Leading Problems

[Lavid2002]

Leading problems with my first batch of .45 ACP rounds...

Heres the low down

*Metal used*
A mixture, 3 muffin ingots of WW alloy to 1 muffin ingot of 1 stick on WW alloy

*The Boolit*
Made from this mold
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=313971
Dropped from the mold it sized out to around .4535
I then resized all the boolits to .452 with a lee sizer. The boolits from said sizer have been confirmed to come out to .452 on the spot.

*The gun*
I have slugged it twice with all my readings of the grooves coming out to .450 or .4495

*The lo0ob*
Lee Liquid Alox, I hear less is more so I did a conservative tumble, then sized, then did another conservative tumble. (This is where the problem lies, I think I have used too little LLA, is it possible?)

*The load*
Range brass
6 grains Unique
Wolf Large pistol primer
Seated and lightly crimped until they sit "Flush with the hood" in my 1911


Note:After they are loaded I tumble these rounds to get the LLA off the exposed area of the boolits.


I have pulled one of my boolits and did some measurements on it. I figured maybe crimping the boolits was swaging them down and causing leading problems. But nope....The bullet was .452 on the spot. I think the problem was too little lube. I have purposefully over-lubed 50 boolits and I will be trying them soon (Lubed with LLA)

I have also been told to try the sticky from the lube forum with the JPW and the mineral spirits. I will try this as well.

Any Ideas as to what it could be? If my work is right by bullets are .002" over sized (The prime number right?)
The only things I can think of are
A)Lube
B)Something wrong with my alloy? Isnt FIT KING?! lol

Thanks guys : )

-Dave

[Bret4207]

Yes, fit is King indeed. So lets start with the basics- you have a nice light load, what would seem to be an adequate alloy, boolits of seemingly proper size and a lube that many people (me included) have used successfully. So back to square one- its your barrel as close to surgically clean as possible? If you shot jacketed through it, particularly a new barrel, then it's entirely possible you have jacket fouling ripping that poor boolit to shreds. I would get that barrel really, really clean, and remember that jacket fouling can collect in groove corners and not give the boolit anything to grip. It's also possible, if you have a 45ACP barrel with the very shallow grooves that your alloy may need a bit of juicing, but lets start with my first thought and see about that barrel.

[RobS]

Agree with Bret4207 and when you get that bore clean try running a patch soaked with bit of LLA down it.

[GeneT]

try running a patch soaked with bit of LLA down it.

What does that do?

GsT

[RobS]

It will lube the barrel...........I've seen where the first bullets can start leading and snowball so to speak from there. A clean barrel doesn't have much lube in it and even no lube to speak if a person runs a dry patch down it which takes out the oil. I'm not saying that a dry barrel won't work but it makes more sense to me to have a barrel ready for a cast bullet.

Cast bullets have a lube groove/grooves and the lube helps that bullet from gas cutting and blow by but it also leaves lube in the barrel for the next bullet as well.

[docone31]

I wax my barrels after I have cleaned them.
I do not know if it helps, I just do not get any leading.

[Alex Hamilton]

I wax my barrels after I have cleaned them.
I do not know if it helps, I just do not get any leading.

Docone,

I do not wax or lubricate my barrels, but I don't clean them if I am shooting cast boolits, so the lubricant remains in the bore. When I have to clean the barrel after shooting jacketed bullets I have noticed that it takes several rounds to "condition the bore" and during that time the gun zero wanders and then it settles.

What you are doing is a very good idea and I will do it myself in the future.

Thanks,

Alex

[Alex Hamilton]

Dave,
It is also possible that your alloy is on the soft side. Stick on wheel-weights are pure lead, so I would try casting from clip on wheel-weights alone to see it makes any difference. Normally, soft alloy obturates better by bumping up on firing, but the downside is that it cannot take the enormous torque imparted to the boolit by the rifling. The leading edges of the lands wear alloy and that opens up gaps on the trailong edges and the gas cutting starts.

I would not bother cleaning off the lubricant off the exposed parts of the boolits, unless you are doing it just to make them look better.

Let us know how you get on.

Alex

[Lavid2002]

I only clean them so if I drop them they dont get dirt stuck to them and bring it into my gun. I will go out sometime this week (Wednesday maybe?) and try the JPW and heavily Aloxed rounds. I will condition the bore too.


Should I try quenching these boolits to make them harder with the oven?

Edit: This gun has never had a factory round through it. Or a jacketed round. I simply took it factory new and tried out my first batch of cats BOOOOLITS if it makes a difference : )


-Dave

[RobS]

If you are after a harder bullet then water quenching straight from the mold will be sufficient although that would not be necessary by any means and may give you more problems. If your pulled bullets are at intended diameter (which they are) then you are good to go IMHO with a lower pressure round such as the 45 acp. Heck even with the right fit air cooled WW can be shot successfully from magnums like the 357 and 44 mags. I shoot air cooled WW bullet from my 454 casull, but I also will shoot water quenched too if needed. There is no set rule to casting and reloading only a general rule of what usually works for most individuals and their firearms. I let my gun tell me what works best and never limit myself to a one track mind.

Regarding the gun being new...............well your gun couldn't hurt to be "conditioned" so to speak as sometimes the bores are not as smooth as they ought to be and shooting some jacketed bullets though it could smooth things out should you have any "rough" spots.

If you go this route go back and make sure to clean all the jacket fowling out before going back to lead.

[Lavid2002]

Here are my LLA boolits
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s161/lavid2002/IMGP0845.jpg

I am going to do this
*50 rounds of the boolits lubed like the picture above (More LLA)
*50 rounds heated in the oven to 400 and quenched to try to harden the alloy and LLA'd
*50 rounds with the LLA and JPW that everyone here seems to love so much : )

More info to come soon!

[chris in va]

I use the Lee TL boolit for my Sig 220 and ALOX. Hardly any leading to speak of, but I use a very light load, darn near minimum. If I jack up the Unique to around 7gr, I get a bunch of leading. This is just air cooling the slugs, was told 45acp doesn't require a harder boolit.

What gun are you using? Not a Glock is it?

[deerslayer]

You might try a few j-bullets as mentioned above. i am no expert, but I shoot a similar round in my glock .45 with no leading problems with alox or the alox jpw mix, a light or heavy coat has made no difference to me.

Where is the leading in the barrel?
Have you cleaned it and tried again or was this the only shooting session straight from the box?

[deerslayer]

I use the Lee TL boolit for my Sig 220 and ALOX. Hardly any leading to speak of, but I use a very light load, darn near minimum. If I jack up the Unique to around 7gr, I get a bunch of leading.

What gun are you using? Not a Glock is it?

He said 1911 and glock doesn't make one of those!

[Lavid2002]

Have you cleaned it and tried again or was this the only shooting session straight from the box?

This was the first shooting session right from the box. Heres the deal. Loaded up some ammo tonight. No JPW so I did 3 different loads
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s161/lavid2002/IMGP0846.jpg
1) Poorly pan lubed (Lube wouldnt stay in the groves) with a light coat of LLA
2) Well done pan lubed boolits using 50/50 lube
3)Heavily lubed (Shown above in large pic a few posts ago) Alox boolits.

I have some that I water quenched but I ran out of casings...so I will try these and pick up some JPW while I am out and let you guys know how it goes!

I will try to get out tuesday maybe :)

_Dave

[big dale]

I traded pff muy last 1911 A couple of decades ago, but I did put a few tons of ww cast boolits H&G #68 threw the 1911's. I never bothered with changing the alloy from plain old wheel weights. It wasen't necessary and they shot just fine the way they were. My favorite load was a substantial bunch of blue dot and I will no longer say how much as the new kids in the powder factory seem to have changeg something since I bought my last keg of it in the mid 80's. Sorry I cannot be much help with advice about bullet lube as I always used the sticks of RCBS pistol lube in my Lyman 450 lubricator/sizer. Sounds like you are doing a bunch of stuff right so my best advice would be to change just one thing at a time till you get it figured out.

The 45's sure are a bunch of fun to shoot. My 1911's were always much more accurate than any of my Glocks.

Have fun with this stuff.

Big Dale

[copdills]

Agree with Bret4207 and when you get that bore clean try running a patch soaked with bit of LLA down it.

I agree , I always run a patch with a little LLA down the barrel before I shoot (plinking) and never have any leading problems:cbpour:

[Edubya]

Dave, I can sense a little frustration in your effort and I don't blame you. I went through similar trials with my first 9mm and then with my .44 mag. I seemed to have resolved those issues by adding a couple ounces of ltin in my alloy. I have the 20# RCBS and with a full pot (within an inch or two from the top) I'll ad 4oz. of 95/5 solder or 6oz. of 50/50 solder.
I don't know all of the reasons, but I do know that this made a difference. I figure that it must have needed that minute bit of tin to toughen up the alloy.

Good luck,
EW

PS: I messed with my guns for more than a year before I could shoot 50 rounds in one session. Maybe, I just shot and cleaned out any roughness but they are a dream to shoot now.

[Alex Hamilton]

I use the Lee TL boolit for my Sig 220 and ALOX. Hardly any leading to speak of, but I use a very light load, darn near minimum. If I jack up the Unique to around 7gr, I get a bunch of leading. This is just air cooling the slugs, was told 45acp doesn't require a harder boolit.

What gun are you using? Not a Glock is it?

Chris,
This is just a guess, but it is possible that your boolits are too small relative to the groove size of the 220. At very low pressures that does not seem to matter because the lubricant obturates. At higher pressures the lubricant is blown through the tiny gap and you get gas cutting.

It could be only a matter of increasing the boolit size by .0005".

Alex

[44man]

I don't know how anyone does it really. I use Felix lube or Lar's lubes on even TL boolits and get no leading with heavy hunting loads.
The few times I tried LLA my barrels leaded so I gave it all away.
The stuff seems to work for some but I could never use it.

[deerslayer]

This was the first shooting session right from the box. Heres the deal. Loaded up some ammo tonight. No JPW so I did 3 different loads
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s161/lavid2002/IMGP0846.jpg
1) Poorly pan lubed (Lube wouldnt stay in the groves) with a light coat of LLA
2) Well done pan lubed boolits using 50/50 lube
3)Heavily lubed (Shown above in large pic a few posts ago) Alox boolits.

I have some that I water quenched but I ran out of casings...so I will try these and pick up some JPW while I am out and let you guys know how it goes!

I will try to get out tuesday maybe :)

_Dave
Dave what kind of 1911 is it as others may be able to give more insight on a type or brand specific problem.

Make sure when you make changes as said above change one thing at a time so you know what resolved it.
Also if first shooting session straight from box i would get a few jacketed bullets (atleast a box of 50) and just shoot them to help smooth barrel inconsistencies out. Then I would start all over with the lead and lube you tried originally.

[Lavid2002]

The gun is a Springfield Armory Mil-Spec
I think I am only changing one thing at a time right? With the exception of dropping .5 grains of powder I am only changing the amount of lube used.

Thanks for all the help guys!

[Doble Troble]

The loads sound like they should work. Is the barrel rough? Maybe a hundred stroke with JB bore paste are called for?

[Lavid2002]

It was a brand new barrel...think I should take it into work this afternoon and hit it with the flitz?

[MtGun44]

More lube, just dip the base into the lube. Two or three coats. Soft alloy is just fine
for .45 ACP with a good boolit design and a good lube.

This is at best a band aid for what is basically a crappy lube.

Also, be sure you are .001 larger than groove diam. Remove the barrel and drive a
lightly oiled slug thru the barrel with a brass rod and hammer. Measure the slug and
you should be larger than this.

For minimum effort just triple lube some AS CAST and try them. Larger is almost always
in the direction of less leading.

Also, try some real lube like NRA 50-50 or LBT soft blue or any of a lot of the ones sold
here by Lars and others. Not a big fan of LLA.

Bill

[Lavid2002]

Ill try these, and if the LLA doesnt work out ill give another tumble lube a shot. : )

No pun intended

[243winxb]

For your soft alloy, reduce load to 5.0gr Unique. size to .451" LLA looks OK. Do not water drop. If you want to load the 6.0gr of Unique, add tin to your alloy.

[Doby45]

Pan lube Carnuba Red. Get you a cutter from Buckshot. I run the 200gr SWC 6 banger from Lee through my Rock Island and I have ZERO leading. Sized to a standard .452, bore is shiney like new money. These are straight clip on WW.

http://i50.tinypic.com/2s156rd.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/30k94es.jpg

[Lavid2002]

Terrible, terrible experience with pan lubing... Lol
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s161/lavid2002/IMGP0570.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s161/lavid2002/IMGP0569.jpg
I think I would be willing to give it a shot later on if I had a cutter and a different boolit mold. I think the lube grooves in this one are too thin to hold the lube.

[Wally]

I have had this happen---especially with Lee bullets, as the lube grooves are so small. What you can do is to add more grease to the lube; they will better fill & stick to the lube grooves. Also, If only a few aren't filled in--you can hand apply to fill the gove with a dab of lube, using your bare finger.

There's no doubt that a bullet with a larger grease groove will be easier to lubricate.

[Lavid2002]

Too much work to hand lube :P I will tumble lube these, and if I want to pan lube I will switch over to a different style. Hopefully I will have a range report for you guys tomorrow.

: )
-Dave

[Doby45]

Your boolits were cold. Thats why your bands are not filled out. I place my boolits in the oven on 200 for approx 5min while the lube melts in my little coffee pitcher. Then I pull the boolits outta the oven and pour my lube in. Let it sit on the counter for a while and it will solidify, then you can either push them out or cut them out. Cutting is much better in my case.

[Lavid2002]

I put them in the oven at 250 for a lot longer than 5 minutes.... I tried various methods and none yielded satisfactory results.

[Doby45]

Dang.. I would suggest a cutter then.

[Lavid2002]

I think a cutter would have helped a lot... I spent too much money trying different things I am going to try these methods now, and I will get back to pan lubing sometime down the road.

[Edubya]

Just go to the local golf shop and ask them for an old metallic golf shaft that they have replaced. They usually just throw them into the garbage anyway. Drop a boolit in the tapered shaft and run a dowel down to find where the boolit stopped. Mark your dowel with a knife to give you an exact location. Now use that dowel to mark the outside of the shaft and add the length of your boolit, except the ojive. Cut it off there and use your homemade cookie cutter. You can run a mess of boolits in there before you have to unload them.

EW

[Lavid2002]

Crafty, thanks for the tip : )

[Lavid2002]

Had an eventfull day at the range today I forgot to crimp all my pistol rounds. I loaded up the pan lubed bullets first, the round literally popped out of the gun. It went to the cardboard target and bounced off it LOL! I guess since it wasnt crimped it couldnt build up adequate pressure. I tried 3 more rounds with the same result and then packed those rounds away.

The next ones (The heavy LLAed ones) shot great even without being crimped. I had the occasional out of battery closing but that was negligible since I didnt crimp the rounds. These shot great. I checked them often and they didnt lead at all.

After that I shot the lubed rounds that had a little LLA on them. They shot good too and had no leading. Good day to the range and I am happy I found out what the problem was : )

You guys are the best!!

-Dave

[MtGun44]

OK, let's cut to the chase here. You are succeeding and I am very happy for you!

BUT here is a simple plan:
Buy a lubrisizer and stop fooling with these crappy lubes and inferior, inconvenient
ways of lubing boolits. I pan lubed the wonderful little Lee 358-105 SWC for a
couple years before I tired of the fun and moved on and up.

I know they cost money, but the fact that most people have lubrisizers should tell
you something. If you are still enjoying "the hunt", have at it. When you tire of the LLA
goop chase, purchase a Lyman or RCBS and get a good boolit mold like 452374 to replace that
shallow lube groove marginal Lee design, use a real lube and never look back.

Some Lee designs are great (356-124TC conventional lube & the above 105SWC come to
mind) and some are not so good. I think you have a marginal design and a marginal lube
and marginal methods to apply it. . . . . . .

All adds up to PITA and a lot of work to have success. .45 ACP is considered one of the
really easy calibers to cast for, too.

Bill

[Lavid2002]

Sorry dude, but I really cant spare the cash right now. I blew my car up today. Its on the jack stands and I spent my whole afternoon tearing it apart.
(Ironically it happened while I was on my way to the range, I was 3 miles away !!! Thats like 9/10ths of the way there >: | )
Anyways, I thought it would be an easy fix with the thermostat, but I took that out and it is legit working just fine. I dont think the engine was hot for a long time but I could have fried the headgaskets. I have to check the radiator and the water pump tomorrow, which means the timing belt has to come off:shock:

***


-Dave

[RobS]

Dave:

Sorry to hear of the sh_t luck of your wheels. Seems as if it never ends!!!

[GeneT]

I just ran this test myself, in a well-seasoned Kimber 1911 with some Lee 230 gr. LRNs. I patched the bore ahead of time with LLA/JPW/Mineral Spirits (45/45/10) and that's what the bullets were lubed with.

I was pretty pleased with the lack of stickiness to the bullets after the lube cured. I fired 300 rounds and accuracy was still good to the last magazine.

When I got home I got some lead out of the barrel, although it wasn't a great deal, still more than I'd have liked.

But the real deal breaker was the smoke. I need something that smokes a lot less for the shooting I do. I like the convenience of tumble lubing, so I'd be happy to try some other formulas. In the meantime I guess I'll try some wax lube...

GsT

[Lavid2002]

It never does end...
Im taking the engine out today. I prepped for it yesterday and check this out. These timing belt idlers are in good shape right?
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s161/lavid2002/IMGP0940.jpg
Time to pull the heads and check out my bent valves and fooked up piston heads :|

[Echo]

Dave, I can sense a little frustration in your effort and I don't blame you. I went through similar trials with my first 9mm and then with my .44 mag. I seemed to have resolved those issues by adding a couple ounces of ltin in my alloy. I have the 20# RCBS and with a full pot (within an inch or two from the top) I'll ad 4oz. of 95/5 solder or 6oz. of 50/50 solder.
I don't know all of the reasons, but I do know that this made a difference. I figure that it must have needed that minute bit of tin to toughen up the alloy.

Good luck,
EW

PS: I messed with my guns for more than a year before I could shoot 50 rounds in one session. Maybe, I just shot and cleaned out any roughness but they are a dream to shoot now.

EW, that minute amount was right at 2% for the pot, so that is another testimonial for WW+2%Sn.

[Lavid2002]

Here we are now.... lol

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s161/lavid2002/IMGP1038.jpg

[MtGun44]

Aren't those little balls supposed to be stacked neatly INSIDE the bearing?

:groner:

Good luck, hope no further damage.

Bill

[MtGun44]

Aren't those little balls supposed to be stacked neatly INSIDE the bearing? :kidding:

:groner:

Good luck, hope no further damage.

Bill

[Echo]

Oh me. Hopefully the pistons are just marked, and not gouged.

First engine I ever rebuilt was on my Jag XK-150. Pulling in to a parking lot, the engine died. I raised the hood and asked my rider to crank the engine, while I opened the oil filler and looked at the cam. It stood still while the engine cranked. Oh me. Bottom timing chain broke, bending 6 exhaust valves, etc.