Lead bullets, pitted bore and leading

[roysha]

Recently I had a discussion with a fellow regarding shooting cast in an older rifle that had some noticeable pitting and roughness in the bore, caused by, I assume, the use of corrosive ammunition from the days of yore. Anyway, I made the comment that he would have problems with leading which in turn would lead to accuracy issues. He countered with the statement that he had a couple of old 22 rifles that had bad bores and although they were not terribly accurate, they would hit a bunny at 25-30 yards and if there was any leading, it did not get any worse with more shots. He said he often shot 2-3 boxes just plinking around and the rifles were good for beverage cans at the above stated bunny range. He seldom cleaned the bores since they were pretty rough, but when he did, all he got out was powder fouling with possibly a tiny bit of lead.

That kinda shut me up. Got me to thinking. If old 22s with bad bores shoot sorta OK, why would this not also apply to any other caliber. I'm not talking about match type accuracy, just walking around, plinking and dinking, beer can, dirt clod kind of accuracy.

My question is, do any of you shoot cast in a gun that has a rough, pitted or otherwise less than pristine bore?

[high standard 40]

I can only speak about my own experience in this matter. I gave in to the local fad trend here a few years ago and bought a Mosin Nagant rifle at our local Cabela's when they were on sale. I was not allowed to pick and choose and had to accept the rifle that was presented to me from their inventory after waiting in a long line with other prospective buyers. I threw caution to the wind and bought it since it was rather inexpensive. I scrubbed that bore for quite a while and it was indeed a little rough. I slugged the bore and sized my gas checked bullets accordingly and loaded some rounds to try. The resulting leading in that barrel was on a scale that I do not have words to describe. I toiled for a LONG time scrubbing that mess from the bore. I ended up selling that rifle cheap to a gentleman who wanted one for his collection of military rifles. He did not care if it was a shooter or not as he only intended to display it. So, in my experience only, a rough bore of a centerfire rifle combined with cast bullets is a poor mix. YMMV.

[NoAngel]

I had an Ishapore a while back with some pitting. I cleaned that sucker for days and days. Then, started seeing if it would shoot. It was terrible. I kept shooting to get rid of the ammo I had loaded for it and after close to 50 rounds it started shooting really good for what it was. Took it home, cleaned it up and next time out....same thing. TERRIBLE! Then, as it settled in started shooting very well. This was the rifle that taught me my cleaning regimen. If it shoots....leave it alone. There's different kinds of fouling and certain kinds of fouling ain't bad. Case in point.

There's no rule that some armchair expert can spout on this subject that's going to give you a definitive answer. The only course is to shoot it and find out. It'll shoot or it won't but every gun is a set of rules unto itself.
If it were mine, I'd give it a thorough enema then put an allotment of ammo along with a corresponding amount of patience in my range bag and burn some powder. Don't give up on the first few dozen and quit.


Good luck.

[tomme boy]

I had one that was a little pitted. What I did was to lube and check them like normal then tumble lube them in alox. Helped immensely.

[35remington]

I have a 32 Long revolver with rough spots in the barrel from an insect nest. It shoots very well and leads no more than revolvers with perfect barrels.

[bedbugbilly]

My experience with shooting centerfire military rifles is limited although I had quite a few at one time in my collection - British Enfields, Arisakas, etc. - but I never shot those and liquidated them a few years back.

I do have a 1905 Danzig GEW98 8mm - it was brought back in 1919 by a WWI vet that I knew. I had it gone over by a gunsmith and have been playing with it the last year or so with leadboolits and light loads. The bore on it is not pristine by any means and it hadn't been shot since WWI - I know that for a fact. I scrubbed the bore with a bronze brush and solvent and then I carefully ran patches with polishing compound in the bore. I know it has some pitting but how severe, I can't say - but all due to corrosive ammo.

The bore slugs out at .323. I've been using a 120 ish grain plain base and a 135 ish grain plain base lead boolit (range lead is all I use). I size them to .323 as I can't chamber a .325 as the 135 grain falls from the mold. I lube them in alox/paste wax and if I remember correctly (my data is back in MI and I'm in AZ), I've been using around 8.5 grains of Red Dot.

I don't have a chorine - I'm pretty low tech. But, I was getting some good groups at 50 yards - my best was around 1 1/2" and for me and my eyesight problems and using the standard military sights, I was very happy. At further distances - it would be anyones guess and hopefully at some point I can shoot at longer ranges. My range at the far, is only out to 50 yards.

How it would perform with a heavier boolit is anyone's guess or how it would shoot if pushed faster or a gas check used as well. Personally, I think it is up to the individual rifle. But I wouldn't write off any rifle until I tried it as it just might surprise you how good it "may" shoot.

I have shot muzzle loaders for over 50 years and although it is a different animal, I have shot some original rifles with some sorry looking bores that shot surprisingly well - but I always scrubbed them well and used some compound to polish them out as well.

Most of us have seen things that are "pitted" from rust. And if you look carefully, you not only have a "cavity" from the pitting but you also can have a raised area around the cavity - I would imagine that this can happen in a barrel bore as well. That's why I have used a polishing compound on patches and run them up and down the bore as I believe it helps to smooth out the pitting. On ML barrels, I could easily tell the difference in before and after when running a dry patch down after polishing - it didn't feel "snaggy" or hang up.

Can't speak as to leading though. On my Mauser, I have not had an issue with leading at all but again, I'm not pushing them fast and am only using cat sneeze loads.

[runfiverun]

one thing that can help is a lube with a high carnuba content.

[dubber123]

I have a S&W 32-20 revolver with a rough bore. It was an 8" 50 yard gun, I firelapped it, and it immediately went to 3" or slightly less. It's obviously still pitted, but it now has a little shine to the bore, and I have to assume the roughest edges being smoothed off account for the accuracy increase.

[ShooterAZ]

I have a mosin-nagant that had a very rough bore. After shooting 100 or so paper patched bullets through it, it's now not so bad and shoots jacketed very well. I never did get it to shoot the patched bullets very well, but doing it sure did clean up the bore nicely.

[Larry Gibson]

Many pitted and "rough" bores will shoot cast bullets fine w/o leading. What is needed is a good bullet design with ample lube grooves, a good softer lube such as BAC, NRA 50/50, 2500+ and similar. A GC'd bullet also helps considerably but if velocities are below or around 1400 fps PB'd bullets work well. A good softer alloy also seems better.

The reason is the cast bullet should be riding on a thin layer of lube. If not then leading will occur even in the smoothest of bores. I've shot cast bullets through some pretty bad sewer pipes that still had strong rifling. I either fire lapped or shot a couple hundred jacketed bullets that fit the groove depth through them. As mentioned such will take off the "roughness". such bores then have always shot well fitting cast bullets pretty well w/o leading.

My M1953 Chicom MN is such and example. The groove diameter is .316 and the bore is a veritable sewer pipe. Milsurp and even Norma Factory will keyhole and hardly stay on an E target at 30 - 50 yards. Probably why the shot the previous owner took at me only grazed me. With the GB 314-291s that drop at .316 with my range lead mix alloy over 28 gr 4895 with a Dacron filler the rifle now shoots into right at 4 moa at 100 yards.

Larry Gibson

189723

[Outpost75]

My experience parallels Larry's. I have a Finnish Civil Guards M28/30 rifle by Sako which I got as a gift because the collector who bought it was turned off by its "dark but strong" bore. I cleaned the bore well with Shooter's Choice Copper remover until no more green came out, then I followed with JB and Kroil. I then loaded NOE #314299 bullets cast of wheelweights, loaded as-cast and unsized, with 7 grains of Bullseye, no gascheck, bullets being lubricated with Lee Liquid Alox and went to the range, firing ten-shot groups and cleaning again with JB and Kroil after each ten-shot group for 100 rounds. After that grouping settled down and I could fire five consecutive 10-shot groups at 100 which averaged 2-1/2 inches with iron sights.

I then cleaned with JB and Kroil again and shot the rifle at 200 yards using a heavier load with the #314299 bullet gaschecked and sized .314", with 16 grains of Alliant #2400. A series of five consecutive 10-shot groups at 200 yards averaged 3-1/2 inches.

I then cleaned with JB and Kroil again, flushed out the bore well with wet patches of Kroil and stood the rifle on its muzzle for several months until I had a chance to fire it again at 200 yards with my heavy hunting load using the same NOE #314299 bullet cast of wheelweights, gaschecked and sized .314", this time having the lube grooves filled with Lee NRA formula Alox-Beeswax, and the entire bullet then given a thin overcoat of Lee Liquid Alox. I loaded a charge of 30 grs. of IMR-4064 in Norma cases with Federal 210M primers and a 1 grain tuft of Dacron fiber tucked loosely in the neck under the bullet. Five consecutive 10-shot groups averaged under 3", no different from what my pristine Tikka Finn M39 with perfect bore does.