Lead pipe masquerading as a barrel

[snake river marksman]

My 9mm leaded up really bad after 25rds. It's a 3" barrel and it's leaded from stem to stern. The lube is 45%LLA/45%JPW/10% mineral spirits. Tumble lubed onto an NEI trucated cone boolit of WW. Air cooled.
I don't have the powder weight with me just now but it's a moderate load of Red Dot.
I also fired 25rds each from my 40S&W and my 45ACP which are lubed the same way and they appear to be fine. So I don't think it's the lube.

I'm guessing the next thing is to slug the barrel and measure the boolits and see if I've got a bad fit.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c121/1snake2river3marksman/lead2.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c121/1snake2river3marksman/lead1.jpg
Camera phone pictures suck but it's all I had at the moment.

[scrapcan]

ooh that is a fun time you are going to spend! out comes the chore boy or the lewis lead remover.

[wiljen]

That looks like an undersized slug to me. Did you slug your bore before loading?

[sargenv]

if it were me, I'd be using my Outer's foul out :)

Any reason why you are air cooling the WW's as opposed to water quenching? I was under the impression that water quenching resulted in a harder bullet.. also did you shoot these soon after you cast them or did you let them "cure" a bit, say for a week or two.. as I've found that my aged boolits made from WW's harden up to 4-5 points harder over time. As quenched they are 13-15, aged are 18-20.

[snake river marksman]

They had been sitting around for a couple of weeks.
I had not slugged the barrel yet. I had fired some and the leading was OK but the primers were flattened so I backed them down. Maybe just a tad too far.
Double coating could be an option.

One step forward, two steps back.

[runfiverun]

my 9's seem to do fine with 358.
if you wanna do a little test, and can see some rifling try the larger diameter witth the lead still in there.
a light load with a properly fitting boolit will often times scrub a bbl for you if it ain't too badly leaded up.

[chris in va]

Tumble lubed onto an NEI trucated cone boolit of WW. Air cooled.

There's your problem. And yes I speak from experience on this.

The boolit is probably .355 and too small. Air cooling a 9mm boolit makes it much too soft for the shallow rifling, and it simply skids down the barrel, especially if you run it a little hot.

The cure? RN boolit sized to 358 and water dropped. You'll thank me later.:drinks:

[462]

Slug the barrel.

Also, load a dummy round then pull the boolit. Even if you start with the proper size boolit, the seating die can downsize it.

[MtGun44]

Not necessary to water drop. Proper fit will carry the day.
I use .357 or .358 for 9mm, air cooled wwts.

Bill

[geargnasher]

What 462 said, if you use the Lee FCD it has a carbide insert like the sizer which can swage the boolit to under groove diameter in some cases.

Gear

[EMC45]

Run them at .358 and enjoy!

[dubber123]

Run them at .358 and enjoy!

Or larger. My P-38 sucks down .359" boolits without a hiccup. I wouldn't have believed it until I tried it. This 9mm is looser than ANY of my .38's. :roll:

[thx997303]

I shoot .360" boolits through my 9mm air cooled WW too.

Water dropping is not necessary if you ask me.

And, why do people NOT slug their barrel first? Good lord, seems like every time somebody posts about leading, they didn't slug their bore.

Slug your bores!

[Multigunner]

Looks like Kirksite zinc alloy might be a good choice for casting 9mm bullets. It would allow for some extra high velocity loads since the zinc alloy bullets only weigh 60% as much as the same bullet cast in lead.

I had not considered reloading for my S&W model 59, store bought 9mm were cheap enough that reloading with J-word bullets didn't seem cost effective in the long run.
Reloading using cast boolits does make more sense.

I don't much like the idea of using a bullet that leaves any leading though.
When I first got this pistol the insides were caked with a very fine powdery copper base residue, the same shade as the jackets of the cheap CCI ammo that came with the pistol.
It looks like the action is prone to drawing loose metal fouling back into the workings along with powder residue. Funny thing is there wasn't much powder fouling, just the atomized copper.
I have a feeling lead would cause worse fouling of the action as well as leading the bore.

[MtGun44]

Like the man said. Slug the bore, then shoot .001 or .002 larger diam and you
will not get leading with a std 'known good' boolit design and lube. Just that simple.

Every body tries to make this hard. Using Lee TL and mule snot is really cheap, and
it even works sometimes but is a risky method as far as leading is concerned.

[kawalekm]

I have a German P1 and it's bore slugged out at .357". Slugging is so easy I don't know why it isn't the first thing everyone does. Just buy a 5/16" wooden dowel (79cents) at Home Depot and tap one of your bullets through. Takes up two minutes of your time.

[glicerin]

I have a ruger P85 9mm which slugs .358-.359. Even linotype bullets at .357-.358 will lead in 20 rounds. Light loads don't help. Bullets bigger than .357 cause a problem in the seating die, so I'm not a happy camper. I may try .357 bullets of 20-1 alloy in hope they will bump up to seal bore(this worked in my czech 7.62X25) . good luck

[prickett]

if it were me, I'd be using my Outer's foul out :)

Any reason why you are air cooling the WW's as opposed to water quenching? I was under the impression that water quenching resulted in a harder bullet.. also did you shoot these soon after you cast them or did you let them "cure" a bit, say for a week or two.. as I've found that my aged boolits made from WW's harden up to 4-5 points harder over time. As quenched they are 13-15, aged are 18-20.

+1 on the Outers Foul Out. Saved (and continues to) my bacon while trying to find the secret to a non-leading 9mm.

I found that LLA (or LLA/MS/JPW) works for .45, but have never gotten satisfactory results with a 9mm bullet. I tried pan lubing and it fixed the problem. So, I finally punted and bought a lubra-matic.

Like everyone else is saying... slug the barrel. I have 3 9mm's and all three are different diameters. They are .355, .356, and .357. Makes a big different trying to debug leading. I have to use a .357 sizer for the first two and a .358 for the last (and also my .357 magnum).

[mpmarty]

I use LLA on 308, 45/70 10mm and 45acp and never ever have any leading.

[lavenatti]

How'd the boolits look when you cast them?

A friend of mine leaded up his .40 like that, turned out he was using a TL boolit with poor fillout on the bands. Probably had gas cutting like crazy.

[snake river marksman]

It isn't a tumble loob boolit. I'm just tumble loobing it.

[Bret4207]

For those that find the idea of mashing a lead slug into your barrel a bit daunting- try measuring the inside diameter of a case fired in that gun with a full powered load. That will at least give you the max diameter you can load and it very often seems to be right around your eventual sizing diameter.

BTW- 4/0 steel wool will get the lead out with no harm to the barrel.

[Nate1778]

Slow the powder down, my 9mm would not stop leading till I slowed the powder down. Went to Unique and leading went away.

[Avit187]

Like the man said. Slug the bore, then shoot .001 or .002 larger diam and you
will not get leading with a std 'known good' boolit design and lube. Just that simple.

Every body tries to make this hard. Using Lee TL and mule snot is really cheap, and
it even works sometimes but is a risky method as far as leading is concerned.



this is what fixed my problems with leading....toss the mule snot and use a real lube....bam'o, problem solved!