Shooting Lead - Best Practices

[SteelEye]

I've only shot jacketed bullets from my 625 but have a growing collection of lead ranging from 185s to 255. When I begin shooting lead should I only shoot lead or can I mix and match with jacketed?

[bountyhunter]

They used to tell me to shoot one FMJ round at the end of each magfull of lead to clear the crap out of the bore. I just quit shooting lead because of the fact I don't need to breathe the lead fumes at indoor ranges.

[dajarrel]

a couple of FMJ's at the end of a session will go a long way toward removing gross lead fouling. However, a properly lubed load at less than light speed velocities won't IMHO leave that much lead to start with.

FWIW

dj

[EricW]

My advice: do NOT used jackets to clean the lead out of your revolver. I cracked the forcing cone of my father's beloved Colt 357 doing that manuever. And no, loading down your ammuntion won't make it any better on the forcing cone.

Trust me on this one.

(For anyone that thinks I'm full of it. Call Frank Glenn. He'll tell you the same thing. He knew what stupidity I committed the minute I told him the forcing cone was cracked.)

[Chuck D]

Skip the lead bullet option. Besides being a royal pain to clean, it's REALLY a health concern.

If you really have to shoot lead, get yourself a lewis lead remover tool and forget about running the odd jacketed bullet thru the barrel to clean it out.

[Duane Thomas]

The problem with firing lead and jacketed both is that copper fouling is harder to see than lead because its so thin, and it's very rough. You look down the bore after firing jacketed, you think it's clean, then you fire lead after jacketed (without thoroughly cleaning the bore first) and you strip lead all the way down the bore. I'm not saying you can't use both, just clean the bore first with a good copper cleaner before switching to lead.