Worst ever case of leading

[Hickok]

I thought this might be interesting to talk about.

What is your worst ever case of leading when shooting rifles or handguns?

Mine was when I bought my first handgun back about 1973, a Ruger .357 mag. Blackhawk. Also purchased 2 boxes of .357 magnum Winchester 158 gr Semi wadcutters, Lubbaloy I believe they were called.

Didn't even get through the first box of 50 rounds. Couldn't keep them on a 1 foot square of paper at 25 yards. Pulled the cylinder out and looked down the barrel and couldn't even see any rifling.

I well remember the effort it took to get that barrel clean!

[tinhorn97062]

Mine was a few weeks ago. I was doing some load development in my Marlin with the Lee 457-340 boolit. I was shooting with H4198 and an air cooled blend of COWW/Pb that day and began to see some leading at around 38gr. By the time I got to 44gr, the last 6"-8" of my barrel looked like a smooth bore. I know I should've quit back at the 38-40 range, but I really wanted to test some limits, knowing full and well that I'd be scrubbing it later that evening. I spent about 2hrs that evening scrubbing my barrel.

:violin:

[jmorris]

My friends MAC 10 45. Had some bullets that were dip lubed with a lube that I didn't like and he said if I loaded them , he would worry about cleaning the barrel.

After a few thousand rounds of full auto fire a look down the bore and it looked like a smooth bore. There was so much lead in the muzzle extension he wound up drilling it out.

[Tatume]

Mine was with promotional 22 LR ammo, in two guns. One was an inexpensive semi-auto pistol and the other was a S&W Model 617. I had to hammer a cleaning rod through the barrel of the semi-auto just to be able to work on it. The Model 617 went back to S&W, who replaced the barrel. I still have several 550 round boxes of the ammo, but I'm unwilling to shoot it.

That said, the bullets appear to be dry, without the usual wax that I'm used to seeing as lube. I may try dipping the bullets (bullets only, not the whole cartridge) in molten LBT Blue Soft. I suspect they will perform well after that treatment.

[popper]

Just wipe the nose with a cloth dipped in Mazzola oil.

[Tatume]

Just wipe the nose with a cloth dipped in Mazzola oil.

Cool, sounds good. Thanks.

[DougGuy]

Worst case, Ruger Blackhawk 45 Colt with hard cast and hard lube. Back then I didn't even know what a pin gage was, let alone how to use one to figure out cylinder dimensions. I pretty much totally destroyed a Lewis lead remover trying to get all the lead out.

Now, after many years later, I have learned that all you gotta do is a little measuring, a little math, a little reaming and honing, then apply a little common sense when it comes to choosing alloy and sizing boolits, and use some SOFT LUBE!

I have gone from beating that Lewis lead remover through the barrel of my first Blackhawk with a hammer (not kidding! :shock:) to not even cleaning the barrels, as there is no leading to clean out, only lube and powder residue.

[Harter66]

I bought some commercial cast 308 180 flat point that seemed like a good idea before I knew better. 9,10,11,12 gr of Unique in an 06 ... they sounded like shattering glass and the last load was just a poof of smoke...... in hindsight from here 10 yr later with a clue they probably would have been much better off papered . 22" of lead ,12" no grooves , while there wasn't actually strings dangling from the muzzle I don't know why.

Ugly I'm smarter now.....

[plainsman456]

Speer swagged bullets in my 45 auto.

Had a time getting that stuff out and have not shot anymore of them.

I will one day throw them in the pot when making some boolits for the muzzleloader.

[Greg S]

Dan Wesson 8" barrel after a partial box of Winchester something or other swaged/plated 158 SWC. Smoothbore. Guynwas moving back to CONUS and got them for free. I'm alittle more picky now about 'FREE' ammo.

[shooter93]

I've never had a serious leading problem....but one could be lurking right around the corner.

[Seeker]

Worst case here was with Rem. Thunderbolt ammo through my Ruger 22/45. The gun started shooting 2' groups and keyholeing. I didn't know what the #$// was going on. I tore the gun down and couldn't hardly see daylight through the bore. I swear, I knocked prices of lead out print near as big as BBS.

[gloob]

One shot out of a Glock. Solid, full bore lead so thick I resorted to scraping it out with a brass rod before using the Chore Boys. The lead came out of the barrel in pieces half an inch long.

Same gun shoots thousands of the exact same cast bullet without a cleaning, now. My FLR die for that caliber is tight, and an oversize expander did the trick.

[MaLar]

I was fire forming some 350 Rem Mag for a wildcat I put together a 45-350 Rem mag.
Had some odd 357 mag lead bullets and I had the great idea to fire form with them.
My bore went from .458" to sub .358" before I noticed how bad the leading was.
I would work on the barrel for a while then had to walk away before I did something rash.
Took a couple of days to clear it of lead.

[tazman]

My neighbor brought me a Blackhawk he had been shooting tumble lubed cast in. There was no rifling visible anywhere. It took me parts of 2 days to get it clean. I checked the barrel of the Blackhawk for size and choke. There was no choke and the boolits were the right size.
We went to powder coat and that got rid of the leading. Funny thing was those tumble lubed boolits shot great without any leading in his Henry Big Boy.

[MarkP]

When I was in high school I bought 500 commercial cast at a gun show very cheap. My 10-1/2" Ruger SBH stared flinging rounds, my Dad said I was flinching. The bore looked like a rough smooth bore. Prior to that I was casting my own and pan lubing with 50/50 the hard blue lube made me think they would be better.

[Forrest r]

Worst case here was with Rem. Thunderbolt ammo through my Ruger 22/45. The gun started shooting 2' groups and keyholeing. I didn't know what the #$// was going on. I tore the gun down and couldn't hardly see daylight through the bore. I swear, I knocked prices of lead out print near as big as BBS.

+1

Thunderbolts made a mess out of a old 4-screw k-22 that had countless 1,000's of rounds down the tube. Those lead strips are what came out of the bbl.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/tboltlead.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/tboltlead.jpg.html)

It was the top pistol that leaded up badly with the thunderbolts, still have it to this day. Traded the bottom 5-screw k-22 for an un-issued still covered in cosmoline mas 45.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/k22s_zps7878140f.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/k22s_zps7878140f.jpg.html)



http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/masclean_zpsfawtpx3g.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/masclean_zpsfawtpx3g.jpg.html)

[Hickok]

http://www.xdtalk.com/attachments/lubaloy-357-rounds-jpg.19331/This is what turned my .357 Mag into a smoothbore in the 1970's.

Then I bought a Lee 358-150 SWC single cavity mold, (I still have it and it casts perfect boolits), melted COWW on a Coleman stove, hand-lubed with old Lyman lube, the black stuff, and learned casting by trial and error, as there was no internet then!

[bassnbuck]

My BFR in .475 with the original barrel looked like a sewer pipe after one shot. Being confident [also stubborn], in Magnum Research's ability to produce a precision made firearm I kept shooting, scrubbing, & lapping way too long. When I finally slugged the barrel, it measured .458. Badger made the barrel and marked it .475. I learned to always slug and measure the cylinder first. Expensive lesson. The replacement barrel was good out of box.

[Blackwater]

I used to get issued 1,000 rds. every 6 mo. when I shot on the pistol team. This was supposed to be a great boon, and keep us in practice so we could maintain bragging rights for the dept. Unfortunately, that was the nastiest, grungiest, most barrel fouling ammo I've EVER seen or heard of. Naturally it was the cheapest available, and in bureaucracies, that's always considered a plus. After all, THEY don't have to USE it! Anyway, it took me exactly one session to order a Lewis Lead Remover, and that thing was a godsend. It took that plus a brass brush with patches made of those "Lead Away" cloths to get the barrel clean. It was almost not worth getting the ammo, it took so much effort and care to clean the gun after their use - sort of a blessing and curse at the same time.

I'll tell you one thing, though. It darn sure taught me how to clean a revolver after its use! That's one of those "gifts that keep on giving," and I'm glad I learned all the little things, like cleaning under the ejector star, etc. Once a year, I'd break the gun down into its component parts, clean really thoroughly, and reassemble. I could always tell the difference in the gun after doing this. One learns through experience, and experience is often dictated by necessity, so I guess I really ought to be more thankful for that rotten ammo. It made me have to learn stuff I'd really not wanted to have to learn.

Newbies, pay attention to that. I'm certain you'll find the same, so don't ALWAYS seek the quickest, fastest, easiest answers. If you don't experiment, how will you ever learn? Reading here helps a lot in determining what to try next, but there's really no substitute for judgment and experience, and that's only acquired through trying stuff you might not necessarily WANT to do, but it pays off, even if only to show you that you were right to begin with. Without proving it that, you're only working under an assumption. After proving it, you have experience, and sometimes, you'll get some really nice surprises, and THAT is why you experiment. It's the only way we can really learn in this pastime.

[c1skout]

My worst was from load development tests in my Gp100. I was testing rounds loaded with 2400, looking through the barrel after each small lot of hotter loads, and pulling a patch through with the Otis cleaning rod I keep in my bag. The second hottest rounds were a little dirty, the last 6 made it into a sewer pipe. Took a couple hours to clean.

[dubber123]

Speer swaged lead in a 9mm. Undersized, practically no lube on the, and as teenager, "the faster the better".. Ugly.

It has been mentioned before, but bears repeating. If you get leading, shoot a properly sized, properly lubed boolit slow. Lead sticks to lead really well, and you will shoot out some pretty nasty leading in a surprisingly short time. Way faster than scrubbing generally, and a lot more fun.

If you don't pay attention to shooting the correct size, and insist on crappy lube, well, you are probably always going to get leading.

[ravelode]

Worst was my 870 12 ga. rifled barrel 25 rounds of standard Winchester foster slugs and the rifling was completely filled. I used a lot of chore boy and two brass brushes cleaning it out, nothing but sabots from now on,

[Kent Fowler]

http://www.xdtalk.com/attachments/lubaloy-357-rounds-jpg.19331/This is what turned my .357 Mag into a smoothbore in the 1970's.

Then I bought a Lee 358-150 SWC single cavity mold, (I still have it and it casts perfect boolits), melted COWW on a Coleman stove, hand-lubed with old Lyman lube, the black stuff, and learned casting by trial and error, as there was no internet then!

I was just going to reply when I was scrolling down and saw this post. And yes, you are right. I shot a box of Lubaloy's around 1970 in my Colt Trooper which, btw, had a bore diameter of .354 and it still took me about a week of scrubbing until I started to see the lands again. And then the gun still wasn't clean. I can't fathom how WW could put out this ammo knowing how bad it would lead. One box cured me.

[w5pv]

Mine was shooting some 200 grain 45 cal swc,six woul lead up mybarrel.I had about 5 pounds cast up but after several tries with different loads and powders I put them back into the smelt

[flint45]

I have a K-22 that after about 100 rnds of chep ammo just started spraying boolits evertwere. Went to clean it could not get a brush throu it sprayed it with penatrating oil let sit afew hrs. had to drive a patch through out came a lead doughnut wish I had a picture.

[GhostHawk]

About 50 rounds of undersized poorly lube rounds through my Yugo SKS turned it into a 3 day cleaning affair. Learned a few things that week.

[Budzilla 19]

Worst case of leading ever was with Alberts swaged lead bullets!! Could NOT keep them from leading. They were 38 caliber 158 grn smooth sided boolits, lubed with some kind of moly,graphite,black slick stuff, that did not work at all! Marlin 1894C in .357 magnum shooting 38 Spcl leaded up the first 10" of the barrel,so bad it took me a whole day to get it clean!

[Bullwolf]

Worst case of leading I ever had to deal with was in a 41 Long Colt.
Pretty sure the revolver was a Colt Lightning like in the image below.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/41_LC_revolver.jpg

The picture linked above was not the revolver I worked on, but one I found with a quick Google image search.

I'd also have to say that Colt Lightning had never been cleaned, or the bore had only been wiped with oil after shooting, as it was leaded up something awful. Took me days to get the majority of the leading out. There was no rifling visible to the eye, just a thick lead sewer pipe.

I learned that the 41 Long Colt uses hollow based bullets. I figured that out by pulling a boolit from a loaded cartridge using a kinetic puller.

Imagine my surprise however when I dropped the pulled bullet into the barrel, and it fell right on through the (now clean) bore. Supposedly the hollow base bullets bump up and fill the bore of the 41 Long Colt upon firing.

Well the ones that were previously fired surely didn't expand. Undersize soft lead bullets that don't expand and fill the bore = horrible barrel leading.

To be fair this piece had been around the block a time or two, and it had definitely fired some older ammunition. Perhaps some of it was old enough to have still been heel based or even black powder rounds. Dunno for sure. When it came to me, it was already in the badly leaded condition with a pile of dated ammunition and brass.

The bore (under all the lead) wasn't pitted or corroded, so I don't suspect a lack of cleaning after use of black powder ammunition. Some of the brass for it that I saw was ancient, and looked to be balloon head stuff. I would not reload any of the original brass cases.

So I tooled up to reload 41 Long Colt, and learned far more about the cartridge than I ever needed or wanted to.

Fortunately, I managed to pick up a couple boxes of more recent manufacture 41 Long Colt at a fun show for a source of good brass. They got pulled, and recycled. No way I was shooting any loads other than my own in that revolver again, especially after the original lead removal job.



- Bullwolf