Cylinder leading??

[jhalcott]

I shot about 40 rounds thru my .44SBH today. The bullet is an NEI mold weighing 230 grains gas checked and felix lube. When I cleaned the gun this evening I noticed lead flakes on the rag when I cleaned the chambers. There was no evidence of lead in the bore. The powder is 2400. I pushed the sized bullets thru the cylinder to be sure they would fit prior to loading them. The empty cases didn't fall from the chambers but were not tight either. A nudge from the ejector was all they needed.

[HeavyMetal]

are you sure it was lead flakes and not unburned 2400?

2400 has a tendency to leave unburned powder and why would a gaschecked lead boolit "flake" in the cylinder?

[shotman]

are you sure its lead? Ruger is bad for rough chambers may be nickle off the brass shotman

[looseprojectile]

I have nearly always observed cylinder leading on .357 guns. I am talking about a solid lead wash on the front of the cylinder. Hard to remove.
I don't want to get into a controversy here about gas cutting or whatever but I have observed this with gas checks also.
I even get the lead wash on the front of the cylinder with anemic loads in the .45 Colt.
A few flakes, to me, would be very acceptable.
I dont think it hurts anything although it is probably an indication of something not entirely right.
I do not think I would do much shooting if I expected my gun to be clean after shooting it.:castmine:
Life is good

[jhalcott]

I closely examined the chambers for nicks,burrs etc. and found none. I'm used to seeing a leaded bore or unburnt powder grains from playing with lube or alloys or loads. This appears to be TINY shavings just at the shoulder in the chamber.It was in all of them, not one or 2. The lead alloy is the same<BUT a new batch, as I have used in the past. It records the same BHN as the other batch at 13The only difference in this load and the older one is Felix lube. I do NOT believe FWFL is the problem. I'm thinking it MIGHT be a brass problem. The case edge scraping against the lead as it leaves the case. Is this a possibility?

[HeavyMetal]

I think scraping lead going into the case during seating. I've had that happen with short cases that did not hit the expander plug. Depending on how short the case is it could be anywhere from a slight dimple to a complete ring of lead I could lift off with my fingers!

Do you trim you case's? Then debuurr inside and out?

[jhalcott]

I normally trim only when the cases get to MAX length. Then I deburr in and out. These cases were within tolerance,so I didn't trim. I found the mouths of a few cases to be rough. I have had them quite a while,but have loaded them only a few times. 3 times according to my records, and none were hot loads. I may have the crimp too deep. I used a big magnifying lens to check better.