Gas check to clean lead?

[mmosur]

Not sure which forum this belongs in best but we'll see what responses I get here. I shoot mostly lead cast bullets for plinking. Talked to an old reloader the other night about lead fouling and he says he follows every 25-50 lead rounds with a gas-checked round and he states this removes a lot of the lead fouling in the barrell. Anyone else heard of this or do this? Anything to make cleaning easier I'm certainly for.

[Linear Thinker]

I pour my own bullets for odd calibers, and use gas checks for high velocity loads only.

Yes, an occassional GC bullet will dislodge the lead fowling.

Do you have a leading problem? The usual reason is the incorrect alloy hardness. When the bullets are too soft for the velocity, they will deform in the bore causing leading.

When the bullets are too hard, they will fail to obturate (seal the bore) and will be cut by hot gasses, causing leading.

Better to eliminate the root cause of the fowling, than to scrape the stuff off later.

[mmosur]

I haven't had a problem with lead yet but I thought the gas check idea was a good one if it worked.

[BisleyBlackhawk]

I haven't had a problem with lead yet but I thought the gas check idea was a good one if it worked.

Greetings mmosur, I think the advice to push a gas checked bullet behind lead to "clean" a leaded bore comes from the civil war use of the Williams cleaning bullet...which was a .58 caliber bullet with a zinc washer attached to the bottom to scrub fouling from the rifle bore when loaded and fired. It did if fact "clean" black powder fouling when used...but the fouling was scraped when loading the bullet. As far as leading with cast pistol bullets I agree with Linear Thinker that it is best to deal with leading (if any) before it becomes a problem to remove. I have always been told (right or wrong?) that the only thing you will do with a jacketed or gas checked bullet is to "iron" the lead on a bore down which will make it harder to remove.. Like Linear Thinker I also cast my own bullets for Cowboy Action shooting and have never had any problem with lead buildup. I cast from range scrap which I pick up after a shoot which when melted and recast are BHN 15 to 18 (a rating of hardness) which is sorta in the middle and use a home made bullet lube made from alox and paste wax. I think that a bullet with a generous band of lube pushed under 1100 fps should not result in leading....all commercial bullets I have seen fit this description. A good website for info on shooting lead bullets is www.ammosmith.com and another that as best as I remember is www.castboolets.com (you may want to do a search) As a note...I do not use a cast bullet in a Glock factory barrel. Bisley

[mmosur]

Thanks bisley. Great information. I'll look at those other websites and do some reading. I have a real nice 357 that I really like to shoot but I don't want to harm the gun as I'd like it to last a long time if possible. That being said... The gun is no use nor fun if I don't shoot it.

[freakshow10mm]

If you aren't getting leading then what's the problem?

The way to cure leading is most importantly bullet fit. If you have a properly fit bullet, hardness means nothing. Soft or hard, if the bullet seals the bore, it seals the bore. No leading. Too many companies are purporting hardness and gas checks are the cure all for leading. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

Elmer Keith routinely shot 1/16 to 1/20 alloy bullets in the .44 Magnum to 1400fps. No gas check, no leading. Why? Properly sized bullets. BHN is around 8 or 9 and he called that hardcast. Wheel weights are about a 9-10 BHN. Did hardness matter? Not one bit. His bullets were sized to fit the bore properly. They were not undersized, soft, then smashed with powder to seal the bore. That's nonsense and will cause leading more often then not. Why? Because the bullets don't fit.

I can take the same alloy and treat it 3 different ways and get 3 different BHN. I can take 3 different alloys and get the same BHN. What does BHN tell you? Not much. But man, those customers eat that stuff up when you toss around "HARDCAST bullets won't lead", don't they? OMG they even have a GAS CHECK!!! WOW!!

Running a jacketed or gas checked bullet after is not a good idea at all. Let's say you have leading in your barrel. Now you're going to take a larger bullet with much harder metal, ie copper, down the barrel. When the bullet fights to get down the barrel and it encounters lead in the grooves, it can't get into those grooves (that's how rifling gets on bullets, by the way). This increased resistance builds pressure and causes the barrel to swell more than it was designed. Think of a snake eating a mouse, only on a smaller scale. Yes barrel steel does swell a measurable amount when the bullet passes down the barrel.

So no, it's not a good idea to run a few gas checked or jacketed bullets as chasers to get rid of any perceived lead fouling. The correct and proper manner is to prevent leading by using properly fit bullets for your specific weapon and using a lube that will hold up in the length of barrel you have.

Edited April 2, 2012 by freakshow10mm

[leas327]

I have done it. It works.

I am not saying it is a cure.

We probably have different definitions of leaded and heavily leaded.

But I have a .357 that I have messed around with a lot of different bullet and powder combinations. I would check the bore out while trying new loads out. If it looked like it was getting leaded I will run a cylinder full of GC bullets through it.

I agree that leading is best cured with proper size bullets and lube.

[mmosur]

"If you aren't getting leading then what's the problem?"

I'm on this forum to learn. I prefer to avoid a problem rather than fix one after the fact which is why I asked.

[freakshow10mm]

Then read the rest of my post for an overview of how to prevent leading. Welcome to the forum.