Another Lube Question

[jim4065]

Went shooting over the weekend with my son. I was firing the Beretta C4 40 S&W at bottles on a shale bank about 40 yards away. About 2 seconds after I fired the last shot in the clip a ricochet fell straight to the ground 5 feet away. The boolit showed rifling marks and some abrasion (very little) at the nose. It was a 175 gr truncated cone from Keads Bullets in Dallas, TX. Most of the lubricant was still in the groove, bright red - in other words the boolit was ready to be shot again. You could tell the base had been subjected to heat, but no gas cutting was apparent to my untrained eye.

Aside from the bizarre path the boollit must have traveled, it raises this question. These are really HARD CAST, yet I'm still getting a lot of leading in the first six inches of bore. Can the lube be failing because it is too hard? Or is the culprit more likely a matter of size - they arrived pre-sized and ready to shoot. Seeing all that lube still on the boolit is troubling, especially when I'm getting so much leading. Still have about 1000 of these left to shoot and I'm thinking about digging out the lube and replacing it with NRA 50/50.

Getting the lead out of the barrel is really a pain. I read a thread earlier where someone advised shooting it out with a condum. Will that really work? - sure would be both faster and cheaper.

[monadnock#5]

Mr. Ackwards has made comment in the past, that among all its other sterling attributes, Bullshop Sprueplate Lube makes an excellent bore conditioner for prefouling the barrel before shooting cast. Sounds like an experiment you might like to try.

[mroliver77]

I have found that most commercial cast bullets are too hard and usually undersize wich will lead to leading especially in the beginning of the barrel. You really need to get a throat measurment and go from there. Read all you can about fitting cast bullets to the gun. As far as removing lead a condum bullet will shoot a lot of lead out sometimes. Me I use copper scrubbing pads wrapped around my cleaning brush for a tight fit in the barrel. I few passes with this will usually clean a barrel up nicely. I have given commercial bullets a coating of alox over the factory lube and had considerably less leading. I have used wax sheet under boolit and eased the leading. I have used foam fillers and stopped leading before. I have had some comercial boolits that just leaded badly and nothing would help. Like I said though it is best to fit boolit to throat and work from there. All the information you need is here on this site. Jay

[Bullshop]

Yes you can. Run some patches through the barrel with solvent, something that will disolve lead. Anything that works on copper will work on lead. After the recamended soaking time, or 15 minutes or so shoot a flgc round through it. Repeat until the remander can be easily cleaned out with normal cleaning procedure (couple wet patches, brush, dry patch).
I do the same thing in reverse to clean out jacket fouling. Use a soft boolit at low pressure.
BIC/BS

[GSPKurt]

I just read an article in this month's Handloader about hard cast bullets leading barrels and recommending soft lead bullets. I'm gonna try that route. Nothin' to lose at this point, right?

[Thumbcocker]

Unless you are shooting ultra high velocity most commercial cast boolits are way too hard. There is a body of myth out there that cast must be super hard to preform. I have shot acww at 2000 fps with no leading. Boolit fit , boolit fit, boolit fit.

As to lube I think that much commercial lube is made for the convience of the bulk producer. I have always believed that lube that stays in the boolit is not doing its job in my barrel. I have had good results with 50/50 beeswax lithium grease in rifles and pistols.

[Wayne Smith]

Methinks most commercial hard lubes are designed to stay on the bullet in shipping, regardless if they work in the barrel or not.