leading?

[stringstretcher]

When I get my molds right and make my frist loads up, what are the tell-tale signs of leading that I should look for. I will start with a clean barrell and go from there. Never shot cast before, so any help will be greatly appreciated

[docone31]

If you get leading, it is hard to miss.
If you are not checking after each shot, you will notice your shots go wilder, and wilder. Sometimes not much, sometimes it is embarassing.

[Bent Ramrod]

Generally, the first signs of leading will be a dull, grayish longitudinal smear along the rifling. It won't look like lead unless it is very close to the chamber or the breach. On the mirror-like surface of the bore as you look through the barrel, it will show as these dull streaks.

Leading generally starts at the forcing cone in revolvers, and can start either just past the leade or near the muzzle on rifles. A tight patch with bore solvent will generally remove it right off if it isn't severe. It will look like lead when it comes out on the patch. However, the barrel might need sitting for a day or so with the bore wet with solvent to finally remove it. As leading gets more and more severe, it will require more soaking, brass brushes, stainless brushes, tornado brushes, Kroil, an Outer's Foul-Out, foul language and bore polishing compounds like Rem Oil or JB to remove.

I find some barrels always give a few tiny splinters of lead upon cleaning after a cast boolit shooting session. It's only when the lead continues to build up that inaccuracy and difficulty in cleaning it out occurs, at least in my experience.

[454PB]

Leading is the easiest to remove at the range. If you have visible leading when you finish shooting, fire a few jacketed loads, gas checked boolits, or VERY lightly loaded cast boolit loads. Any of these will remove all but the light lead wash. The light lead wash is then easily removed with traditional cleaning methods.

But, if you don't do it at the range, it can be done in the shop by simply slugging the barrel. Pushing a tight fitting slug through the barrel actually pushes the lead out ahead of it. That's the reason for the above suggestion to fire VERY lightly loaded cast boolits at the range.

[looseprojectile]

Different streaks for different freaks. :groner:.
On these forums there is enough knowledge to enable you to avoid any leading of your gun.
There are a few people that think it is not necessary to ever clean a gun.
There are a few people, like me, that think a bore is never clean enough.
There may be a middle ground, though a very clean, conditioned bore always works better for me.
After you clean out your first badly leaded barrel you will be here learning how to prevent it from ever happening again. It can be done. Boolit size is foremost in importance in conjunction with alloy and lube and velocity. When you get it all right very good things happen.
All the time people ask me, "Dont those lead bullets lead your gun?"
My answer is, not if you do it right. Makes me think these guys have had a bad experience with lead boolits.
You are going about it right. My free advice is, Don't load up several hundred rounds of ammo that you are unsure of.
Life is good

[Bullshop]

Best to start with a clean but lubed barrel. Never want your first shot to ride over bare steel. Run a patch smeared with some of your boolit lube through the barrel first. Bullplate works good for pre-lubing too.
BIC/BS

[Buckshot]

............There is leading and there is leading :-). The only leading to be concerned about is 2 kinds. That which has an effect on accuracy and that which will effect the firearm's function. I have some rifles you can shoot all day long with no noticeable accuracy change. At home and cleaning you'll generally get a first patch with a composite glop of powder residue, lube, bore solvent and tiny little sparkles of lead, like dust. This is nothing to be concerned with, and the load is fine.

As a rule of thumb, generaly, usually, probably, leading at the beggining of the barrel is a too soft alloy. Leading further down or at the end is poor lube, or not enough lube. This is will hold up well assuming the firearm doesn't have problems.

Leading to be really concerned about is that which accumilates. You'll have to look closely at both the load AND the firearm, assuming a good lube and a correctly sized slug.

The worst leading I've ever heard about was mentioned by our old rangemaster. As he walked the line he said he saw a rifle sitting there on the bags and the muzzle looked like it had whiskers. On closer examination he said it had short little 1/4" streamers of lead hanging out of the muzzle!

The worst case of leading I've personally ever seen was after shooting some Remington Vipers in my Ruger MkII 678 pistol. Accuracy with this thing is usually excellent. When I got home I screwed a bristle brush on a cleaning rod, dipped it in solvent and promptly got it stuck in the barrel. Couldn't go forward, so I knew it was useless to try to pull it backward.

I had to use a rubber mallet to drive it on through, and out came a lead sleeve the rod itself had scoured out. Musta had that barrel bushed down to 16 caliber or something close! Several other 22's do fine with that ammo and the Ruger pistol has shot everything else without issue.

...............Buckshot

[runfiverun]

if you get a dull flat grey and a lube star congratulations, you can step up your load some.
the dull wash is antimonial wash.
a lot of guys will look to back down their antimony content at this point.