How many shots before leading occurs?

[mugsie]

I see a lot of people talking about leading but what is leading? How many shots are we talking about before we start to see "leading"? Is some leading inevitable? I shoot a hundred or so at a pop out of my revolvers, when I take them home, I need to use a chore boy on them because there's always some residual leading in the barrel. Not a lot, whatver a lot signifies, but there are always some slivers which come out. Can anyone quantify what a "lot" of leading is, if some is normal, how many shots etc? Thanks.

BTW - now that I'm casting my own (and hopefully using up all those purchased cast bullets), my 45 BH shows zero leading (I was amazed) using the Lyman keith design and the moly lube.

[sundog]

Depends.

I have a single shot in 32-40 with a fairly high quality bbl. Some days I can shoot all day and maybe get a flake or nothing at all. Plain base boolits. Another day, I'll get a long thin strand or two every 20 shots or so. Everything is EXACTLY the same except environmental conditions, i.e., wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, and maybe some other things 'voodoo'. I can shoot mil bolt and high power with GC'd boolits in mil surps for three or four months or longer and not touch the bore and not have accuracy degraded at all. NO LEADING over hundreds, sometimes thousands, of rounds.

I also have a Bisley Vaquero in 44 Mag that will lead forward of the forcing cone in nothing flat, but not get any worse all day long. Go figure. A 1911 that gets a smear half way down the bbl, but never get any worse, but won't do that every time.

Whenever YOUR acceptable level of accuracy for a particular firearm goes south, that's too much leading.

[CSH]

Ideally, one should never have to remove lead from a bore, especially in handguns. I can shoot any of my 1911 45's all day with zero leading. Ditto for most of my revolvers. If the bullet is undersized for the bore, you will get leading, and a lot of it in just a few shots. If your revolver has a constriction where the barrel screws into the frame, you will get leading just forward of the constriction. If the velocity is excessive for the alloy or lube, you will get leading. It's generally not too complicated to get a revolver into a zero leading condition unless it has a misalignment issue. Start by measuring your throat and bore dimensions. If the throats are smaller than the bore, you will need to open them up to at least the bore diameter, or better yet, .001" over. Slug the barrel and make a mental note of the resistance as the slug moves down the bore. Was there a lot of resistance near the forcing cone? If so, the bore is smaller at that point it will need to be opened up via firelapping. I prefer to take a couple of hours one time to get the gun set up to shoot cast rather than spend 10 minutes after every shooting session to clean out the lead.

[felix]

If you are talking about a wash (no streaks, no slivers), that can be eliminated by altering the alloy. More tin, or less antimony; if neither works, then add a little pure lead for the next batch. Worse comes to worse, add more viscosity to the lube, but then, you might run into lube compaction destroying accuracy completely. Again, pick which problem to solve. Mine is who cares, as long as accuracy holds up for my outing duration. ... felix

[Lloyd Smale]

ive got handguns that have had thousands of bullets through them without leading. I rarely clean a handgun barrel. like felix said if your gun is leading you have a load or gun problem that needs correcting.

[Bullshop Junior]

Speed green. I shot cast out of my 223 and 30/06 with cast and Speed green, and never got leading after many many shots. About the only time I cleaned eather one was when I shot FLGC's in them.
BIC/Daniel/BS Jr.

[Bullshop Junior]

I have had to remove LUBE from my hand gun chamber before.
BIC/Daniel/BS Jr.