Trapdoor Leading

[vp146b4]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times, so I'm sorry to bring it up again. I shoot squib loads in my Springfield Trapdoor, 4g of bullseye with a 291g flat base. After shooting, it takes forever to get a patch to run clean. I just heard someone say that running a patch with some lube on down your clean barrel just before shooting helps with cleaning. Anybody ever try this with success, or what works best to clean the barrel, I use Hoppe's to clean. Any help is much appreciated.
Bill

[felix]

Wet and simi-dry the barrel before shooting with any light oil. WD-40 will work, mineral oil, or even a solvent type of some sort. The best kind of oil would be a very thin creepy-crawly type of oil like jojoba oil. Good for triggers, too. ... felix

[13Echo]

If it's leading and not just fouling in a pitted barrel I would suspect your bullet isn't large enough diameter and isn't bumping up with that load to fill the grooves and you're getting a bit of gas cutting. Pre lubing the barrel will help but getting a good bullet fit may be more important.

Jerry

[vp146b4]

If it's leading and not just fouling in a pitted barrel I would suspect your bullet isn't large enough diameter and isn't bumping up with that load to fill the grooves and you're getting a bit of gas cutting. Pre lubing the barrel will help but getting a good bullet fit may be more important.

Jerry

Jerry:
Thanks, good point. My bore is very mirror like with no signs of pitting, eventhough the Trapdoors grooves are very shallow, I also use 30:1 for my alloy, and I shoot them as cast and pan lubed, but I've never slugged the barrel. I picked up a Lee hollow base mold that I want to give a try, that might fill the grooves better, especially at that low pressure.
Bill

[44man]

I agree that the boolit needs to be a little oversize to stop leading, I shoot way oversize! I never had any luck with bump up with any gun or boolit. It is far better to fit a boolit.
You never said what lube you use either. Even with the proper fit boolit, lube will make or break your accuracy and leading issues. Some do not agree with me and think because it is called boolit lube and goes in the grooves, that is all that is needed. Some will stop leading but blow groups all over the paper, others will be accurate but lead the bore. Some work fine in one gun but not in another.
Lube is as important as boolit selection, powder and charge and primers.

[Larry Gibson]

Jerry:
Thanks, good point. My bore is very mirror like with no signs of pitting, eventhough the Trapdoors grooves are very shallow, I also use 30:1 for my alloy, and I shoot them as cast and pan lubed, but I've never slugged the barrel. I picked up a Lee hollow base mold that I want to give a try, that might fill the grooves better, especially at that low pressure.
Bill

I shoot lots of 275 gr bullets (Rapine 460250) over 8 gr of Bullseye in my TDs without any leading and easy cleaning. I also shoot lots of a 210 gr true HB bullet (Rapine 460210HB) ove 6 gr Bullseye. I have also shot both wit 4 gr Bullseye on an indoor range. The bore's groove diameter on the origianl TB is .461" and that is what the bullets drop from the mould at. They, of course, shoot quite well in the .458 barrels of my H&R TDs. Original TD groove diameters can be pretty large, quite a bit larger than mine actually. What size are your bullets dropping from the mould at? Also with 4 gr of bullseye I doubt you will not get obturation (bumping up) regarless of the alloy, not enough pressure.

The 3 groove TD barrels are hard to measure correctly. The easiest way is to slug the bore then use a 1/2"x 5" (or similar) strip of .003"shim stock. Wrap it tightly around the slug nd pinch thetails of the shim stock together holding the shim stock tight around the slug. Measure the outside diameter with a micrometer and subtract twice the thickness of the shimstock. This will give you the correct groove depth.

BTW; The hollow base of the Lee 405HB made for the TD follows the original M1873 bullet specifications. It is not there to allow expansion of the skirt ala a minie' bullet. It is there to simply control the weight of the bullet while maintaining the same outside dimensions of the bullet. Yhe skirt is very thick and it will provide no obturation at TD pressures. My Lee mould cast bullets at .461 through .465 depending on alloy. I mostly shoot these as cast and do not size them down to .459 (as most often recommended) to depend on obturation to seal the bore on firing.

You might try "beagling" your mould to produce a larger diameter bullet.

Larry Gibson

[leftiye]

Barrels swabbed with a patch wet with tri flow don't lead (period).. I use this method to keep my conicals from leading in all of my front loaders.

[44man]

Muzzle loaders do not lead! I have never, ever had a leaded bore with any muzzle loader or ball or boolit.
I have read that Teflon is no good in a bore. It probably won't hurt in a muzzle loader but I hesitate with anything else.

[13Echo]

I and a friend shoot Trapdoors rather frequently. My bore is slightly rough near the muzzle and his is pristine. With blackpowder and the Lee 405gr HB bullet and 59gr Goex FFg his rifle will group 1.5 to 2 " at 100yds when he remembers what he's doing (ex-Air Force pilot - they aren't allowed to carry rifles for a reason). The bullet casts .460 and his bore is.461. My rifle doesn't like the 1873 bullet much but gives 2" groups with the SAECO 1881 bullet cast at .460 with a .461 bore and 70grs of black. Both are cast from 30:1 alloy. Neither rifle shows any tendancy to lead. I do believe bump up does occur with both bullets when used over black powder, but, perhaps not with small charges of smokeless.

Jerry Liles

[leftiye]

44, Maybe yours don't. I'm not blind yet!

[felix]

If Teflon decomposes, and it does not take much heat to make it happen, it gives off fluoride gas (Fluorine), which can cause all kinds of metalic breakdown. Does it happen with a hard dose of BP? Don't know. Best to pick another solvent/oil. ... felix

[vp146b4]

I agree that the boolit needs to be a little oversize to stop leading, I shoot way oversize! I never had any luck with bump up with any gun or boolit. It is far better to fit a boolit.
You never said what lube you use either. Even with the proper fit boolit, lube will make or break your accuracy and leading issues. Some do not agree with me and think because it is called boolit lube and goes in the grooves, that is all that is needed. Some will stop leading but blow groups all over the paper, others will be accurate but lead the bore. Some work fine in one gun but not in another.
Lube is as important as boolit selection, powder and charge and primers.

44man:
First, I"m using Lyman 457191, which drop out at about 293g at .460, I'm pan lubing with Vasoline and paraphin and a little RCBS case lube, with the 4g of Bullseye they shoot pretty good at 50' offhand, eventhough I do get a few flyers that are offcall.
Thanks
Bill

[44man]

Well, that lube should work but I never tried it. I would beagle the mold to see what happens with a larger one. Another thing to try is to cast real hot, over 800 degrees. I gained .002" with .357 boolits by raising the temp 50 degrees.
Leftiye, I have shot thousands of maxi balls and many others with zero leading out of many muzzle loaders. My cap and ball does not lead. I wonder if your bore is a little rough? I guess you could get leading and maybe I have been lucky. My friend is a collecter and shooter and I have cleaned up about 50 originals for him and only found rust, no lead. He used to shoot at Winchester where all the civil war types shoot. NSSA or whatever it is called.

[Larry Gibson]

44man:
First, I"m using Lyman 457191, which drop out at about 293g at .460, I'm pan lubing with Vasoline and paraphin and a little RCBS case lube, with the 4g of Bullseye they shoot pretty good at 50' offhand, eventhough I do get a few flyers that are offcall.
Thanks
Bill

Don't know what the backstop is for your 50' range but if you can you might also bump up the Bullseye charge to 6 gr or so. I didn't get efficient ignition with less than 5 gr with the 275 gr Rapines or with some 300 gr commercial cast I tried.

Larry Gibson

[leftiye]

44 man, The muzzleloader mentioned was fired with swaged pointed 500 grain boolits (bore dia., interference fit, pure lead) atop a 1/4" thich wad full of Natural Lube 1000. The bore was cleaned between shots, the powder, wad and boolit seated, and the bore swabbed with Triflow oil. If the oil was not present, there were gobs of lead flakes in the bore, and the boolit struck 10 in. low at 50 yds. Otherwise, the boolits would touch.

[John Taylor]

Thoughts on Teflon. About 25 years ago I worked for a smith that was building 50 BMG single shot bolt actions. Standard barrel length was 45" and we found that the last 8" of bore was fouling. Bullets were lathe turned solid brass from an automatic screw cutting lathe weighing 615 grains, Velocity was 3300 FPS. We found that if the bullets and bore were treated with Triflow there was no fouling and a gain of 100 FPS. Bullets were heated some before being sprayed from an aerosol can. This combo works good on elk at long range for 1 shot kill.