Witness Elite Limited 40 S&W Leading w/ Bear Creek Moly

[Steffes]

Gents,

I have noticed a significant problem with lead fouling in my Limited. It now has 600 rounds of 200gr Bear Creek moly coated bullets through it. After the first 300 the barrel was disgusting! Lots of moly and lead deposits. After about an hour of scrubbing I got it cleaned up and the barrel surface finish seems really good. Shot another 300 and it is as disgusting if not more so now.

The load is 4.3 WST at 1.180 OAL with .421 crimp using the 200gr Bear Creek.

Past experience with BC bullets is really good. I used them in .45 for a few years and shot at least 20k loaded over bullseye, win AA lite, and N310. I could shoot thousands of rounds before cleaning the barrel and it usually only took a few swabs to come sparkling clean.

There are two things I see here as being different from my .45 experience. First is the bullet relationship to the barrel when feeding. The 40 loaded long has a significant amount of bullet sitting down past the headspace ring in the chamber (into the leade). The 45 was a very short chamber and required almost no driving band exposed to chamber successfully. The other difference is the rifling style. The 45 had traditional land and groove style rifling and the 40 has polygonal rifling.

The only thing I can think of is that the coating is being damaged when chambering as the bullet enters the leade at a slight angle and this is exposing bare lead against the bore. Some rounds that I hand cycle through the gun come out with scuffed shoulders and exposed lead after chambering.

I did pull some loaded rounds to inspect the coating and crimp after loading and they looked perfect. No damage to the coating whatsoever.

I think I will try to switch lots of bullets and see if the problem goes away with a different batch of bullets. Does anyone have any similar experience or know of anything to experiment with to get rid of the leading issue? I will switch to bullseye powder soon once my stock of WST is exhausted, so maybe that will help.

[kneelingatlas]

Polygonal rifling is not friendly to cast bullets, plated or jacketed bullets will keep it cleaner longer if it bothers you. Personally I don't clean my barrels; I read a comment from Brian Enos once that more barrels are damaged from cleaning than shooting

Edited November 17, 2014 by kneelingatlas

[e-mishka]

Steffs, I had same issue in my limited .40sw with BC 180gn bullets. I switched to SNS coated, its night and day difference.

[Cy Soto]

I read a comment from Brian Enos once that more barrels are damaged from cleaning than shooting

This is one of those persistent urban legends that refuses to die. One would have to be really careless with their cleaning method to damage a barrel.

Though I will be the first to admit that I do not enjoy cleaning my guns, it is also true that, if we want to maintain the best possible accuracy in our barrels, it is best to clean them regularly.

[bayougump]

I've shot 10,000+ rounds of Bayous through 5 different Tanfos and have not had a single issue. I generally clean mine every 2 months or so or like every 2K-3K rounds but I'd venture I could prolly go longer. Bayous are great bullets and Tanfos eat them all day long. Just my experience

[Steffes]

I really like xtreme plated bullets. Maybe I should give those a try and just sell my Bear Creeks. Anybody want 3k bullets?

[Nealio]

For me its not worth the $5/k savings to run anything but plated bullets. Plus IMHO they shoot more accurate in these polygonal barrels (only compared to factory ammo and Speer TMJ).