too soft lead in Magnum revolvers ?

[derek45]

I thought I read once, possibly in Keith's book, that when you try to push soft lead to magnum velocities in magnum revolvers, the force of the expanding gas, can push out the rear of the bullet to a larger diameter as it's starting into the forcing cone, increasing pressures.

Has anyone heard of this ?


I'm powder coating everything these days, but not sure that would make a difference.

What about soft, almost pure lead, powder coated with a gas-check ?
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Edited to add - I typically mix in some ROTOMETALS Super Hard Alloy Ingot (30%-Antimony,-70%-Lead), but wondering if I can get by without.
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[Martin Luber]

Start low and work up. Clean with tight patch and Kroil between each load step. Look for lead streaks on the patch. Watch group size. It will tell you when. Good luck.

[Tripplebeards]

I have been shooting 16:1 pewter and pure lead mix, PC, and GC with a BH of 7.8 at 2100 FPS in a 200 grain HP boolit in my marlin 336. I am also using the same alloy loaded at 1650 FPS out of my Ruger 77/44 with a 265 grain HP boolit. Both with great accuracy and zero leading. I will be using the same alloy out of my 44 mag Anaconda for hunting. Proper bullet fitment is key. Powder coating along with a gas check and you probably could shoot pure soft lead boolits without leading in guessing. Never tried it because I want some pewter in the mix to tuffen up my alloy.

[megasupermagnum]

I've heard rumors here and there of pure lead damaging revolvers, usually in the form of cracked forcing cones. I've never seen any proof of it happening though. I've seen a number of people shooting PC'ed pure lead bullets with great success. Elvis Ammo of Youtube often shoots pure lead at full power in his 357 magnums. I've never tried pure lead, but I've shot some real soft bullets at high pressures with great results. I don't powder coat, but it is my opinion that if you are getting leading with PC, you are not applying the coating correctly. Now, I probably wouldn't shoot a pure lead, plain base bullet in 454 casull at full house 65K psi levels, but I'm not saying it wouldn't work either. I would recommend a gas check, and a bullet design that has as much bearing surface as possible. I would not choose a bullet with a long, unsupported nose, as it will slump in an inaccurate manner.

[Winger Ed.]

I've done it in .357, but only loaded them to the max. of what they allow for 'store bought' pure Lead swaged bullets.
They seemed to work fine for me in a 6" S&W 586.

[derek45]

I found it
ELMER KEITH's SIXGUNS



The reason I made this thread, is because I get difficult extraction with soft lead 158gr / H110, and easy extraction with commercial hardcast coated 158gr SWC

My LEE 158's power coated with smokes.... vs. Bayou/MBC/SNS 158gr SWC

both loaded with 16.7gr H110




LEE 158 CLEAR coated with SMOKES

[fecmech]

Accuracy goes out the window with soft bullets @ .357 mag velocities and pressures. Here are pure lead 358429's recovered from the snow. Totally distorted and bases blown(top row). Next row down are ACWW. Notice some setback and rifling slippage. Bottom row are 50/50 ww/lino. Bullets fired from 6" Ruger GP

[megasupermagnum]

Accuracy goes out the window with soft bullets @ .357 mag velocities and pressures. Here are pure lead 358429's recovered from the snow. Totally distorted and bases blown(top row). Next row down are ACWW. Notice some setback and rifling slippage. Bottom row are 50/50 ww/lino. Bullets fired from 6" Ruger GP

A picture worth 1000 words. Thank you.

[Tripplebeards]

Wow, I know now not to use pure with just lube. Wonder how they would done with PC and a GC?

[35remington]

A soft gas checked bullet that is powder coated often has an unfilled lube groove or two to compress and....it will.

[dtknowles]

This phenomenon is sometimes called riveting. I don't know about pressure problems but it is very detrimental to accuracy. Soft lead bullets should only be fired in revolvers with low to moderate loads with fast powders if good accuracy is desired. I don't believe that powder coating will prevent riveting. This can also happen in rifles with long leads or free bore. Gas checks will mostly prevent riveting but for my max magnum loads in revolvers I use gas checks and an alloy like Lyman #2 or hard ball.

Leading is a completely different problem and I do believe that PC will prevent leading even with soft alloys and even with a degree of bad fitment but it will not fix the accuracy problem.

Tim

[Forrest r]

+1^^^^^^^ dtknowles is spot on.

Lube grooves/wiper grooves & the size/shape/depth of those grooves all play a part with how high pressure affects soft bullets. Anything under pressure will go to the least point of resistance along with bullets with lube grooves are designed to have the lube groove compress under pressure.

What you are seeing with hard extraction vs normal extraction is the affects of the short start pressure of the load & how it affects the different alloys. Revolver cylinders have a freebore in them, you can see it in the picture below in front of the mouth of the brass. The soft bullet is sealing fasting creating higher pressures then it's harder counterpart raising the pressure of the load.
[IMG][/IMG]

I've experienced the same thing when shooting .431" jacketed bullets in a s&w 629. I had a bunch of home swaged jacketed bullets laying around that I made for a micro-grooved bbl'd marlin 1895 chambered in 44mag. These bullets shot lights out in that marlin so I made a pile of them. Sold that rifle and had those bullets laying around for years. Ended up doing test loads (50 pieces) using middle of the load data (unique) to burn them up as blammo ammo/plinking loads. Darn cases stuck in the 629's cylinders bad enough that I had to tap them out with a rod. Burned the rest of the test loads up in a contender & the cases fell out of the contender. That contender had the typical 1/2" +/- of freebore cut into the throat of the bbl.

I started swaging bullets in 1990 & I did a lot of testing back then with lead. Lead was free and jackets cost $$$. Did a lot of testing with .356"/.357".358" bullets along with different knurling & lubes. Also tested pb vs gc'd versions of the same bullet. Never did find any love with hot loads and soft bullets. Years later when pc 1st came out I decided to give it a try (2014). I re-visited smooth sided gc'd rn and swc swaged bullets (.357") and then pc'd them. While the pc'd version of the soft lead/gc'd bullet did better then it's traditional swaged/lubed counterpart. They still didn't hold up to heavy loads accuracy wise @ 50ft or beyond. At close range they'd put 1 heck of a smack on whatever they hit. But at the end of the day it was a lot of effort for little return with too hot of a load. Extraction was still an issue even with a gc.

I don't shoot pure lead but I do use a lot of 8/9bhn alloy, nothing more than 100#+ batches of ingots from range scrap. The large batches help keep the alloy consistent from batch to batch. This alloy produces bullets for every caliber I cast for that hold up to loads up to 25,000psi when pc'd. After that I start using 12bhn alloys for pistols/revolvers and 14bhn alloys for hp rifles.

Don't know why I have such an interest in bullet bases but I do. I've made my own swaging dies testing different bullet base designs (flat/concave/hb/beveled/stepped) along with making my own gc makers and making the bases for sizing dies that formed the gc's to the bullet (flat/beveled/concave). I also have cast a lot of hb bullets & while thinning the herd I still 11 hb molds that I still use.

Anyway, sorry for being so long winded. A +/- 18,500psi 44spl load using a hp hb bullet (8/9bhn).
[IMG][/IMG]
A side view of that same bullet fired from a snubnosed ca bulldog into wetpack @ 50ft. The base of that hp hb bullet expanded almost as much as the hp.
[IMG][/IMG]

[Petander]

Local "Range Scrap" (mostly FMJ:s) plus some (25%) of my precious WW gives me a 8-9 BHN pistol alloy. I have used it in 45 ACP and RB:s

But right now I'm working on a new 44 (quite a bit to fix) and while at it I noticed that under 1000 fps I have both a clean barrel and good accuracy with the abovementioned alloy. Hi Tek coated 245 Mihec HP PB.

It's like a 44 Special in magnum cases. VV N320 is fast. Today I fired a box of 50 and hit the 75 meter bullet trap with all my last 15 rounds, the area is IPSC target body size. It's back there in the berm.





It's good to have mild loads,too.