Shooting Lead

.357

I have for many years tried to develop a mid range load in .357 using commercial 158 LSWC slugs pushed to 1000 fps for my 4-5/8 B-hawk without a leading issue, and have never had much luck. So much so that I went to the Speer 160 gr half jacket SWC and gave up on commercial lead. Now, alas, that slug is no longer made.

I am watching these lead posts hoping to learn something, but seems like a crap shoot. Harder bullets, softer bullets, different powders, gas checks, cylinder throats, higher velocity, lower velocity......yikes.

I am going to have to try it again, but I'd rather not.
 
BamaRanger,

Don't get discouraged about cast bullets just yet! Start off with the simple stuff. Slug your bore and check your chamber throat size. Correct the throats if needed and then select a cast bullet that fits your bore correctly. Start with a gas checked bullet and start developing a load. Even if you don't firelap your gun, gaschecks will prevent most leading, as they tend to clean the lead deposits from your bore as you shoot.

Check out Beartooth Bullets. Marshall makes a great bullet and will size them to your requirements. Check out his website http://www.beartoothbullets.com/, including the forums and load swap area. Lots of good information, and if you can't find the info you need, give Marshall a call. My experience has shown that he is happy to help you in any way that he can. Overall, great business and a great product!

JW
 
I cast and shoot thousands of bullets, rifles and pistols, a year. Coupla years ago I bought some jacketed hollow points for my .357s and .45 acps..loaded em up, still got em.
 
The only time I don't shoot lead bullets is when I have to shoot a werewolf (darn annoying things). Then I have to use silver.

I bought a box of jacketed bullets years ago. I've still got most of them.
 
I shoot cast wheelweights from a 4" Taurus M66, a 7" Cimarron SAA and a Rossi M92, all in .357. Also, in .38 from a Smith 642.

After a long day's shooting, I see a smidgeon of leading in the Cimarron and the Rossi, but not in the others. Now, I'm not shooting barn-burning loads, but they're not powder puffs by any means. I haven't chrony'd any of them, but my "ear" test says that they're maybe 800 or 900 fps from the revolvers and maybe 900 or 1000 fps from the rifle.

Part of my cleaning regimen is to use a lead-removing bore solvent every so often.
 
I am watching these lead posts hoping to learn something, but seems like a crap shoot. Harder bullets, softer bullets, different powders, gas checks, cylinder throats, higher velocity, lower velocity......yikes.
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And yet no sizing is on your list which may in fact be the most important. :o

Little boolits lead a lot. When I picked up my 1895G, I picked up a box of ammo mostly just for the brass. They were PMC Cowboy loads. I only shot 10 of them and it leaded up my gun bad. A closer inspection of the package revealed the truth. They were .457 lead loads. They were very mild so there was no way the base melted or velocity being high.

I went to sizing my 45/70 boolits to .460 for my GG and only traces of lead are left now. In fact, I never have actually slugged a bore, I just get bigger sizing dies and the leading largely stops. I run Lymans 400 FN @ 1699 fps and it leaves very very little lead in the bore. That's fast. It had to be faster than those cowboy loads that I shot and like one 10th of the lead.

I think sizing the boolit to the bore is the single most critical thing to get right to prevent leading. Remember to start over with starting loads when you increase your boolit size. Rejecting boolits that have dented bases is good practice also so the gasses do not blow by and melt the side of the boolit.
 
EIC

Virtually all of my .45 ACP shooting is lead bullets. I do load Remington 185 JWCs for the precision stage at outdoor Bullseye matches. The short lines, though, are always lead.

Pete
 
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Great point on sizing Edward. Certainly overlooked by us when posting about the alloys. One point leads to another!

Something else to consider when casting and sizing, is that different alloys will shrink to different diamaters whe cooling. Generally the harder the alloy, the more it will shrink.

Several custom mould makers will cut a mold to your specs for the alloy you wish to use so that you don't have to size. It can be a great help in casting accurate bullets for rifles, but I've always just used the standard RCBS and Lyman molds for my pistol shooting.

Most of my older Lyman 30 calibre molds (circa the 1960s) throw bullets several thousands over what I need and sizing is the only option. I'd rather not size a bullet too much so I can reduce that to an extent with a hard alloy. Generally I size to about one to two thousands over bore size.

I use an RCBS lubrisizer that I've had since about 1975. It was sure a huge step forward for me when I bought it and it is still pumping out sized and lubed bullets. Over the years I've collected sizing dies for it so that I can size up to or below most of the popular calibres by several thousands of an inch. Ie. I can size 30 calibres (depending on the mold) from .308 up to .315 depending on the bore diameter. That pretty well covers US 30 cals as well as the British, Russian and Japanese 30 cals that can run well over .312 in military rifles.

This was mentioned before, but If using a softer alloy, you can harden the final product some by quenching the hot bullets from the mold into cold water.

Most of the hard cast commercial bullets that I buy are usually .001" over standard bore size for their intended calibre. Unless you are shooting an older pistol with out-of-spec bore and throat diamaters they will probably work fine without further ado. As I mentioned in my first post, they do resist obturation due to their hardness, so you may need to shoot them faster than intened. Quite often though, that will reduce leading with them, particularly at the throat or forcing cone. Counterintuitive I know, but that's been my experience since they became common 20 some years ago.

So how do you go about finding out your bore size? Soft lead bullets (sometimes muzzle loading balls if the right diamater) slightly over your bore size are used. To measure the result after slugging your barrel with one, you'll need a good micrometer. Mine are old school and read via etched on scales, but newer ones will read to .0001 with a digital read out. Note to self: Need one of those; eyes aren't what they used to be. Oh yeah, read the groove diamater for the datum needed, not the land diamater, although it doesn't hurt to know both.

Barrrels with an odd number of grooves such as Trapdoor Springfields (3 groves) and Lee Enfields (5 grooves) are difficult for me to measure. Sometimes it is just experimentation that will find the solution for them. I don't think that I've ever run accross a US made pistol that I could't measure accurately.

Please don't let all this minutia drive you away from cast bullets. Once you find a good load, you'll never look back and may just enjoy finding new challenges. Getting my old antique firearms to the range and shooting them as well as all the new guns is quite the hoot for me. Cast bullets allow me to do that.
 
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Okay, another old "wives tale" that you guy maybe be able to clear up.

"lead will eat up the rifling in your bore."

I have heard this saying over and over since I was little...is this true?
 
I have heard this saying over and over since I was little...is this true?
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Nope. Lead is much softer than copper, so if something was going to damage the rifling, it would be the copper.

Just be sure to clean the lead out if you get a heavily leaded barrel. Otherwise the nooks and crannies might hold some powder residue, which can hold moisture.

Daryl
 
residue

powder residue, which can hold moisture.
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That is true of blackpowder residue which is hygroscopic. The sulfur and nitrate residues absorb water and produce acid.
I do not believe that nitro based smokeless propellants are hygroscopic.
Pete
 
Lead vs Lo Lead

I shoot only lead Penn Bullets in the following:

1911s
S&W 38
Ruger Blackhawk 45 Colt
Interarms 44 magnum

Terrific accuracy with little or no lead fouling, assuming the proper load.
 
Hard cast through my autos and revolvers? YOU BET! I usually buy FMJ when I want new brass:D I couldn't afford to shoot as much as I do without shooting lead.
 
I recently bought a used revolver on line. How do I tell if it has leading or not. If it does, is this something I can correct or do I need to get a gunsmith?
 
No, it is easy to see.

After you run a solvent soaked patch through the bore followed by a dry patch, the leading will appear as grey streaks along the rifling and grooves. This is most easily seen at or near the muzzle given it is easier to see inside a revolver's barrel at this point. At the forcing cone and the first inch or so of the barrel, it will often cake up on the riflng and cover the grooves and lands a bit. In bad cases, the deposits of lead will extend farther down the barrel.

Copper fouling is also often seen as streaks along the rifling, but is, as you probably surmise, copper in color.

I've often heard it said that copper fouling will reduce the accuracy of lead bullets. I've never noticed that, but perhaps others here have.

As far as cleaning it goes, Let some good solvent stand in the barrel and let the solvent work on the fouling for a while. Then take it outside or into the garage and use the proper size brush to brush it out. You'll often see flecks of lead come out with the brush along with spray from the solvent. That's why I take it outside to brush. Severe cases of leading will take more brushing than minor cases. There are a couple of solvent brands marketed as useful on leading. As noted in several of the previous posts, many shooters shoot jacketed bullets at the end of their range session to get rid of it.

At one time Hoppes had a product called "Lead Out" or somthing like that. It used electrical current between the barrel and a rod inserted into the bore. The lead would detach from the barrel and then plate the rod. I never used it, but friends said it worked well.

You'll also probably see some flash leading on the face of the cylider. Solvent and a brass tooth brush style cleaning brush will dislodge most of it. At one time I had some chemically treated patches that were supposed to get rid of it, but the brush seems to do the job well.
 
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Is it acceptable to shoot jacketed after shooting lead, or does it depend on the amount of leading (if any) in the bore?
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It's not a good idea.

Beretta prohibits this practice in their handguns. The manuals say it should NEVER (their emphasis) be done.

Practically speaking, if a significant amount of leading builds up, it will effectively reduce the bore diameter which can cause pressures to climb to catastrophic levels. Admittedly, that's sort of an extreme case, but, on the other hand, you won't know if it's too much lead until you put a jacketed round down the bore to find out.

Allan Jones [20 years with CCI Speer during which he held the positions: Head Ballistician, Technical Specialist, Manager Technical Publications, CCI-Speer Operations, Author and Editor of Speer Reloading Manuals 12-14. 16 years experience as a forensic firearms examiner in the Dallas County, Texas Crime Lab.] recommends against the practice and states that: "In extreme cases, this can cause irreparable damage. I've seen revolver barrel throats deformed and thin-walled barrels bulged."

It's one of those things that people commonly get away with but that can have really catastrophic results in the worst case scenario. Some years ago, I read a post where a shooter claimed to have blown a 9mm semi-auto pistol by shooting a box of lead followed by a single round of jacketed ammunition. It's not common, but it can and does happen.

Ultimately it depends on the amount of leading but there's no good rule of thumb for determining how much leading is too much.
 
Another note on leading

Harder bullets are not necessarily the answer to leading problems. Leading is usually caused by gasses blowing past the bullet at the base upon ignition. When too hard of a bullet is used in light load it may not seal good enough to stop this from happening. A softer alloy may be in order then. Also a lot of times accuracy can fall off too if the bullet didn't swell up into the riflings. I know of some Cowboy Action shooters that shoot bullets almost as soft as pure lead. Some factories know this and use softer bullets in their low velocity
CA loads. So with that said ,sometimes you can make the load a little heftier to get the base to seal if the bullet is too hard.

Another thing is the type of lube used..I once read that "if a bullet lube is as hard as crayons then that's about all it's good for"...I firmly believe this and stick to a softer lube. The space that the bullet design allows for enough lube is important to me also, one of several reasons I like the original keith style bullet.
 
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