Keeping the lead out?

[mcb]

So after just over 100 rds this weekend through my 625 and 627 they are both leaded up pretty badly. Despite starting the weekend clean. No riflings for the first 3/4 to inch of the barrel due to being full of lead.

I have become pretty good at getting lead out. Between a Lewis lead remover and some old bore brushes wrapped in Copper Chore-Boy I can get those barrels pretty clean with a few minutes of elbow grease.

Obviously I need to quit using these loads and find something better but in the mean time I have several hundred of these lead bullets loaded for both guns. I would like to keep shooting at club matches and the like.

So my core question is can I do anything to try to reduce the leading issue at this late point? Is there some magic I can do to the guns and/or ammo to reduce this leading while I suffer through the rest of these two lots of ammo?

If your curios the 45 loads were 230gr RN Black Bullet International pushed with Clays. The 38 Special loads where 158gr RN Sierra Plinkers pushed with Clays (International Clays made the leading even worst)

I have some IbejiHeads to try next. If those lead the barrel up too I will just give up and go back to Montana Gold. The coated lead is a lot cheaper but dealing with the leading issue is getting old quick. I had less leading issues with traditionally wax lubed uncoated lead bullet (Penn Bullet) in my XD than I am with these various coated bullets in my N-frames.

[aandabooks]

All of the lead that I shoot comes from S&S. I run either Bullseye, AA#5, #9 or 2400 depending on the caliber and weight of the bullet. I have had zero leading issues. I'll fire 100-200 rounds per gun per session at the range and have not had lead issues. I load fairly mild and shoot lead reloads through 1911s, FNX9, 686, 28, .44 mag M44, SR9, XDS .45.

Try a box from S&S and don't push up to real high FPS numbers.

[seanc]

Old school bullseye dudes, as I understand anyways, would do a few pulls with the lewis lead remover between strings or every x rounds while at the range to keep them accurate.

The lead comes out a lot easier when there is less and the barrel is still hot...

My 627 with a shilen barrel gets a little leading with some coated bullets I shoot. The same bullets leave factory s&w barrels perfect and clean like jacketed.

Edited October 7, 2013 by seanc

[alecmc]

Honestly, I never have any leading issues shooting Bayou Bullets, but - when I did shoot cheaper lead and had build up I would use either the lewis lead remover kit, or some 100% copper chore boy pads run tight down the barrel.

[mcb]

Thanks guys. I am hoping the IbejiHeads with that weird turquoise coating will not lead my barrel. Friend of mine has had good luck using them with Major 40.

I was not overly surprise that the 158gr Seirra leaded, they were real cheap and soft swagged lead but I had a little hope since they where moly coated. I am shooting them at about 820fps. On the other-hand, I had high hopes for and was thus fairly disappointed with the BBI bullets. I am only making ~169PF (735fps) with it and still getting leading. The lead bullet underneath the coating seams awful soft.

[PatJones]

Over the years I've found that universal clays seems to lead less for me. Even in my old colt with the oversized throats.

My current .38 load is a 158 rn from Colorado Cast Bullets over 4.5 gr of Universal. I intentionally put over 400 rounds thru without cleaning as a test and there was no change in accuracy.

[gp100man]

I've never had a leading issue with either the Black Bullets Int or the Bayou Bullets. I use Solo 1000 and they average 730-740 fps. Now when I run just lead bullets I will get some leading but never enough after 100 rounds to cause a problem. I could run several hundred without leading badly. When I do clean the barrel after shooing a bunch of lead, I do get some shavings but not enough that it would cause a problem. Something else might be going on with your ammo/gun

Steve

[mcb]

I've never had a leading issue with either the Black Bullets Int or the Bayou Bullets. I use Solo 1000 and they average 730-740 fps. Now when I run just lead bullets I will get some leading but never enough after 100 rounds to cause a problem. I could run several hundred without leading badly. When I do clean the barrel after shooing a bunch of lead, I do get some shavings but not enough that it would cause a problem. Something else might be going on with your ammo/gun

Steve

What other things should I be looking at? What other factors effect a bullet likelihood of leading?

[seanc]

I've never had a leading issue with either the Black Bullets Int or the Bayou Bullets. I use Solo 1000 and they average 730-740 fps. Now when I run just lead bullets I will get some leading but never enough after 100 rounds to cause a problem. I could run several hundred without leading badly. When I do clean the barrel after shooing a bunch of lead, I do get some shavings but not enough that it would cause a problem. Something else might be going on with your ammo/gun

Steve

What other things should I be looking at? What other factors effect a bullet likelihood of leading?

I started reading a lot about leading when I started getting it in my 627 barrel.

The consensus is that undersized bullets are the biggest culprit, aside from soft lead going to fast and bullets not being lubed properly.

Slug your barrel, find its true dimension.

This is complicated in a revolver because the cyl throats also have a dimension....

Me, its to much hassle and stress. Shoot the gun, de-lead the barrel when its good and hot.

I'm going back to plated bullets in the shilen barreled gun...

If you want to get lost/drowned in lead bullet knowledge then http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ is the first and last stop...

Edited October 7, 2013 by seanc

[Toolguy]

Some of the main causes of leading in a revolver are: out of time - cylinder not lined up with the barrel when the bullet goes through, forcing cone too small or rough surface, barrel constricted in area where threaded into the frame, too much powder, hot burning powder, wrong bullet lube.

The wrong lube is a major cause. It has to melt off in the barrel to work. If your fired bullets still have lube on them, it's not working. This is about lube in lube grooves, not the coated ones. The lube you heat up to put on is usually too hard to work well at target ammo velocity. The casting companies use the hard lube because they have to dump a bunch of bullets in a box and ship it halfway across the country. If they used a soft lube that really works well like Alox, by the time the bullets arrived they would all be one ball of lube and bullets and totally unusable. The best lube I know of that works for both shipping and shooting is White Label's Carnuba Wax Lube. There may be others, I haven't done any casting for a while.

The other main issue is the barrel being "crush fit" onto the frame. What this amounts to is the barrel being threaded on and contacting the frame while the front sight is still a good ways from vertical, then wrenching it tighter until the front sight is vertical. The friction of the interface between barrel and frame then prevents the barrel from coming unscrewed during use. It also makes the threaded portion of the barrel smaller inside where the bullet goes through.

I have seen barrels that were squeezed down .002 of an inch this way. This can be measured by finding the gage pin that will slip in the muzzle and if it doesn't slide all the way through, find the smaller size that will go through. This situation increases leading and decreases accuracy. The way to fix it is to remove the barrel and turn enough off the back so the front sight will line up vertical with only moderate hand pressure to tighten. Put loctite on the threads, hand tighten and you're good to go.

[cslafrain]

MCB

I hate that you are so disappointed in our products as that is certainly not our intention is displease our customer. If you prefer you may return what you have not used for a refund. My phone number is also posted on the website and we would have been more than willing to assist in developing a solution.

I feel the need to address a couple comments - "The lead bullet underneath the coating seams awful soft" - The lead we use is certified 92/6/2 lead with a BHN of 15-16 and if need be I can provide you with the Certificate of Analysis (COA) from the lab. I have had 2 customer that were seeing some leading when using the 45-230. For the 1st one the customer slugged the barrel and found out his barrel was actually undersized - so we sized him down to 0.451 instead of 0.452 and the problem went away. For the other it was a loading practice issue with not enough bell and excessive crimp removing the coating - this was discovered after a phone call and a few pictures of loaded rounds and pulled bullets.

I wish you the best of luck in determining the root cause of issue and will offer any assistance I can even if you choose another product.

My number is 7313434001.

[revchuck]

Conventional wisdom is that a revolver's chamber throats should be about .001 larger than barrel bore diameter, and that the bullets should be sized to match the throats. IIRC, S&W made a batch of 625s with undersized throats that caused problems with lead bullets. Early M25-5s in .45 Colt typically had .455-.456 throats matched with .452 barrels and would lead badly with bullets sized .452, but worked fine with bullets sized to match the throats.

My experience is that uncoated swaged bullets can work well at .38 Special pressures. I once burned through 700+ rounds of 158 grain Zero RNLs over 4.1 grains of TG in my S&W M67 in one day at a training course with no leading. Took about an hour with Break-Free and 0000 steel wool to get the powder residue off, though. Generic hard cast bullets sized to .358 usually work okay, too. Hard cast bullets sized .357 are a crap shoot.

I've shot ESP in IDPA with my M681 and .357 Mag with generic hard cast .358 158 grain RNLs at Major (6.8 grains of Unique, ~1140 fps IIRC) with no leading problems. No powder residue problems at that pressure, either.

[mcb]

MCB

I hate that you are so disappointed in our products as that is certainly not our intention is displease our customer. If you prefer you may return what you have not used for a refund. My phone number is also posted on the website and we would have been more than willing to assist in developing a solution.

I feel the need to address a couple comments - "The lead bullet underneath the coating seams awful soft" - The lead we use is certified 92/6/2 lead with a BHN of 15-16 and if need be I can provide you with the Certificate of Analysis (COA) from the lab. I have had 2 customer that were seeing some leading when using the 45-230. For the 1st one the customer slugged the barrel and found out his barrel was actually undersized - so we sized him down to 0.451 instead of 0.452 and the problem went away. For the other it was a loading practice issue with not enough bell and excessive crimp removing the coating - this was discovered after a phone call and a few pictures of loaded rounds and pulled bullets.

I wish you the best of luck in determining the root cause of issue and will offer any assistance I can even if you choose another product.

My number is 7313434001.

Unfortunately all of my remaining BBI have been loaded. I bought 1000 and have ~500 remaining, already loaded. That said you may have giving me the most likely cause of the leading. When I was working up the load I was getting a fair amount of variability in velocity. So I tightened up my crimp. This did help make my velocity somewhat more consistent but it appears it may be the most likely cause of the leading, striping the coating off the bullets. Same for my 38 Special loads. I guess I am going to have to get at least a little more BBI and try it will less crimp. Hate to talk badly about a company's product when the poor performance my be my fault and not the company's I really appreciate your reaching out to me to help!

[cslafrain]

Send me an email with your address at bbibullets@gmail.com and we will supply some additional at our cost and help get this issue resolved. Would it be possible to try some at the 0.451 and 0.452 to see if that makes a difference. We can also have a conversation regarding crimp setup.

[wheelie]

Conventional wisdom is that a revolver's chamber throats should be about .001 larger than barrel bore diameter, and that the bullets should be sized to match the throats. IIRC, S&W made a batch of 625s with undersized throats that caused problems with lead bullets. Early M25-5s in .45 Colt typically had .455-.456 throats matched with .452 barrels and would lead badly with bullets sized .452, but worked fine with bullets sized to match the throats.

snipped...

^^^This^^^

You may need larger diameter bullets.

And if the throats are smaller than the barrel you should have them opened up.

But I suspect this is unlikely given the particular guns you are shooting. Its probably throats being bigger than ideal.

Larger bullets may make for difficult loading the cylinder.

I have shot plenty of lead cast bullets at 1100-1200 fps with no leading.

To do this everything has to fit.

[toothguy]

Send me an email with your address at bbibullets@gmail.com and we will supply some additional at our cost and help get this issue resolved. Would it be possible to try some at the 0.451 and 0.452 to see if that makes a difference. We can also have a conversation regarding crimp setup.

It's really nice to see good customer service.

[No.343]

Send me an email with your address at bbibullets@gmail.com and we will supply some additional at our cost and help get this issue resolved. Would it be possible to try some at the 0.451 and 0.452 to see if that makes a difference. We can also have a conversation regarding crimp setup.

It's really nice to see good customer service.

My thoughts exactly.

[pskys2]

I used some 45 200 swc from Chandler at BBI with clays and they worked fine. Just a shade of leading at the throat of my 1911, same as any of the other Moly's. They were super accurate though, kind of hate that as it removes a big "Well, but...." excuses!

In a revolver I've noticed a little build up at the forcing cone, but it never gets much past that.

[snertley]

I have shot 9,000+ rounds of BBI 180gr bullets out of my 610 and have not cleaned the barrel a single time. I use W231 for all my loads. And yes, the gun still shoots very accurately. I do have to clean the chambers once in a while but that is it.

One other issue when loading cast or coated bullets is over crimping your rounds, this will strip the coating and increase leading too. Just a thought.

[mcb]

I have shot 9,000+ rounds of BBI 180gr bullets out of my 610 and have not cleaned the barrel a single time. I use W231 for all my loads. And yes, the gun still shoots very accurately. I do have to clean the chambers once in a while but that is it.

One other issue when loading cast or coated bullets is over crimping your rounds, this will strip the coating and increase leading too. Just a thought.

After talking to Chandler from BBI I am pretty sure my problem is too much crimp. I am going to try less crimp and see if that fixes my problem.

[gemcityshooter]

Good on Ya BBI for stepping up and offering to help. It is nice to see that there are some companies out there that still work on customer service and will go the extra mile to make things right.

[mcb]

Good on Ya BBI for stepping up and offering to help. It is nice to see that there are some companies out there that still work on customer service and will go the extra mile to make things right.

Yes Chandler and BBI has gone out of their way to help me. Chandler gave me some good advise and is even sending me some more bullets to try. I will let you guys know if they work better when I load them the correct way.

[earplug]

A heavy taper crimp will also reduce the bullet diameter. Undersize bullets will allow the propellant gasses to jet past the bullet and deposit lead. Jacketed bullets spring back a bit while lead just deforms when heavily worked.

I had a rough time figuring this out while using a LEE factory taper crimp sizing die on marginal bullets.

[RevolverJockey]

I think I made it through all the posts in this thread and don't think I saw it so I will mention. Sometimes, if the recoil impulse is "off" i.e. too fast or too slow and the bullet is hard enough, it will not obturate or mushroom at the base forming a proper seal. This appears a lot like the bullets being undersized as there are 6 points of gas cutting around the bullet and literally you are melting the bullet into the grooves. There is an old trick in the Lyman cast manual, and I believe me I am extremely anal and technical but sometimes it helps to look back at our roots. I cast ~35,000 bullets a year and shoot almost exclusively revolver - the trick is to run you finger nail along the bullet - if it grooves - too soft, if you can't see anything - too hard, anything in the middle you can make work for most pistol applications. Not as exacting as a BH test, but has served me well.

Lastly, and also from the Lyman casting manual - if the leading is focused toward the muzzle - there is not enough lube, toward the forcing cone - the bullet is going too fast for the allotted bearing surface, and if it is leading the whole way down - the bullet is undersized or too hard.

Hope this helps and you get it figured out. You are the second person this week I have ran into having problems with Moly bullets. Have you considered tumble lubing them? This is something I could help you with if you wanted to give it a try - I could send you some of the tumble lube I make. I mostly cast for a 610 with 200gr RN bullets - I made the casting mould too but they drop out at .0015" larger than my slug diameter and I taper crimp. I clean my barrel around every 10k rounds.

Lee

Edited October 21, 2013 by Mitch_Rapp.45

[S&W627shooter]

Thank you for having such great customer service, BBI!