 38/44 I have never had a load as accurate as the Winchester USA 130grain hardball ammo. It just shoots amazingly well for me, we put it across a chrony one time and the standard devation for 2 cylinders full of the stuff was around 13-14.


Granted I've shot my 38/44 for so long that most everything out of it will hit the intended target, but the 130grain FMJ just runs so well through it, I haven't had anything either lead or jacketed manage to beat it out.


I used to think lead was best for accuracy in handguns but the 130gr. stuff got me more open minded to trying to use jacketed ammo.
 
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