Lead Dust and Bullet Lube

[Jacko.357]

Evening folks

I was shooting some Cast Bullet Engineering 358250 projectiles from my Lithgow SMLE 35.303 on Sunday. They are cast from wheel weight alloy and with lube and gas check come in at 260 grains. This batch was given to me and I do not know if they where Air cooled or Water Quenched. They shoot well and on monday just gone a sparkling new CBE brass mould arrived so shortly I'll cast up some more.

Before I sized them to .359 I tumbled them in Lanotec. I Pan Lubed them using White Label Lube Co Carnuba Red 2700 fps. I used 38 grains of AR2208 and CCI 200 primers. No chrony so guessing 1800 fps from my 22" barrel would pull them up. Only shot 10 Cartridges starting with a clean barrel and the first 5 shots indicated the Rifle likes a little fouling. The last 5 cut nice and tight. End result was a nice round 10 shot 2" group using a Bipod and no rear bag so I could not complain.

Now to the point - On firing the Rifle belched smoke, you'd almost swear I was shooting Black Powder and after 10 shot's the last 2 or 3 inches of my barrel had a small amount of what I believe may be Lead Dust. A clean patch with a little Metho followed by a dry patch cleaned the barrel of all powder fouling and no visible Leading was evident. I ran out of time and did not get any more shooting in.

A couple of things spring to mind - perhaps the excesive Smoke and small amount of Lead Dust indicate the Lube is burning off or perhaps the Lube is unsuitable ??

Last time I shot I used the same charge 38 gr of AR2208 but under a Lyman 358315 proj, cast from wheel weights and water quenched, sized .359, pan lubed in a home made bullet lube and gas checked they weighed 208 grains. Obviously they shot faster, guessing around 2000 fps and they shot really well. Zero evidence of Leading and the usual powder fouling.

Could the suspected lead dust and excess smoke suggest I need to use a softer or harder alloy with the CBE250 projectiles ?? I don't belive any gas cutting was going on, the projectiles shot too accurately for this to be the case in my view

Perhaps I'm better off with the home made lube [ ingredients - ATF, Carnuba Red, Bee's Wax and Parraffin ] I tried before the straight Carnuba Red 2700fps

I'm slowly getting all the required gear together and having a ball developing loads and learning the in's and out's of bullet casting

regards Jacko

[44man]

Not lead dust, never even heard of that in a gun. Powder fouling is first but maybe some lube ash. It doesn't sound like you run out of lube but maybe the powder is burning it. I never used that powder so I can't say.

[williamwaco]

Vote two on "Not lead dust"

In my experience, smoke is always caused by the lube. Some lubes smoke very little and some smoke a lot.

[geargnasher]

Sounds like antimony wash to me. Slug the bore with a dead-soft lead slug measure it, make sure your boolits fit. Cast boolits tend to smoke more than jacketed ones no matter how they're lubed, don't sweat over it.

Gear

[44man]

Sounds like antimony wash to me. Slug the bore with a dead-soft lead slug measure it, make sure your boolits fit. Cast boolits tend to smoke more than jacketed ones no matter how they're lubed, don't sweat over it.

Gear
He never said what color the stuff was. I assume it was dark.

[cbrick]

I'll go with Gear, slug the bore. As a hunch what it sounds like (the smoke & last few inches of barrel fouled) size .001" larger or more if they will chamber and see if the fouling & smoke go away. Could be blowing the lube out in front of the bullet and a more positive plug ahead of the expanding gas might do it.

Rick

[Southern Son]

.44 Man, AR2208 is just Varget, so you may have used it in a rifle or two.

A better description of the dust might help, or next time push a clean, slightly undersized, dry white patch through the bore to pick up whatever it is, then everyone can have a look.

I don't think that it will be lead dust, I just don't see how lead dust would remain in the bore of a rifle after it had been fired. I can understand leading in patches and streaks, but not the lead dust.

[noylj]

If the barrel wasn't slugged, why size the bullets?
I know, I am always on my "try as-cast first" rant.
No, no lead dust.
PS: have you ever fired black powder to know what real smoke is?

[Jacko.357]

Evening fella's, thanks for the reply's

what I assumed to be lead dust was dark grey, and very fine and scattered thoughout the powder fouling.

If the lube was being forced ahead of the projectile, wouldn't this indicate gas cutting. In this case I shouldn't be getting the stable bullet flight and good accuracy I got should I ??

I wonder if my pan lubing process needs refining, perhaps I am leaving excess lube on the nose of the projectile and this is smoking ???

I sized these projectiles to .359. I have shot the Lyman 358315 projectile sized to .359 from this Rifle and did not experience the excess smoke and dust. They where cast from wheel weights and water quenched. They shot beatifully but do not feed reliably from my magazine so I don't intend using them other then for plinking.

I have a groove diameter of .358. As the Lyman projectile shot so well sized to .359 I assumed all may be well and sized the CBE 358250 proj too .359. I will try both water quenched and air cooled proj next session and polish my Lee sizing die out so it sizes to .360 and give that a try.

regards Jacko

[9.3X62AL]

What could conceivably be "burning" is residual boolit lube remaining on the bore surface after the boolit's passage and exposed to heat from the gas column behind the boolit. Just a guess, that. I would lean that way even more strongly if the new boolit carries more lube than the Lyman did.

The loads shoot well. The boolits don't appear to be leading. The fouling wipes out easily. Conditions could be a whole lot worse. :)

[Jacko.357]

Makes sence 9.3 x 62AL, the CBE 358250 proj only has a single lube groove but it does carry more lube then the Lyman. After thinking on the reply's a little I can see that the residue in the barrel could not be as I first suspected and is likely to be burnt Lube.

I shoot Cast from my .357 and .44 Lever Rifles also , the projectiles I use for those calibres carry more lube than the CBE proj does, there is some smoke but nothing like the 35,303 produces. I'm not bothered by the smoke, was just wondering if it is an indicator of an underlying problem. It shoots well so I'll leave well enough alone for now

regards Jacko

[44man]

What could conceivably be "burning" is residual boolit lube remaining on the bore surface after the boolit's passage and exposed to heat from the gas column behind the boolit. Just a guess, that. I would lean that way even more strongly if the new boolit carries more lube than the Lyman did.

The loads shoot well. The boolits don't appear to be leading. The fouling wipes out easily. Conditions could be a whole lot worse. :)
This is what I was referring too, not ahead of the boolit. Alox loves to burn in the bore after boolit passage. But Alox ash will pick up lead.

[9.3X62AL]

OK--assuming my guesswork is correct......would a scraper groove like that found on a Keith/SWC boolit design effectively remove that ash as it plows through it? And if so, are you then seeing only the ash from the previous shot, since no accumulation is (supposedly) building up? This seems to be what Jacko is experiencing.

"Asking the next question" is one of my more annoying habits.

[44man]

OK--assuming my guesswork is correct......would a scraper groove like that found on a Keith/SWC boolit design effectively remove that ash as it plows through it? And if so, are you then seeing only the ash from the previous shot, since no accumulation is (supposedly) building up? This seems to be what Jacko is experiencing.

"Asking the next question" is one of my more annoying habits.
I don't think so. Boolits can run over what is in the barrel. It depends on how loose the fouling is. BP boolits have been made with scrapers but they are so small they do nothing with the huge fouling.
CR should leave little ash and will shoot out so it never builds up.
Powder still leaves most. The only thing that does not leave measurable ash is a gas. Asking powder to burn clean is like asking your wood stove to never have ashes in it.

[leadman]

I shot some linotype 314299 out of my 30-06 Savage with a very healthy amount of IMR4350 for almost 2,700 fps with Carnuba Red and LBT Blue Soft. I experienced what I would call lead "debris". It was very fine particles and "dust" as the OP. I think it might be due to the amount of antimony in the linotype. It brushed out with no problem so I think it might be the boolit surface melting some due to the large amount of powder, antimony, and the lube maxed out.

I repeated the load with different alloy consisting of isotope lead, 1% tin, and then heat treated. Accuracy was the same along with velocity, but the bore was cleaner. Had very little residue in the bore.

Accuracy was very good with both loads at 1" to 1 1/2" at one hundred yards for the first 5 shots. Accuracy was restored with just brushing the bore.

[9.3X62AL]

Interesting stuff--all of it. I can see your point about boolits "riding over" the ash, esp. a boolit design lacking the "scraper" element--like a round flat-nose, for example. I can't help thinking that a full-caliber flat-fronted drive band edge isn't digging up and removing at least some portion of the accumulation, and leaving in its wake the "steady-state" condition observed by the OP.

[Jacko.357]

Further food for thought Fella's !!! Thanks for the chat and keeping me thinking !!!

Leadman your post has me interested as it seems similar to my experience. My projectiles are not going to be doing much if anything over 1800 fps so the Red Carnuba Lube should cope but there is only a single lube groove and a little room for lube in the gas check groove.

Earlier in the week I found some large sticks of Solder in the local hardware and had the thought of adding a little solder to the next batch I cast up to harden them a little. I wonder if it may help with whats been discussed here ? Might even load a couple of batches with the same powder charge and different lube. No harm in experimenting and if it works I've learned something.

regards Jacko

[44man]

Boolit nose design should not change a thing. Lead forms into the rifling tight so any boolit will push out loose fouling.
The worst leading I ever seen was with wad cutters and Keith boolits with the wrong lead. Scraper thoughts don't work. Even a GC can run over bad leading without removing it.
I have cast hundreds of boolits with a cast in GC at the front drive band and they also had base GC's. The wrong alloy still leaded the bore. Recovered boolits had leading on the GC's.

[9.3X62AL]

That's intriguing stuff, 44Man. There are clearly much stronger forces at play during the time the bullet traverses the bore than we 'empirically' believe.