hybrid barrel with lead bullets

[mark carr]

I was wondering if you can use lead bullets with the hybrid barrel I know most of the moly bullet makers say don't use there bullets with a comp but I have never tried them with a hybrid I am wanting to make a new 3 gun pistol thinking a 17 with hybrid barrel but I would like to be able to shoot coated bullet if possible.

[Braxton1]

Plain Lead, moly-coated lead, or polymer-coated bullets in a hybrid barrel is generally a bad idea.

The base of any bullet wants to expand outward a bit because of the pressure exerted on the base by the propellant gases. This outward pressure will make a little bit of material extrude into the hybrid port as the bullet is passing by. That extrusion then shears off and particles of the bullet eject out the top.

This also occurs with jacketed bullets. These little bits of high-speed ejecta are what causes the pitting commonly seen on C-More blast shields.

The problem with lead is that eventually, the lead coats the inside of the hybrid cones and alters the shape of the cones, degrading the performance of the ports. In worse-case scenarios, the coating breaks off in big chunks at high speed.

[mark carr]

Ya That's what I was afraid of I just didn't have any experience with hybrid barrels I will just have to stick a small comp on it and shoot jacketed bullets. Thanks for the reply.

Edited June 24, 2012 by mark carr

[Bob Hostetter]

I built a Glock 1 with a hybrid barrel for my daughters 1st open gun and she used Bear Creek 115gr Moly coated bullets for practice all the time. we never had any problems with them other then a little spitting coming from the ports. We would clean out the ports every once in a while with a solvent soaked pipe cleaner but other then that did nothing special.

[zmanktm]

I shot 135 lead out of my 38 super hybrid for years without much fuss. I did us an Outers Foul Out a lot to remove the lead build up. I would put it on overnight and in the morning a nice blob of lead would pour out with the solution.