Marlin Firearms Forum banner

Barrel leading?

4K views 30 replies 20 participants last post by  jgt 
#1 ·
To the knowledgeable? What causes barrel leading? How do you clean it and prevent it. I have leading every time I shoot my Rossi 720, 44 special. It could be just powder residue?
 

Attachments

See less See more
1
#3 ·
there are all kinds of barrel cleaners on the market today that make all kinds of claims, I find it dizzying. to clean barrel first start with good old hoppes #9 with a good stiff bore brush of brass or bronze. a bore light can be of help to see inside barrel well.. just as a regular practice with bullets I cast myself I try and lube size with at least .002 over bore and have used carnauba red lube for decades now. it could be possible the barrel is rough inside if that's the case you could try fire lapping, that's what ive read anyway ive never had to do it. problems ive experience with leading I believe came from two or three main sources, undersized bullets, using too hot a powder and or with bevel bases bullets. with too hot a powder I mean like lilgun burns much hotter than unique. another cause has been having copper residue in barrel from shooting jacketed bullets and not cleaning at all or thoughoughly before shooting cast bullets. lead loves to stick to copper when pressure and heat is applied. hope some of this helps.
ranch hand gave you the link into what I believe is the best source of free info and expertise in one place on all aspects of cast bullets and shooting. my hats off to the LASC
 
#4 ·
Various ideas what causes leading.

Rough bore rubbing lead off into the grooves.

Propellant gas blow by vaporizing lead and carrying it ahead of the bullet. This leading is found nearer the muzzle, as the vaporized lead then condenses on the cool barrel.

Bullet skidding down bore without fully engaging rifling to cause it to spin. Rifling shaves off lead and leaves it in the grooves. (This one is not likely to be real cause.)

There is a lot of propellant gas blow by in a revolver. There is more room for the gas to flow around the bullet in the forcing cone than in a rifle chamber, although the leade (before rifling starts) allows the same thing to happen. The bullet does not completely seal the bore until it has fully engaged the rifling. Remember that the propellant gas travels much faster than the bullet, has less inertia, and accelerates faster. It is also plenty hot enough to vaporize a small amount of lead.
 
#5 ·
You are going to get leading if you are firing lead bullets, even with hard cast bullets. I have fired a lot of lead bullets out of a 38 special and 45 acp. Both swaged and hardcast, and always get some degree of leading. It was worst with swaged bullets though. After a firing session I would clean the bore as best as I could, but I never got all the lead out of the bore, or at least it didn't seem like any came out. Trying to clean a leaded barrel is a tedious job, that I was not very successful at, and had very little patience for. After several hundred to a thousand rounds, with cleanings in between, I would switch over to jacketed bullets. I know that firing jacketed bullets afterwards would clean out the bores. At least that was what I experienced with my handguns. You could try that, and see if it will work for you. There is no magic solvent that will dissolve lead, or strip it away to my knowledge. Your other option, if you don't want to deal with leading, is to, switch over to either a jacketed, a plated, or a candy looking powder coated bullet. I don't reload to many lead bullets anymore. What I use mostly now are jacketed or plated bullets. Easier to clean. Again, this is what my experience has been with lead bullets.
 
#7 · (Edited)
PROOFED and EDITED


I have researched, tried and adopted just about all the above facts, for preventing "leading", and, probably a few more, back when I started casting.

But, I just have to say,... SOFT LUBE is the best addition, to the above recommendations, to
produce the absolute best prevention of leading, I have found!

I have a SHINY / CLEAN bore after shooting hundreds of 444 rounds, of course, starting with a perfectly clean barrel.
Loaded Not at max speeds, but, I HAVE cast at every hardness degree from pure lead to pure linotype, no gas checks, with perfect results, aka - SHINY / CLEAN barrel.

I may be doing something else, I am not aware of, that is giving me such great results,...
but, I am pretty sure it has to do with the SOFT LUBE! In conjunction with boolit diameter and
lube groove profile.

For those interested, here is my lube formula,...

30 grams pure bees wax/10 grams 100% pure Avocado Oil/1 gram of pure Moly powder.

Heated to just barely a liquid state, conducive for a good mixing. Avocado Oil has a smoke/flash point around 500F degrees, one of the highest smoke/flash point oils available,... molybdenum has a melt point just under 5,000F, which is very close to most powder max burn tempts, (if my memory of my past research is correct).

This formula produces a lube that begins to melt at body temperature.
Which I basically apply with by finger and some jigs I made from 444 cases,
to increase production speed.

Only caveat I must state, is, I use this lube on a boolit with as large a
LUBE GROOVE PROFILE as I can buy, which I find conducive to lube flow.

Here is a link to an example of a lube groove profile I like to use,...

Accurate Molds: Custom Bullet Molds

This lube application is definitely a VERY SLOW (OCD) PROCESS, but, I like the results.
 
#9 ·
What are you sizing your cast bullets to? Have you slugged the bore to see what size of a slug that you need to use? How about a good roll crimp on the loaded cartridges so that the powder burns more completely and the slugs won't jump out of the case because of recoil and tie up the cylinder.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I’m shooting 250 gr WW with lee alox lube. I also obtained a box of 500 hard cast 200 gr. Hard cast commercial bullets. Every trip to the range has the same result. So far I’ll not used many of the 200 gr bullets. I’m loading with 4.8 or 5 gr of Reddot powder. My next loads may be unique or herco. I have not Miced the barrel all bullets are .429 crimped but not over done.
 
#14 ·
Shoot powder coated bullets and save more time for shooting. PC is the great equalizer and has changed cast bullet shooting forever. I was like one of the other posters and tried every cleaning product, every hardness, every lube recipe know to man and even the LBT blue and still would get leading, but not with PC. Send me a PM and I'll mail you a sampling to load and shoot yourself.

Thanks, Dinny
 
#15 ·
it seems a little strange, because I used commercial wadcutter bullets , after having lubricated them with Lee Alox, without particular leading problems in S&W 19 2,5 "and 27 in 6", at speeds from .38spl.+P up.
the same goes for .357 bullets cast by me and gaschecked_
same for every .429 and .430 lee cast bullet in my 29s, with and without gas check, while sizing them all at .430 anyway, with charges from .44spl to .44mag levels.
since I am not a particularly advanced caster, having used entry level Lee molds & Lee Alox since forever, also in ol'mil. rifles, from here I would think that in your case there is the possibility of some form of rough barrel bore.
I'm sorry if I can't be of more help_
 
#18 ·
I shoot lead exclusively in several of my Marlins .22, 32-20, 357, 30-30, 38-55, & 45-70 & NONE of them lead. Some have over a 100 rds. through them before cleaning & still no lead.
Proper fitting bullet, not too hard, good soft lube & keep the velocity reasonable (under 1700 fps- plain based).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ojaileveraction
#19 ·
"To remove leading, wrap some material from an all copper Chore Boy scouring pad around a brush for a very tight fit in the barrel."
--IronHead7544

That will work! However, there are some Chore Boy clones that are just copper coated steel pads. Best better to take a small magnet when looking for a Chore Boy or its clone and if the magnet attracts it, it is steel.

Range and gun shop rumor: Brownell's bronze wool pads will also remove lead, but I have no knowledge of anyone actually utilizing that product to remove lead. Who knows about bronze wool?
 
#20 · (Edited)
That will work! However, there are some Chore Boy clones that are just copper coated steel pads.
If it says "Chore Boy" with a picture of the little chore boy wearing a read hat, then it is made of pure copper. The knock offs like those found in Walmart which look the same will not have the name chore boy. Look closely and you will see you can turn the pad inside out like a sock. Cut one strand and pull on it and you will have a strand about 12 to 18 inches long. Wrap that around a 38 caliber brush and it is just about right to run down the bore. This method does work well for removing lead without buying some kind of expensive product.

As for the leading your experiencing...nine times out of ten it is caused by shooting undersized casts. Make sure casts are at least .002-.003 larger than groove diameter and with decent lube and your problem will go away. The other 10 percent cause is hot-rodding the load with pressure beyond the ability of the alloy strength.

Added: If I had to guess I would say the leading edge of the grooves is shaving off lead on the spin from undersized casts. If hot gasses are blowing by the bullet is not in the barrel long enough to melt but the outter skin will become soft enough for the grooves to shave lead.
 
#21 ·
Biggest cause of leading in a revolver, any revolver, is too hard of a bullet, regardless of the size. Run a softer alloy of 13bhn or softer, 16:1 or 20:1 will be perfect and size them to the EXACT size of your forcing cone. The bullets need a chance to obturate. If they can't obturate, or they're too hard to obturate, they'll shave as they enter the forcing cone and gas cut something serious. If you can't get your calipers into your forcing cone for a good measurement you'll need to make a careful slug casting, or a cerrosafe cast.

Trust me on this one. Spents weeks when I was a newer caster chasing my tail with a GP100 and a magnum load trying to figure out leading. I was still sucked into the "ALL YOUR BULLETS NEED TO BE AS HARD AS TITANIUM" vortex. Elmer Keith liked 16:1 for his magnums for a reason.
 
#25 ·
Biggest cause of leading in a revolver, any revolver, is too hard of a bullet, regardless of the size. Run a softer alloy of 13bhn or softer, 16:1 or 20:1 will be perfect and size them to the EXACT size of your forcing cone. The bullets need a chance to obturate. If they can't obturate, or they're too hard to obturate, they'll shave as they enter the forcing cone and gas cut something serious. If you can't get your calipers into your forcing cone for a good measurement you'll need to make a careful slug casting, or a cerrosafe cast.
Can't agree or disagree with your statement as 99% of what I shoot is Wheel Weight alloy with a little tin added for fill out. That would be just 11-13 BHN though I have water dropped 22 caliber cast that jumped up to 18 BHN for shooting in the 223. So I've never had any experience with really hard alloy but I've read many reports that state hard cast has leaded more barrels than soft cast.

Having said that I also know that if properly sized over groove there is no need for the bullet to bump/obturate.

There is another solution for the OP but doubt he would go there but that is to powder coat the bullets. Not the Hi-Tek stuff but real powder coating. I've even bought Hornady cast lead which is pretty soft, rinsed them 2 or 3 times in gasoline to remove the lube and powder coated them and they shot just fine. Thing about powder coating is they can be hard, soft, or undersized and the powder coating will protect them the same as jacketed with no leading.
Anyway, that's been my experience...Something to think about.
 
#22 ·
"If it says "Chore Boy" with a picture of the little chore boy wearing a read hat, then it is made of pure copper."
--Gohon

Maybe yes, maybe no. In my searches for Chore Boy I came across two or three that had a similar logo/name, but were copper plated steel. Cannot recall who made them, but I do believe that they were another "quality import"....
 
#23 ·
Guys, even the copper plated steel knock offs will work fine. That steel is much softer than your barrel steel, and hopefully after you go thru the pain of scrubbing silver galena out of your barrel, you have learned your lesson and won't let it happen again and it doesn't matter anymore at that point.
 
#28 ·
Aren’t the factory lead bullets from Hornady & Speer swaged , not cast. The only experience I’ve ever had with leading was with Speer 45 cal lead bullets. They were SWCs and 240-250gr don’t remember. I had picked up a S&W 45 that I wanted to try out and had the Speers on hand. Loaded at target velocity 750-800fps. The leading looked like something out of a cartoon. Between 12 and 18 shots it looked like lead foil extending from muzzle. I have shot Hornady lead bullets in K38s, again at Target velocities with good results. I think cast is harder than any of the swaged. I pour dozens of caliber and style bullets, plain base and never had leading.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top