leading and slugging help.

[troy_mclure]

im shooting a lee tc-401-175-tl, #2 alloy, lubed with lla/jpw from a 5"1911 at 1230fps.

the boolits drop from the mould at .4016, and take very little resistance thru the sizer.

I've tried with very heavy lube, and very light lube.

i get bad leading in the front 1/2 of the barrel no matter what lube density.

when i tried to slug the barrel( unsized boolit of pure lead) it went thru the barrel with light effort until 1.5 bullet lengths from the muzzle, then it was a stone cold pita. the dowel kept splintering, and i had to really wail on it.

the first 3 lube grooves are still mostly there, but the last 2 are gone, and the base of the boolit has a skirt 1/10th" long all the way around the barrel.

is something wrong with my barrel for it to taper down towards the muzzle like that, is this why the gun is leading so badly?

my good calipers battery died so ill give you a slug measurement once i get new.

[MtGun44]

You are lucky you didn't jam pieces of dowel in your barrel. I strongly recommend an
aluminum or brass rod in the future.
Sounds like you have a seriously choked barrel. You should have a good fit to the
groove diam at the loosest part of the barrel. Sounds like you need larger boolits,
but that does sound like a problematic barrel. Often this kind of barrel choking (within
reason!) aids accuracy.

Bill

[mooman76]

First off never use a wooden dowel. They can splinter like yours did and jam in the barrel real bad and then you have problems. The bullet or slug has to be big enough to work. If you use a bullet that is say .401 and your barrel is .402 you will not get the proper size slug when finished. And since yours went through so easy to start, my guess is it wouldn't come out good. You can use a cleaning rod with tap around it in spots to keep it from contacting the barrel. I preffer a soft lead ball like a BP RB to slug with. They go in easy after started and have less bearing surface so the go easier. It is best to have your barrel the same size all the way through but you still have hope. It is better to start out big and taper down than it is the other way around. It will just squeese the bullet down more but if it's the other way around it has already squeesed it down and then get too loose toward the end and lead badly.
You may have splintered the wood and it appeared to get tight because of the wedge of wood so you will need to slug again. In your case to be sure I would slug both directions and take note how the slug feels going through feeling for loose/tight spots. You can either use another lead bullet and to make it bigger tap the end with a hammer to spread the bullet out some or drill a hole in a piece of wood slightly larger than your barrel diameter and use that slug.

[RobS]

You posted that you are using #2 alloy and I'm guessing not water quenched. Your leading is at the lands and extends out from there to about half the barrel length. If this is what's happening then I would guess it has to do with an undersized boolit.

I imagine you oiled your barrel with something before working a slug through it, but if you didn't that could be some of the issue while slugging. As MtGun44 stated a slight taper toward the muzzle end is not a bad thing and can increase accuracy, however I've not seen this so much with auto barrels and more so with revolvers.

Never the less I would pull a loaded round and check to see what the diameter is as the case and/or reloading dies can swage down a nicely sized boolit. Another question, how long did you wait after casting until you loaded your boolits. Age hardening is a consideration when reloading cast as an individual who cast boolits yesterday could experience swage down problems where as boolits cast 2 weeks ago may not.

[troy_mclure]

the boolits are 3 weeks, to 2 months old.

i did grease the slug before i ran it down the barrel.

the dowel held togeather till after the lead boolit got stuck, then it splintered on top, the bottom held togeather. the brass rod i tried the first time was too thin and punched thru the slug.


the only bp rb i have are .454, so i melted one down and cast it into a slug.


ill cast a couple more and slug from both ends.

[mooman76]

Run a light oil patch down the barrel before you slug. That helps too.

[RobS]

troy:

Have you pulled a boolit to see what it's diameter is?

[troy_mclure]

not yet, i have to still get a battery.

[troy_mclure]

hah! took one from my watch, its reading .4005!

i measured the boolits about a day after i cast them, now they all read .4005!

i sized them a day or 2 after i cast them, could that have made them shrink soo much?

[KYCaster]

I've had a slug stuck in a barrel too and I agree, it's a cast iron PITA to get it out. My problem was lack of lube and I suspect that's your problem also. Your slug is running out of lube the same as your boolits.

I suggest driving a slug in from the muzzle to 1/2" below the crown then drive it back out from the other end. Do the same thing from the chamber end and compare the two to see if your barrel tapers. I doubt you'll find enough taper to cause a stuck slug.

Jerry

[RobS]

hah! took one from my watch, its reading .4005!

i measured the boolits about a day after i cast them, now they all read .4005!

i sized them a day or 2 after i cast them, could that have made them shrink soo much?

A boolit won't shrink........in fact higher antimony alloys can actually enlarge a bit in diameter.

[troy_mclure]

well they are now smaller.

[mooman76]

Maybe your sizer sized them too small.

[troy_mclure]

arrrgh, its wayyyy to hot to cast anything right now!

[RobS]

troy:

Just a thought but when you changed your battery did you re-zero your calipers? You are right it is hot as heck and I managed to hit it up at 98 degrees in the garage today. It wasn't too bad with the garage whole house fan pulling air though and a box fan blowing. Cast up some 45 auto HP's and some 45 cal 283 grain Keiths; probably 400 all together.

[troy_mclure]

it was 107f in my garage according to my ir thermometer, plus 99% humidity.


i did rezero the calipers..

[troy_mclure]

ok, i just dug out some .429 pb boolits i cast for bp .44spc.

definately more resistance 2" from the crown.

i get .4000 in the grooves, and .3900 in the lands(reversed of course).

so my .4005 boolits are likely too small. that's 780 boolits going back to the pot.

with a .4000 bore what size(dia) boolit should i get?

ill prolly just custom order a mould.

[troy_mclure]

oh, i used 2 stroke oil, and the slug slid right thru, no jamming or stopping at all.

guess grease wasn't enough lube like kycaster said.

[mooman76]

You might check with some people here. They were reporting getting a 40 cal Lee mould that was droping like 404/5. You want something like .402

[462]

Troy,
For a fatter boolit, try beagling the mould.

[RobS]

.402 would be good as you can size it down. I would say .401 at the minimum. What lube design are you looking at and what lube do you want to use? If you are comfortable working with your hands and with tools, you could also lap out the cavities as .0005 isn't much work.

[troy_mclure]

id prefer a tumble lube design. id really like a 200gr tl wfn type.

lapping is precision work, im more of a bigger hammer kinda guy! lol

[hk33ka1]

Your Lee 401 tumble lube mold seems to drop small compared to my Lees. I find they usually drop 1-3 thousands larger than advertised. Lee says you can use the Tumble Lubed bullets without sizing, and I have with better results than sizing them down to my barrel size or only + .001. Have you fired them without sizing? Was the leading issue any different?

[RobS]

No problem troy I understand if you are not comfortable working a mold as it does take time and a bit of care. Beagling the mold is an option which is simply using small pieces of aluminum tape on face of the mold. I will agree with hk33ka1 that most Lee molds I have had will cast out at or .001 larger from WW alloy. #2 alloy would cast out a slight bit larger yet; probably .0004 ish. I would maybe see if you can return the mold to Lee stating it cast undersized bullets.

[troy_mclure]

i havent tried firing them unsized.

its just way too hot to mess with casting right now.

[troy_mclure]

just measured some Winchester 40/10mm 180gr fmj bullets, they are .3995".

is it common for jacked bullets to be that small?

[RobS]

Do you have any other jacketed bullets? It seems as if your calipers could be .0005 out of it.

[troy_mclure]

the only thing thats showing small is my 7mm(.284) at .2835, that's speer game king, and nosler accubond.

my .458, .312, and .429 bullets are showing right.

[Moonie]

Calipers usually aren't any more accurate than +- .001, and that is only with proper technique. I don't size any of my pistol boolits. Lee TL designs are designed to be loaded and shot unsized.

[MtGun44]

You REALLY need a micrometer, not a caliper for this kind of measurement. You
cannot get better than .001+/- without some special calibration, and you sure can't
measure out to the 4th digit and mean anything. Get a .0001 mic and you can tell what
you actually have. At this point you can't tell what you really have, you are just
spinning your wheels.

Shoot unsized first, this may work just fine, but buy a ~$35 mic. Check out the Fowler
0-1 inch 0.0001" mic on Enco's web site.

Bill