Horrible leading...need input

[jamesp81]

Third outing shooting cast in 1911, third time cleaning lead out. Thank goodness for copper chore boys :bigsmyl2:

I want to go through my entire setup and procedure front to back, so if someone sees what I'm doing wrong, you can clue me in.

I am ladle casting into a 5 cavity aluminum mold from Accurate. The mold casts 200gr SWC. They drop at .455 (I ordered oversized intentionally and I size down). The boolits are fairly soft, cast of ebay sourced WW ingots.

After casting, I size them in a Lee push through sizer. I do this unlubed and I have never had an issue with leading in the sizer. The sizer was originally a Lee .452 sizer, which I opened up to .4528 at the widest dimension using a dowel rod and sand paper. At the base and front driving band, the boolits measure .4528 in the narrowest dimension and slightly above .453 at the widest dimension after sizing. For reference, the barrel of my 1911 slugs at .4515 which makes for a .0013 to .0015 interference fit.

These were tumbled lubed with 45 45 10 purchased from White Label Lubes. I used a single coat. The 45 45 10 is in a wal mart ketchup squeeze bottle. I place this bottle in a sink of hot water to get it flowing better. While the lube is warming, I place all boolits in a plastic container and I put a heat gun on them until they are just barely too hot to touch. Then I sparingly apply 45 45 10 (roughly 15 drops if you want to count it that way and IIRC), put the lid on, and tumble for about a minute or two. I did about 100 boolits this way. After lubing, boolits come out looking like this:

http://i65.tinypic.com/zobrc.jpg

If they look a bit rough, they are. Most of the scratches were sustained when being dropped from the mold or banging into each other while tumble lubing.

I let these dry overnight. Because I don't have a proper workshop, I simply set them outside to dry overnight. SWMBO will not tolerate the funky smell in the basement :bigsmyl2: The temperature was relatively cold that night (around 35F).

I loaded them on my Hornady LnL AP progressive press. Utilized mixed range brass. Station 1 is a Lee sizing die for 45 ACP (the Lee has a wider chamfer at the mouth and works better in a progressive). Station 2 was powder charging. It uses a Hornady LnL measure and a .452-.454 powder through expander insert. I was very generous with the expansion because I've had issues with boolits being swaged down during seating before. The powder charge was Hodgdon's starting charge of Titegroup for 200gr LSWC boolits (4.8gr). Station 3 was empty (putting a bullet feeder here soon). Station 4 is a Hornady seater die configured with SWC seating stem. The die was doing no crimping at all, seating only. Station 5 was a Lee FCD backed out almost all the way...the FCD can swage boolits down, so I set it to size the cartridge only partially, and not down to the boolit base. Basically I used just enough FCD to get the rounds to chamber (swaged nose down some, not base).

I made three dummy cartridges first. One of them had a boolit seated without having been run through the partial FCD stage. The other two had a boolit seated and were run through the partial FCD stage. I pulled all three boolits and measured the base. Bases still measured .4528 in all cases.

I made and fired 50 rounds. Before cleaning, this was the condition of my barrel:

http://i64.tinypic.com/2gt673d.jpg

It actually didn't turn out to be as bad as it looks in the first pic. This is what I had after a patch and some Hoppes:

http://i65.tinypic.com/25zh3b9.jpg

Still pretty bad, but not as apocalyptic as it seemed at first. Nevertheless, this level of leading is even worse than when I was shooting undersized boolits (.451 through a .4515 barrel was not this bad; I used LLA lube on those, and too much. They were sticky until the moment I fired them).

The leading was consistent down the length of the entire barrel. It was not prevalent near the chamber or the muzzle, it was evenly distributed.

Where do I go from here to correct this? I really only have vague ideas. I have proper boolit size for my barrel and my bases aren't being swaged down. There are three possibilities I am considering.

1) Titegroup is a very fast burner and has a spikey pressure curve; I suppose it's possible it spikes pressure too high for the lube or the alloy. If this is the case, I have some Hodgdon Universal I can try.

2) The alloy is clearly quite soft. The boolits get dinged and scratched readily just dropping them from molds and tumble lubing them. I don't have a hardness tester, but I suspect they are not above 10 BHN. I *can* scratch them with a fingernail, just barely and not deeply, but you can see and feel the scratch. I did not really consider this a problem as 45 ACP is suited to soft boolits and unsuited to hard ones anyway.

3) Lube. They say less is more with tumble lube. Maybe they're wrong. Shooting them today, there was smoke so it wasn't as if the lube somehow fell off or something weird like that. I don't recall the smoke being higher or lower volume compared to what I normally see, but I didn't really pay attention to that detail either. In any case, maybe one coat was not enough, though if that were the case, I would kind of expect to have no / less leading near the chamber and heavier leading at the muzzle. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

FWIW, the accuracy remained surprisingly acceptable until about the last five rounds, but even then I was still holding 4 or 5 inches at 15 yards in poor weather and visibility.

[MT Gianni]

The easiest thing to try is doubling the lla. I am a trust but verify sort at heart and wonder if your alloy is really ww or perhaps softer. How many rounds of jacketed has the barrel seen? Is it new enough to perhaps be rough? Lack of lube #1, alloy #2 bbl condition #3 is how I rate them. At worst you may need to buy some lube and pan lube.

[popper]

Doesn't sound like COWW, could be SOWW. Much softer - I can tumble PC and NO dings or dents using COWW. Try tumble PC ( it is easy and inexpensive). I had problems with BLL, soft alloy and lube got 'blown' off (40SW) and leaded all the way badly. If they have any Sb in them, try heat treating some to see if that helps. Recluse (45/45/10) is good, I used 2 coats on 40W. 45 is much lower pressure. I don't buy off evilbay.

[jamesp81]

Doesn't sound like COWW, could be SOWW. Much softer - I can tumble PC and NO dings or dents using COWW. Try tumble PC ( it is easy and inexpensive). I had problems with BLL, soft alloy and lube got 'blown' off (40SW) and leaded all the way badly. If they have any Sb in them, try heat treating some to see if that helps. Recluse (45/45/10) is good, I used 2 coats on 40W. 45 is much lower pressure. I don't buy off evilbay.

I don't want to PC until I master cast boolits with traditional lube first. Kind of like how a new shooter, you teach them iron sights before moving on to scopes and red dot sights.

SOWW is almost pure lead, so maybe the boolits are too soft. Fortunately, I have a box of 18 BHN commercial hard cast boolits in various calibers, not enough to make a production run with in any one caliber. I could drop them in the melt and harden up the alloy, wouldn't have to go paying $$$ for foundry tin or antimony.

Edit: Is it possible I accidentally softened the alloy by getting it too hot? Is it not possible to have the Tin in it come out of solution under too much heat?

[jamesp81]

The easiest thing to try is doubling the lla. I am a trust but verify sort at heart and wonder if your alloy is really ww or perhaps softer. How many rounds of jacketed has the barrel seen? Is it new enough to perhaps be rough? Lack of lube #1, alloy #2 bbl condition #3 is how I rate them. At worst you may need to buy some lube and pan lube.

This barrel has seen about 5000 rounds total. I would say about 1000 are jacketed, shouldn't have any new roughness to it I'd think. The rest of the ammo it's seen has been mouse fart loads using commercial hard cast boolits.

I can always pile on more lube, but as popper suggests, if the boolits are soft enough to scratch with your fingernail, maybe that's a problem too.

[Larry Gibson]

Soft swaged Hornady or Speer bullets should shoot fine over 4.8 gr Titegroup w/o leading like that so I doubt its the alloy. My first suspicion would be the lube. I suggest using a Q-tip to put another coat of LLA or the 45/45/10 on the drive bands and in the lube groove. Then let it thoroughly dry. If not dry the lube is probably being wiped off during seating the bullet. Do 10 like that and test.

[blue32]

How easy does that ebay lead hold up under a finger nail as opposed to the commercial stuff?

[BigBore45]

It's the ebay lead. Not what you ordered. I bet it's pure lead.

[jamesp81]

Soft swaged Hornady or Speer bullets should shoot fine over 4.8 gr Titegroup w/o leading like that so I doubt its the alloy. My first suspicion would be the lube. I suggest using a Q-tip to put another coat of LLA or the 45/45/10 on the drive bands and in the lube groove. Then let it thoroughly dry. If not dry the lube is probably being wiped off during seating the bullet. Do 10 like that and test.

This sounds like a good excuse to get a star sizer :D

[jamesp81]

It's the ebay lead. Not what you ordered. I bet it's pure lead.

Question. Even if it is pure lead, the soft swaged boolits should work according to Larry Gibson. So why would questionable scambay lead cause an issue?

[Went2kck]

try going a bit faster with them boolits cured a problem i had. I no longer start at the slowest or lowest powder charge. I start in the mid range and go from their.

[Tom W.]

You may want to try plain old Johnson's Paste Wax for a tumble lube and see how it works for you. I use it w/ cast boolits for my 30-06 A.I. when I fireform loads, and in my 9mm at times. Of course I prefer Carnauba red for everything....

[jamesp81]

How easy does that ebay lead hold up under a finger nail as opposed to the commercial stuff?
I can scratch the ebay lead with my thumbnail.

[Alstep]

I'm casting the same boolit from an Accurate mold just like you, 1-1 Pb-WW, lubed with 45-45-10, and I've never got leading anywhere near as bad as you're getting. I might get slight leading after 100 rounds or so. I've since switched to NRA Beeswax-Alox. Now I can shoot 100's of rounds and not a trace of leading. Loading with 4.0 Be, all on a single stage press. You're expanding your cases enough to remove the swaging while seating issue, so we can rule that out. Sounds like a lead alloy problem, or the 45-45-10 is not curing at 35*. When I tumble lub, I set the tray of bullets near the coal stove in the winter time, or out in the sun on a hot summer day, to dry. I always did 2 coats too.

[Strtspdlx]

Leading front to back or start to end of barrel is a lube issue. In 45 I wouldn't be concernedwith alloy unless it was linotype and tjdn my concern would be that I'm wasting it. I'd try different lubes. In all honesty if you have straight alox or lla, I would dip lube those bullets and load them and see if your leading goes away. If it doesn't then im full of it and I'd like to know. If it does work i would stop using 454510 and try standard tumble lube. Your picture is hard to see because it seems dark to me. So it's hard to say if you have a coating or not.

[DougGuy]

Your first pic shows lubed boolits and I am looking and I am like well, WHERE is the lube? I see an empty lube groove. That boolit, sized as you stated, with any decent soft lube filling the lube groove should be a good performer. I think your lube is inadequate and looks like the barrel thinks the same thing.

I would suggest if the alloy is hard enough that you can just barely scratch it with a thumbnail, it is prefect for a 1911. If you can dig your thumbnail into it, too soft. I would suggest you get one of the RCBS Lube A Matic II machines and some of Randy Rat's Tac1 and get away from the TL.

OR you could ask for samples here, same mold, 50/50+2%, send me a couple hundred and I would run them through my LAM size to .452" with TAC1 lube in the groove and you try them. Or cast them from 50/50+2% from your mold and send them. Either way you would get enough samples to try my suggested method and see if it works for you.

You also don't mention the throat in the barrel, or if there isn't any freebore, lots of times just properly throating the barrel make a WORLD of difference because the boolit is not being jammed into the rifling as soon as it starts pulling crimp.

[jamesp81]

There is some free bore. Not a great deal but it's there.

[jamesp81]

I'm going to relube with 45 45 10 and go heavier this time, and let drying happen in the utility closet.

If I get a lube sizer I'm gonna buy once cry once and get a star.

[Seeker]

It's the ebay lead. Not what you ordered. I bet it's pure lead.

Exactly what I thought when I read the source. I'd try water dropping a few and let them set a day or two and then see if they go through the sizer as easy as the previously sized ones that are leading the barrel. coww lead in my experience will harden overnight when water dropped. You also have the option of pb gas checks.

[725]

Seems to me too soft and too dry. Harden the alloy and get some more lube on 'em.

[slownsteady22]

Try water dropping and pan lube. You can check out white lable lubes Lars makes great lube.

[mdi]

I too would suggest dip lubing to get a bit more lube on the bullets (tumble lubing with alox or 45-45-10 does not need to fill the lube grooves, the entire bearing surface is coated). I dip with the 45-45-10 just warm enough to flow (tepid) and the bullets at room temp (70-80 degrees) and mebbe I get a bit too much, but there's nor excess smoke and I get very little leading. I dip, set the bullets on a sheet of wax paper or aluminum foil, and come back the next day (if I remember) and they are dry enough to handle...

I'm not sure about alloy as I cast for 15 years before I got a hardness tester and shot a lot of range scrap. If the bullets fit the gun and I had a decent lube, there was very little leading...

[Boolseye]

The forgiving nature of that combo is the only reason your bullets weren't tumbling. Sounds like a confluence of factors–not enough lube, too soft alloy and a fairly high powder charge (4.8 may be their published starting load, but it's a hot load by Bullseye standards). Address any or all of these factors and your guns performance will improve.

[jamesp81]

The forgiving nature of that combo is the only reason your bullets weren't tumbling. Sounds like a confluence of factors–not enough lube, too soft alloy and a fairly high powder charge (4.8 may be their published starting load, but it's a hot load by Bullseye standards). Address any or all of these factors and your guns performance will improve.

I'm not using Bullseye. I'm using Titegroup, 4.8gr of which is a 200gr bullet rated at ~870 fps. That's low velocity for a 200gr boolit. Hornady lists charges as high 5.9gr IIRC and 1000 fps, but that seems very excessive to me and dangerous.

[jamesp81]

Got an update.

At a minimum, lube does seem to be an issue. I did a second coat of 45 45 10 and loaded 50 with the same powder charge. I load my OAL slightly longer (as long as I could make it and still chamber). I still got significant leading, but it was considerably less. More lube definitely improved the situation.

I've got the rest of my boolits drying today with their third 45 45 10 coat. However, I may just do the dip lube with the next 50 boolits just to see what that does, but I won't be doing dip lube as a normal procedure. I'm willing to do it this time for testing, but it's otherwise too time consuming. I'll cough up the money for a star lube sizer before I do that. Actually I'm probably coughing up for the Star anyway unless I decide to go the PC route.

[jamesp81]

Try water dropping and pan lube. You can check out white lable lubes Lars makes great lube.


I have a couple of questions about this. Lets assume my scambay alloy is very soft with very low alloying percentages in it, which would fit my observation that I can scratch my boolits with a thumb nail. Given the content of the metal, how would water dropping harden it? For that matter, I always thought water quenching was something that only worked with ferrous metals.

If water dropping doesn't help with hardness, what metal would add to the alloy to harden it? Linotype?

I will consider pan lubing if I can't get TL to work.

[whisler]

Water dropping works to harden lead alloys with some Antimony content. Adding Linotype to your alloy would harden it and also supply Antimony to make it respond to water dropping or heat treating.

[tomme boy]

I have shot pure lead in my 45 just to see if I could. It was lead sheeting. I melted it myself.

Guess what happened?


It shot fine and no leading. I us3d randyrats tac lube. Your problem is that junk alox. The only time I could get it to work was tumbling some already lubed rifle bullets with regular lube first.

One trick you can try is to run a patch with alox on it down your barrel before you shoot your loads.

[mehavey]

ALOX is not only fine, it's my go-to solution when max stress is expected -- like 220gr/30 cal at 2,200fps.

That said, my first counsel to the OP is go-ahead/use *pure* ALOX, just wipe a *light* coat on with coated fingers as you pick up a bullet, let dry overnight (or throw in oven on warm for 90 min then let dry.

Stay *soft* at 45ACP speeds, and kick the pressure up fast. That light a bullet, go bullseye




post: When *I* use ALOX, I wipe light coat on/warm oven for 60 min/cool/2hrs and (gas check if necessary) push thru the Lee sizer. Then wipe second *light* coat and warm/dry again overnight.

[Boolseye]

I'm not using Bullseye. I'm using Titegroup, 4.8gr of which is a 200gr bullet rated at ~870 fps. That's low velocity for a 200gr boolit. Hornady lists charges as high 5.9gr IIRC and 1000 fps, but that seems very excessive to me and dangerous.

I meant Bullseye Pistol, as in target loads, sorry I was unclear.
I understand it’s titegroup, pretty fast burn rate I think. I’m fully confident you’ll get this dialed in. Best of luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lwknight]

James, I'm taking a little different thought on this thing. It sounds like you have the ducks in a row and I fully know how frustrating leading can be, especially when you do everything right.

I have come across some supposed to be soft lead that was just weird( that's another story). Although theoretically, you should be able to shoot soft lead without any problems, I would suggest trying a different batch.
If only a small test batch of different lead and add some extra tin to toughen up the alloy and see what happens.

It might just be the barrel. What if the maul is bigger and gasses are bypassing causing leading and the next shot just irons it in farther down the barrel? I know I have some barrels that seem to simply refuse to lead up and 1 or 2 that are super finicky. Also you might have better luck with a round nose type bullet just in case the jump to the bore is a little long for the SWC with a big lube groove.

I have mentioned it before about my GP-100 that cleans up with one patch on a jag and never leads unless I try to defy physics and common sense and a had a Taurus that could not shoot anything without leading up.

Anyway, that is all I can think of to add. I feel your pain bro.

[coloraydo]

Station 5 was a Lee FCD backed out almost all the way...the FCD can swage boolits down, so I set it to size the cartridge only partially, and not down to the boolit base. Basically I used just enough FCD to get the rounds to chamber (swaged nose down some, not base).

I made three dummy cartridges first. One of them had a boolit seated without having been run through the partial FCD stage. The other two had a boolit seated and were run through the partial FCD stage. I pulled all three boolits and measured the base. Bases still measured .4528 in all cases.

Question, did you measure the front driving bands on these pulled boolits; what did they come out at?

And you said you have fired approx. 1,000 jacketed bullets before firing cast boolits. Have you meticulously cleaned out all traces of jacketed material? If not, it could be stripping your cast boolits, especially if your front driving bands are undersized.

[rintinglen]

Antimonial Lead alloys will harden if water dropped, but I hold with those who vote more lube.
Linotype will harden your alloy, or some super hard from rotometals, one of our sponsors, but I would first double coat my boolits. Try about 30 drops, for a hundred, let it dry, then tumble again with another 30 drops. In the last 27 years, I have lubed something in excess of 50,000 boolits with liquid alox lubes, LLA, BLL, and 45/45/10 and save for my S&W 69, which I do believe would lead with solid copper bullets, I have never had leading like you have.

[Boolseye]

Alright, let’s consider Occam’s Razor here for a minute-the solution to a problem is usually the simplest. Why do boolits lead? Almost always because they’re A) undersized or B) underlubed. That Lee FCD worries me a bit, even if it is only the front driving band he’s sizing down. That’s still bearing surface on an HG 68. Next is lube-first thing I’d do is fill up that grease groove with something and see if there’s still an issue. Lead sounds pretty soft, yeah, harden it up a bit too. Maybe drop the powder charge a bit too-get ‘em down to 750-800 FPS to start with. Just a couple thoughts.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GooseGestapo]

If your loaded cartridges will pass the "plunk" test, ditch the Factory Crimp Die. It should only be used to get oversized cartridges to chamber.
Your barrels look like you are shooting undersized bullets.

[fredj338]

TG & LFCD are most of the problem, imo. Not a fan of alox lubing but TG just doesn't play well with most bullet lubes. If everything is perfect, you might not get leading. So ditch the LFCD, use a separate taper crimp die instead. Then try diff bullet lubes or maybe a thicker alox coating. Certainly consider switching to a cooler burning powder than TG when loading conventional lubed lead bullets.

[tomme boy]

What is the measurement at the crimp?