leading

[Beekeeper]

Now I have a question for you that has been bugging me for a week.
Last week at the range a gentleman I know wanted to look at my H&R handi in 223.
He broke it open and said I should not shoot it any more until it was cleaned and de-leaded .
I looked in the barrel and saw the same thing I see every time with it.
I shoot the lyman 55 grain boolit with IMR 4895 and always have a dirty barrel.
something to do with the 4895 as it seems to do it in all of the MILSURPS I shoot.
Doesn't do it with 4198.
I thought about it and came to the realization I did not know what leading in a barrel really looks like.
Having shot and cleaned a lot of MILSURPS in my life I always felt it was normal.

The conditions are.
After running a bronze brush up and down 3 or 4 times I get about 6 or 8 dirty patches (black and fading to clean) using Ed's Red and a couple of dry ones that are clean.
Looks like powder fouling to me but what do I know.
So What does lead fouling look like?
Flakey lead?


Jim

[RobS]

If you have leading you'll see it after running a brush down the bore and then using some cleaning patches with solvant as shinny silver flakes will be present. What you describe sounds like powder fowling to me. There is a good pic or two on the forum that people have taken showing leading.

[RobS]

Post #14:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=72390&highlight=barrel+leading+picture

[mooman76]

It depends on how bad the leading. I fortunately haven't had allot but what I've seen shows up as dull dark gray streaks down the barrel. If you have powder fouling you will likely need to clean it some before you will see it show up unless it's real bad.

[btroj]

Bad leading is easy to see after running a couple solvent patches followed by dry down the bore, hold barrel up to a light source and look down it. Lead in the grooves near the breech is common so look there. Trust me, it is hard to miss. Looks like lumped shadows lurking in the barrel.
Sounds to me like the guy who said it was leading knows not about cast bullets. He probably knows all the old wives tales about em however!

Bras

[44man]

If you don't get any lead on patches or after brushing I don't see a problem at all. I don't even see why the gun ever needs cleaned either. If accuracy never changes, leave it alone.
You will sure know if a gun leads up.
Clean and oil if you live where you have rust conditions. :drinks:

[Bass Ackward]

Now I have a question for you that has been bugging me for a week.
Last week at the range a gentleman I know wanted to look at my H&R handi in 223.
He broke it open and said I should not shoot it any more until it was cleaned and de-leaded .
I looked in the barrel and saw the same thing I see every time with it.
I shoot the lyman 55 grain boolit with IMR 4895 and always have a dirty barrel.
something to do with the 4895 as it seems to do it in all of the MILSURPS I shoot.
Doesn't do it with 4198.
I thought about it and came to the realization I did not know what leading in a barrel really looks like.
Having shot and cleaned a lot of MILSURPS in my life I always felt it was normal.

The conditions are.
After running a bronze brush up and down 3 or 4 times I get about 6 or 8 dirty patches (black and fading to clean) using Ed's Red and a couple of dry ones that are clean.
Looks like powder fouling to me but what do I know.
So What does lead fouling look like?
Flakey lead?


Jim


If you ever go into something with a bore scope you will be sick at your stomach.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to shoot something, and I don't care what that something is, and not have SOME trace in your bore. If it's a metal, there will be traces. Even after the most stringent cleaning methods. I know because I even used mercury to see if I could remove 100% of lead traces and there was still miniscule signs of having shot lead.

Just the way it is. Use a LED light source in front of your eye and lead GLOWS like fluorescent silver in a bore no matter what metal the barrel is made of.

So, following my new shooting mantra of, "It doesn't matter unless it does", then leading doesn't cause problems requiring cleaning unless it does. If it does, your choices are to ignore it or find a method to clean. Simple as that.

Believe it or not, the best cleaning methods is to shoot 4 or 5 rounds with a softer, bullet with your normal lube and use LLA on top of it at a velocity just high enough to ensure it exits the bore. If that bullet is frosted so that it is scratchy, so much the better.

IF you have the ironed on, built up stuff, then a GC will do even a better job.

That does as well as any chemical or mechanical cleaning method or combination I have ever found. Cause with the first fouling shot, you are right back to the same point.

No more chemical cleaning for me unless the gun is to be stored.

[geargnasher]

I get three kinds of leading: Streaky stuff (the grey/silver streaks in the bore, only visible after a solvent patch has cleared the powder residue out), lumpy stuff that knots up in places in the barrel, usually around the first inch or two of the rifling and one the forcing cones of revolvers, and the flaky stuff that comes out in slivers on a dry patch. If you're getting flakes or lumps, your accuracy and long-string consistency will likely suffer. The streaks really don't matter much IME if they don't get worse. Often, the streaks change shot-to-shot, cleaning up in one place and laying down in another, more like a crayon mark than stuck-on metal. I don't like any of it, but I've gotten less and less worried about light streaky lead since I've found that it really doesn't affect accuracy in most cases.

Gear

[montana_charlie]

How would you like to have a 'cleaner' that changes it's appearance when lead is present...so you know it's there, and when you have it all cleaned out?

If it sounds like something you can use, you can find it here http://www.sharpshootr.com/no-lead.htm .

I haven't used it, and I don't know anybody who has. But here is a discussion about it http://www.shilohrifle.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16918 .

CM

[btroj]

I like Bass and the " It doesn't matter unless it does" statement. I agree entirely. If I get a small amount of what Gear calls the light streaky lead and accuracy os fine then I ignore it. The gun is so why shouldn't I?
The lumpy stuff in the throat is usually something that can't be ignored. This is the stuff you need to find a way to avoid. Won't even begin to go into ways to do that, will take to long and only start major league pissing contests!

Let the gun tell you what it needs. Then listen to it, not some gut who obviously doesn't know lead bullets!

Brad

[Bent Ramrod]

The presence of lead is not so much the issue as the building up, shot after shot. I often get tiny splinters or flakes out of a bore with the first tight solvent-soaked patch, but if that is all there is after a course of 50 shots, and no falling off in accuracy has occurred over the course, I just shrug it off and treat it as part of the crud to be cleaned out of the barrel at the end of the session.

If, on the other hand, the accuracy gets worse over the course, and then I see long stringers of lead on the tight patch, or the dull-gray streaks in the rifling that take a solvent soaking and a recleaning a few days later to get out, then I say the barrel has a tendency to "lead."

I get this sometimes during load development, and then I have to guess as to whether I've gone over the accuracy limits of the powder charge or whether the groups would have continued to shrink if the lead hadn't shown up. Guess I should clean every five shots, but that can change the point of impact as well. At least going over the loads again is an excuse to do more shooting.

[Char-Gar]

If you give your barrel a half dozen or so, back and forward strokeswith a good bronze brush, followed with a couple of wet patches and followed by a dry one or two and the bore is bright and shinny you don't have any lead.

Barrels shot with cast bullet tend to look nasty with lube and powder trash. All, I do is run a couple of patches wet with Ed's Red, followed by a few dry ones and that is that.

[stubshaft]

For the sake of experimentation, fire a couple of unloobed soft boolits down the bore. This will give you an idea of what leading looks like.