I'm new to casting and reloading. Today I went to the range and tried some lead boolits in my Rossi .308, and an old Lee Enfield .303 British.
The Rossi grouped well, and the barrel looked good afterward.
The Lee Enfield threw a six inch group at 50 metres, and afterwards while cleaning it I saw flakes of lead sitting on my cloth patch.
I don't know what lead fouling actually looks like for sure, but I imagined it would be a fairly smooth coating in the rifling grooves.
Some of the flakes were quite big. If it was alluvial gold and I was a prospector I'd be getting excited.
I "Chrony'd" these particular boolits at around 900 fps. These were 180 grain projectiles I got from a relative many years ago, and I'm fairly sure they were mainly flashing lead with some solder added. The barrel on the Lee Enfield isn't the prettiest one I've seen, but it is in the 'ok' category.... and is only 13 inches long. I was using 7.5 grains of Trail Boss powder.
This is a five-groove barrel, and I havent found a good way to measure the barrel slug I made in it. But the boolits were big.... the nose is maybe .306" and the bands are around .315" . The boolits have only two grease grooves. I filled these with a beeswax/olive oil mix which has worked well in other rifles.
So what does lead fouling actually look like? Are flakes common? Any insights or ideas as to why I'm making flakes?
Once again, thanks in advance for your helpfulness. Best wishes... Coote