.44 magnum leading blues =-[

[Tallinar]

I'll start by saying I am new to this forum, and moderately new to the realm of shooting lead -- so howdy folks!

This is my tale of woe. :violin: A few months ago I started getting into cowboy action shooting. When deciding what set of guns to go with, one thing I had to consider was the fact that I had access to a ton of hand-me-down .44 magnum reloading components -- including brass, bullets, and dies. Also, I wanted to invest in guns that I could use for other functions aside from cowboy shooting (ie, hunting or silhouette shooting). With all things considered, .44 magnum seemed like a good way to go.

I purchased a brand new stainless Super Blackhawk in .44 mag with a 7.5 inch barrel. So far I've put probably 500-600 rounds through it, and it's been a love hate relationship. I have yet to put together a moderate cowboy load that doesn't lead my barrel like crazy. :cry:

Here is what I have tried. Among the hand-me-down bullets I received were two types of 240 gr SWC -- both measuring .429 in diameter, and I would say both are on the "harder" side of the hardness spectrum (sorry for the use of relative terms). Using these bullet types, I originally attempted 6.0 and 7.0 grains of Unique. These loads were accurate, but after even 40-50 rounds, I found (what I would deem) a pretty excessive leading build-up just beyond the forcing cone in about the first inch of the rifling - as well as a bit of buildup around the forcing cone itself.

After scratching my head awhile, I decided to measure the chamber throats on my cylinder. They seem to measure uniformly at about .431. Ahha! I was using bullets that measured nearly a full .002 too small. This had to be the problem, I thought. It makes perfect sense to me that gases could easily escape beyond the bullet as it transitioned from the chamber to the forcing cone -- thus leading the first bit of the bore. Moreover, as I read a bit more, I came to find that a "harder" bullet used with "pipsqueek" loads may actually make obturation quite difficult or impossible.

I looked around at my other hand-me-downs to find something bigger and softer. I was able to find a half box of old Speer 240 gr SWC bullets measuring .430. These were definitely softer (I believe they were "swaged" -- but I must admit I don't fully know what that means yet. I have more reading to do on this forum!). These were the only bullets larger than .429 I could come up with, so I loaded a few up with 7.0 grains of Unique. It felt like a step in the right direction. The only thing I was changing in this load was the bullet. Powder charge and primer remained the same.

Much to my surprise, 30 rounds of these bullets produced the worst leading I had seen yet. :mad: So I went back to the drawing board. I decided I still needed to try a larger bullet -- something that would fully match my chamber throat diameter. So I ordered 500 of the Oregon Trail Laser Cast 240 gr SWC measuring .431 in diameter. I knew these bullets were quite high on the hardness scale, but I figured at this point that diameter was the most important thing. So I loaded up 50 of these with 7.0 gr of Unique again, and used them in my last cowboy shoot on Sunday.

Even worse leading than the Speers. However, this leading was a lot easier to scrub out than the leading I had been experiencing previously (that Chore Boy + old brush works wonders, by the way). At this point I decided it may be worthwhile to look into other powders.

I requested some reloading data from Oregon Trail, just to see what sort of things they suggest. The lowest velocity practice load listed was 6.5 gr of 700X, listed at right about 1000 fps with a 9.5 inch barrel. Now I understand that 700X is even faster burning than Unique, so I was kind of expecting these loads to cause even more leading. Regardless, I loaded 50 of the Laser Cast bullets with this powder charge and went to the range.

I was quite pleased with these loads. Very pleasant to shoot, and quite accurate. But after 40 rounds, this was the worst leading build-up I'd seen yet. I somewhat expected this, however. Again, the leading was easy to scrub out -- which I guess I have come to attribute to the Laser Cast bullets, so I am at least content with that.

I decided maybe I would learn something new by slugging the bore to see how it compared to the chamber throats. I haven't done this yet, but I did use a caliper to try to measure the groove diameter from the muzzle (for what it's worth). It measures right at .429. I also took my grandfather's older Super Blackhawk with 9.5 inch barrel, and it also measured .429 at the muzzle. His cylinder chamber throats, however, measure .429 (remember, mine appear to be .431). And I'll throw this in -- his gun shows no leading after firing the .429 loads I originally mentioned.

So this is where I am stuck. What do I do from here? Is it possible that my gun is out of spec from manufacturing? .431 chamber throats with .429 bore seems like a possible problem. However, I keep thinking that I may just need to find the right bullet. Should I look at a softer .431 bullet? Should I try out a soft .432? Should I try to load .44 special cases and hope for better obturation? Any tips at this point would help a lot.

I just know there has to be a way to get a low velocity cowboy load (750-1000 fps tops) for this gun -- without creating a terrible leading problem in the process.

If you're still reading at this point, I appreciate your time. Thanks a lot!

[softpoint]

I tried to get my newest Redhawk, a 4incher, to shoot my wheelweight alloy bullets without leading, and I tried using unique, herco, 231, titegroup. All loads leaded. Gun worked fine with gascheck bullets, but just wouldn't shoot the plainbase without leading. I switched to 2400 powder and all leading disappeared.:grin:

[Tallinar]

Well, gas checks unfortunately aren't an option for cowboying (they aren't allowed). And I don't know if 2400 would be a feasible powder for pip-squeek loads like I'm trying for (I may be wrong -- someone chime in). I've used 2400 in magnum loads with great results though, for sure.

[454PB]

Well you are doing everything right, and you obviously have a good understanding of what needs to be done with cast boolits.

I'd suggest you slug the bore. Measuring the muzzle with a caliper is not an accurate way to do it. Look for a constriction in the barrel near the forcing cone.

However, most commercial cast bullets use a hard, waxy lube that does not work well. I've had the same results you're getting when using these. You could try some Lee liquid alox over the top of that waxy lube as a test. If the leading problem improves or goes away, you have your solution. Alternately, either find someone that casts and lubes his own, or order some from our Bullshop custom caster: http://bullshop.gunloads.com/

[dale2242]

Heavy loads = expanded boolits= no gas cutting= no leading. I find that I Get less leading with softer boolits with light loads. It takes a lot of pressure to expand a hard boolit to fit the chamber / bore. Give softer boolits a try with lighter loads....dale

[Tallinar]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys. I may be able to get some of the Lee liquid alox to test with. However, could you explain a bit of the science as to how lube plays into the leading game (or point me to some literature)? I hadn't really thought about the possibility of lube being part of the equation. Interesting!

What do you guys think about trying a .432 soft bullet? From what I have picked up so far, it sounds like fitting the bullet to the chamber throat is of key importance. What kinds of things might happen with a bullet that's larger than the throat?

[AZ-Stew]

Tall,

Welcome aboard!

You're headed in the right direction. If you can get someone at your range to chronograph some of your loads for you, try to find a load that will drive that Speer swaged (definition coming, below) bullet down in the 800 fps range. Those things are near pure lead and can't take much velocity.

Swaging, in the bullet-making world, means taking raw materials (lead core and jacket or just the lead) that are sized smaller than the die and using the pressure of a swaging press to force the bullet material(s) to fill the die cavity, forming the bullet. The press may use mechanical linkage or hydraulic pressure to do the forming. If you take a larger piece of material and pull it through a die to make it smaller, the process is called "drawing", which is how wire is made.

Regards,

Stew

[masscaster]

It seems your on the right track in knowing the loads, take a good look at the firearm itself.
First slug the barrel, then make sure your cylinders are lining up to the forcing cone properly as this can cause problems just being off a hair or two. If this checks out i'd check the cylinder throats, or try a different cylinder altogether. It's not likely this is a lube problem.
Jeff @ Forefather's Casting

[August]

Softer bullets will usually eliminate leading. However, If you have the forcing cone re-bevelled to 11 degrees, the indexing problem that is the probable source of your woes will be eliminated. I have the forcing cones on my USFA pistols opened to 11 degrees and I experience NO, ZERO, NADA lead splash on the face of the cylinders (nor in the barrels). Roogers will respond well to this treatment also.

[swheeler]

Well from what you are describing as to location of the leading I would say you have a barrel constriction where the barrel threads into the frame. Either get yourself some pre-embedded bullets, or the Wheeler bore lapping kit from Midway and embed some bullets with compound and fire lap it, fixed no more leading. As to fitting bullets to the throats I have fired many that are .002 over throat diameter with no leading, you can shoot them as large as will chamber freely without a hitch, I've done thousands. .02

[runfiverun]

slow down those swaged loads. they are only good for about 700 fps their lube wont handle the load.
and like scott said the rugers are pretty notorious for a tight forcing cone area.

[HeavyMetal]

Here's your issue: your current boolits and lube are not working.

As an experiment you can try the LLA in addition to the lube already on your boolits. If you see signs of reduced or no leading you know your on the right track.

The best way to view boolit "lube" is as an anti tinning substance! The idea is it treats the bore with each shot and keeps you from "soldering" your bore with lead!

In the future cowboy loads should use boolits that are BHN 6 to 8 and they should be sized to .431 for this revolver. Your Unique load should work with no leading using a lube like Javalina. Be aware it will smoke like the dickens but shouldn't lead. Save the harder boolits for your 2400 loads and save the .429 boolits for your other Ruger.

Keep in mind with two different dimension set ups you will never find a load that will work for both guns! In this I suggest you keep the loads marked accordingly as to which gun the load is for!

[MtGun44]

Lyman 429421, sized .432", NRA 50-50 lube or LBT blue, or similar; 20 gr 2400,
23 gr H110 or similar. Try 10.0 nique with above boolit, too.
RCBS 44-250-K is a very good substitute, cast from wheel wts air cooled. No need for
gas checks.

I predict no problems with these known good loads.

Bill

[Springfield]

I cast soft cowboy bullets for a living. PM me your address and I can send you 50 for 5.00 to test. They are intended for BP loads but the extra lube won't hurt anything, might even help. Your choice of 165 or 200 grain bullets.

[Slow Elk 45/70]

All good advise, I would add that I have shot many # of 2400 in my 44's . It is not pressure sinsitive, look at the 44 spl loads. I shoot the 429215 +-210gr boolit with out the GC and 13gr of 2400 for about +-800fps for killing beer cans, plinking.

I would think this would work fine for CB shooting without a lot of recoil. 12-13 gr works fine with all boolit weights 180-250 for soft loads in the 700-800fps range, want more power go up from there.
I'm sure others use different newer powders for this game, but it is hard to change things that work, for me.
If it were me, I would fire lap the bbl as suggested, I agree that you probably have a little constriction as suggested above. Rugers like fat boolits, if you can chamber your load with .432 slugs, your pistola should shoot fine, use softer slugs , I use 50/50 WW/pure and have no issues.
Hope this helps, keep working at it, you will get it right, just takes a little time.[smilie=1:

[Bass Ackward]

What do you guys think about trying a .432 soft bullet? From what I have picked up so far, it sounds like fitting the bullet to the chamber throat is of key importance. What kinds of things might happen with a bullet that's larger than the throat?


You need to understand the rate of pressure and not just overall pressure. Take a 240 grain bullet with 6 grains of Tightgroup. That load will not reach 11,000 psi until the bullet has moved .150 of travel. That is if your primer didn't knock it forward expanding case capacity and lowering the rise speed.

So if you were using ACWW that needs around 11k to 12k to begin to expand, then you don't have seal for that period of time. What happens during this period? Nothing good. Especially for the lube that used to be on your bullet.

Picture yourself being in a car that is about to be rear ended. In one case you are setting at a dead stop and the other you you see him and start accelerating. Both crash scenarios, the car has the same strength. In which situation will you have the most .... obturation of the car?

Same as with a bullet. How much space you need to fill to get that seal and how hard and heavy your bullet (car) is will determine how much upset you get. Sounds complicated huh? It can be a PIA. Cause if you go soft enough to seal, you may be too soft to handle the velocity. What to do, what to do .....

So fit to your throat to seal right off and go hard enough to handle the velocity in "THAT" gun and eliminate this headache. Sounds easy huh? That is if your gun doesn't have a problem and forces you to go back and play the pressure / acceleration game cause it has a constriction or misalignment. :grin: Cause under these circumstances, big bullet contact barrel steel first and amplify these problems resulting in smaller diameter bullets shooting better. :grin: Old timers tried to beat this with two diameter bullets with the front band being a reduced diameter to correct alignment and improve the start into the bore. But this is enough for today. :grin:

Welcome to cast and welcome to the board.

[Lloyd Smale]

rugers are notorious for have a barrel constiction where the barrel scress in the frame.

[38-55]

Tallinar,
Take springfield up on his offer and don't be scared to go down to 4.5 of unique and work up towards the 6 grain load that you tried.. Also, in case it has not been mentioned already ( I'm admitting to not reading all the previous posts ) if you have ANY jacket fouling in your gun it will lead no matter what you do.. lead just seems to gall on gilding metal for some reason.. A trick I've used in the past on stubborn leaders is to take what ever lube I'm using on the bullet and put some on a clean patch and run it through the CLEAN bore.. kinda sorta of a 'pre-seasoning' the barrel..
Hope this helps,
Calvin

[44man]

HOLY SMOKES, Bass is learning! :bigsmyl2:, :kidding:
First the bore MUST be slugged with a pure lead slug and a good measurement taken of groove to groove. Best if the muzzle end is measured first and then another slug run all the way through looking for a constriction. (We can tell how to measure the muzzle end.)
Then the throats need to be slugged.
There is no way to measure with calipers. You also need a good micrometer to measure the slugs.
A .432" boolit will be best anyway.
Too soft is NO GOOD and like Bass says, you don't want to slam them into the forcing cone with a fast peaking powder. Putty balls lead bores.
I have often said that the faster the powder, the harder the boolit needs to be. I shoot my light loads with water dropped WW at 22 BHN and an alloy up to 30 BHN.
You can actually shoot heavy, slow powder loads with softer lead.
Let me put it this way, even if your boolit is a perfect fit to the throats or oversize but is too soft for the powder, it will still be a deformed putty ball when it slams into the forcing cone.
Get obturation from a boolit that fits rather then expanding a boolit to obturate. Keep the boolit hard enough so it is still the same shape boolit going down the bore.
You do NOT want a soft boolit slammed with peak pressure before it enters the rifling because it skids before turning and that opens gas channels alongside the boolit.
Laser cast boolits never seem to fit any gun and they do lead my bores. I don't think it is a hardness problem but an alloy and size problem. The lube that is on them is too hard too.
No outfit making plinking and cowboy boolits makes a decent boolit and a lot are bevel base. You will not find good boolits until you look for hunting types like Cast Performance, etc. You are better off casting your own.
LLA can increase leading with soft lead.

[Tallinar]

Wow, thanks a lot for the feedback everyone.

In response to masscaster, I have "eyeballed" down the barrel with a bore light and cycled the cylinders to see if I could find any readily apparent allignment problems. I couldn't discern any irregularity by doing this (then again, me looking down the barrel like this is just about as useful as me opening the hood of a car and pretending I know what I'm looking at). :D The chamber throats do all seem to be uniform, and appear (at least to my rookie eye) to line up with the forcing cone uniformly. Either way, it definitely sounds like slugging the bore is in my future.

I have a few questions about barrel constriction. What is it I am looking for exactly? Are we saying that the groove diameter at the beginning of the bore may be abnormally tight? Am I looking for some sort of machining abnormality in the forcing cone?

Could the constriction we're talking about actually be leading? It doesn't sound like it, but I have to ask. For instance, let's say after my last shoot I didn't get 100% of the leading out of the bore. I've had trouble getting the really deep crud that's packed down in the corners of the rifling lands. Should I take special care to make sure I remove all the leading in there before I can proceed with a worthwhile test? I think I'll read up on fire lapping to see what that's all about. Once I know what kind of constriction I'm looking for, I guess I'll go from there.

It sounds like a lot of you are indicating that lube could be an essential part of this equation that I'm overlooking. Sounds like that may be the first thing for me to play with going forward. It also sounds like I need to give swaged bullets another try -- but with slower velocity. Overall, what I am hearing is that the appropriate bullet for my application is a soft, correctly-sized (.431 or maybe .432, well-lubed bullet -- with emphasis on lube.

I may also look at the possibility of making a light load using a slower burning powder like 2400, like Slow Elk is talking about. I hadn't really considered using a slower powder for cowboy application. Something to think about, at least. My testing so far did kind of demonstrate to me that a faster powder leaded more with these Laser Cast bullets. It's logical at least to think that a slower powder would lead less. <shrug> Again, something to think about at least.

I think I'll get in touch with Springfield and see what sort of cowboy bullets he puts together! Thanks again for all the responses so far guys!

[44man]

I think I confused Bass. :bigsmyl2:
I finally agree with all he said which is a little strange for me! :veryconfu

[runfiverun]

the way 44 man does it is a harder fitted boolit with slower powders for higher vel.
most of my cowboy loads are the opposite, good lube ,soft boolit, a faster powder for light loads.
speed is the name of the game and recoil slows you down.
i use a 160 gr boolit and 4.5 grs of clays in a 45 colt. i am able to get away with the hard plastic commercial lube doing it this way. slow and soft and big.
when speeding up the 44 or 45 colt i go a bit harder a better lube and a much better boolit fit.
when stepping up to the supermags and in 44 mans domain i go a bit harder still not as hard as he does or even near lazercast hard [lazercast is even harder than my rifle boolits]
but harder,and go to gaschecks [ i cheat in the revolvers when pushing the speeds] and i use a lube similar to his but with a different viscocity.
funny he likes hard boolits and soft lube and i use soft boolits with hard lube, but we both get to the same place and our goals are the same. accuracy with big bored revolvers.

[44man]

the way 44 man does it is a harder fitted boolit with slower powders for higher vel.
most of my cowboy loads are the opposite, good lube ,soft boolit, a faster powder for light loads.
speed is the name of the game and recoil slows you down.
i use a 160 gr boolit and 4.5 grs of clays in a 45 colt. i am able to get away with the hard plastic commercial lube doing it this way. slow and soft and big.
when speeding up the 44 or 45 colt i go a bit harder a better lube and a much better boolit fit.
when stepping up to the supermags and in 44 mans domain i go a bit harder still not as hard as he does or even near lazercast hard [lazercast is even harder than my rifle boolits]
but harder,and go to gaschecks [ i cheat in the revolvers when pushing the speeds] and i use a lube similar to his but with a different viscocity.
funny he likes hard boolits and soft lube and i use soft boolits with hard lube, but we both get to the same place and our goals are the same. accuracy with big bored revolvers.
Everyone does get different results and I admit it.
But when someone gets bad leading the first thing I tell them is to try a better boolit and harder lead for slow loads because like Bass and I tried to explain, it is not the velocity but the effect of the powder that is faster.
It is a lot easier to picture if we remove the velocity factor all together. Velocity just does not matter, it is how the velocity is applied to the boolit.
If the boolit you use resists damage, you will have no problems and you will also recommend what you use---NO PROBLEM.
However many guys can't match it exactly and I still say many problems are from store bought boolits.
I am the first to admit that everything I do will not work for everyone and soft boolits also will not work for everyone. That means the shooter that has problems has to do the work, try everything and stop repeating those things that are causing trouble.
For instance, just changing the amount of the powder charge will not fix the problem because when all is right, you can work a charge from minimum to max and only see group size change. If something is wrong, a load change will not correct it but a powder or alloy change might fix it. Even a lube change will not cure leading if some other factor is wrong.
I have said it before and have to repeat it, sometimes it is best to sit at the loading bench and DO NOTHING except think! Pour a drink and leave the press handle alone. :bigsmyl2: The solution might be one little thing.
You are trying to correct a mechanical problem. If your car starts to run rough, do you change all the plugs, wires, fuel in the tank, computer, converter, filters, oil, anti freeze, tranny fluid, seat cushion and floor mats? If you did, you will never get a gun to shoot! [smilie=p:

[runfiverun]

i always think of the slow load/fast powder loads as spitting out the boolit, a burst of energy and then off they go.
i can see how the harder boolit would work here, as it goes through the gun with no changes to it at all except to engage the rifling and get stabilized.
i totally agree with the just get a chair and sit in the gun room on it and look through manuals with the radio on go through some old notes etc... while thinking about what you think is going to happen or is happening in there.
i spend a lot of time assesing my rifle loads before even trying something. trying to picture what is gonna happen in the throat, how it leaves the case etc.....
then decide on a powder for the load depending on what i want to accomplish. the alloy,or the way it's being manipulated
finding data to work with a 8mauser at 2200+ fps isn't easy, especially if you havent even tried a bullet/boolit through the brand new rifle yet.
and finding data for that vel without 50k's of pressure isn't easy either.
50k is fine but is the powder pushing all the way down the bbl? when is the peak pressure going to hit? where is the boolit going to be when it hits?
then it really sucks when it don't come together and you have a really nice 50 yd load.
that shoots 3" groups at 100 yds. or you can only shoot one shot every hour to keep the bbl cold.
gaaaawd this hobby. lifestyle ...whatever.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
Unique is a fast burning powder with a early/fast pressure peek, HOT FLAME. This may contribute to your problem.
Try 18 grs. of 2400 behind a 240-250gr. bullet sized right for the throat, may work for your needs, it might be about 1,000'/s. 2400 is a slower burning & cool burning powder with a long pressure curve, almost the oppsite end of the pistole powder spectrum.

[Ken in Iowa]

Greetings all!

New guy and Tallinar's Dad here. :)

It seems we have entered the Zen area of reloading. Imagining what is happening during the whole firing sequence and manipulating the variables...

Revolvers in and of themselves present many more variables to the mix than say, a bolt action or a single shot of any kind. One can quickly see where a quality revolver is needed for top accuracy and performance, often with some fine-tuning along the way. Then enters ammunition variables....:coffee:

The possible barrel restriction that we are next to establish would result in an interesting problem in the firing sequence. If the boolit were swaged down in the restriction, then find itself in a looser bore, gas blow-by will result. If a slower powder were used, the pressure may peak after the bullet has left the restricted area. A faster powder would have already peaked, leaving the now undersized bullet to wobble down the bore.

Yikes! Now you need to tune your load so the pressure peak occurs just as the bullet has left the restriction. This sounds like a good situation to avoid.:Fire:

Why does the restriction occur in the first place? Revolvers are assembled with a pre-bored and rifled barrel screwed into the frame. As the barrel shoulder butts up to the frame, the barrel needs to be tightened. The tightening process will upset the steel in the barrel at the shoulder. This steel needs to flow somewhere, and some of it will push into the bore causing the restriction.

OK, now how do we measure it and more importantly, get rid of it?

It looks like it's time to read up on bore slugging of a revolver and fire lapping. I do have an old NECO fire lapping kit from 15 years back. In reading the instructions, it eludes to resolving this very issue in revolvers, but does not expand on the subject as much as I would like.

Off to find more info. Google is my friend. :???:

[runfiverun]

just keep looking here we have a search function and i know fire lapping and hand lapping have been covered several times.
B.T.W.
welcome to the forum.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
Every time I shot store bought bullets I had leading . bought some in the late 1960's, some in the 70's , 80's , 90's. Al different makes. Bevel bases UGH!
At least with home made I know what I have got.

[Tallinar]

Hey guys, I wanted to post a follow-up to this thread. Please forgive me if this is considered to be "resurrecting an old thread." =-D

So taking some of the advice given to me in that thread, I slugged the bore. We decided we could definitely feel some tightness down about an inch or so in the bore beyond the forcing cone. The slug measured at about .429, perhaps a very light smidge smaller.

We decided to try the fire lapping routine. To do so, we used an old NECO embedding kit with some 240 gr Hornady JHP measuring .429.

At the range, I fired 6 rounds of the coarsest grit; then gave the bore a good cleaning. We slugged the bore and could noticeably feel that the tightness we originally felt when slugging the bore was easing up a bit, but still had a very noticeable area of tightness down around the forcing cone. I ended up firing 3 more series of 6 rounds of the coarsest grit, cleaning and slugging between each cylinder. I was a bit disappointed, but we didn't seem to feel much of a difference after those first 6 rounds. To wrap up the day, I went ahead and fired 6 rounds of each of the finer grits to complete the lapping process.

When we slugged the bore at the end of the day, it seemed to measure again at about .429 -- maybe a couple ten-thousandths of an inch larger than the pre-lapping measurement, which I understand is about what you'd want to expect.

The following day, I tested with 40 rounds of the .431 laser cast with 6.5 gr of 700X (which was the same load I did my last test with prior to lapping). I can attest that the leading did not seem quite as thick, but was still very very heavy compared to the pre-lapping test.

So I need some help. Where do I go from here? Lapping seemed to make a very subtle improvement, but my problem still persists. Again, my chamber throats measure .431, and my bore measures .429. Would it benefit me at all to perhaps attempt the fire lapping process again, but with a larger diameter bullet like a .430? Should I reconsider this whole .431 bullet thing and go back to trying a smaller bullet? Should I be contacting Ruger?

[454PB]

If it was my gun, I'd try adding some Lee Liquid Alox to those Lazer Cast boolits. It sounds like the lube on them is failing. If that makes no difference, try more fire lapping.

By the way, one way to remove leading is to fire a gas checked boolit or very lightly loaded plainbase cast boolit. Be careful, it's easy to get a boolit stuck in the barrel doing that! It's really safer to simply slug the barrel.....that pushes 95% of the leading out.

[Heavy lead]

Do yourself a big favor, before you do anything else, buy or cast some good boolits sized .431 with good lube. Those harder than steel, colored crayon lubed bullets will do nothing but make your hair fallout. Did mine, finally bought moulds and learned how to cast. Never have been able to get them to shoot in anything without putting more lead in the bore than on the target. Good luck.
At the very least tumble lube the rest of them with Lee Alox and/or Johnsons Paste Wax (aka JPW).

When I gave up on those too hard bullets, I mixed them 50/50 with pure lead in the melting pot, they worked just fine after that.

[Tallinar]

Yeah....I suppose I'll find myself casting before it's all said and done. :coffee:

Thanks for your reply. I guess the next test will be adding lube to the bullets I already have and going from there.

[GabbyM]

Tallinar:
Send me your address in a PM and I'll send you out a sample of boolits.

Provided you live in the USA and I can mail them to you. This would exclude MA.

[MtGun44]

Tallinar,

What boolits (exactly,please) lube, powder and qty are you shooting now?

This is critical info to helping. Please re-read my previous post on this
thread.

Bill

[44man]

My Ruger has a .430" bore and .4324" throats and I have shot thousands of plinking loads with .430" boolits and no leading beyond a few strands on the first patch.
I get better accuracy with .432" boolits in my hunting loads but the difference is not that great, maybe 1/2" smaller group size at 50 yards.
There is just more to the alloy and the balance of metals. Super hard is not too good and brittle metal is not too good. I get hard boolits by water dropping or heat treating yet the metal it just tougher, not brittle. Even 50-50 WW's and pure will harden to 18 to 22 BHN, yet the metal is still considered soft but tough enough to grip and seal the rifling.
Even straight WW metal will give me some leading if air cooled but water dropped will not.
I feel it is how the surface and at least deeper then the rifling is cystallized must play into it and how alloys are locked together or how large the crystals form might be very important.
Laser cast gave me more leading then I expected and wonder if the crystals are just too slippery and the crystals slip apart instead of being bound together.
Regardless, the boolit must maintain it's shape and take the rifling without skidding past the base band.
I have been sent all kinds of boolits to test over the years, some too soft with all kinds of fancy surface lubes on them. 5 shots and the rifling was packed solid. Other boolits were soft but tough and caused no leading and some were so hard they would most likely break if dropped and they were also very bad and not accurate either.
I use 3 alloys, 50-50 WW and pure, straight WW and WW with a small amount of antimony and tin added, all water dropped or heat treated and none give me a problem.
I played with LLA for a time, thinned, un-thinned, single, double and triple coats. All caused poor accuracy and leading.
Hard lubes are no good.
Lar makes good lubes, LBT soft is good and I love messy, sticky Felix lube.
All of my revolvers go sometimes 6 months before seeing a patch and only because they get so dirty from powder the cylinder gets sticky to turn. One patch removes any tiny strands of lead.
One other thing many don't understand is that if the wrong toughness of alloy is used, a gas check will not prevent leading and if the right mix is found for your gun, a gas check is not needed. I shoot PB to 1650 fps on a regular basis and have taken them to 1800 fps.
I get confused when someone says to make the boolit softer so it obturates----does that mean a bore size or over boolit will not obturate?????? What happens to obturation if the soft boolit skids the rifling? By the way, obturate means "to seal", not expand.
Another thing is that a boolit does not have to expand to the throat size, in fact if it is that soft, it will give you problems. Best if it fits first but not that critical. A little too much is made of that, just keep the boolit a little over the bore size and it will work.