Cast and suppressors.

[Mr Humble]

My experience with Lee molds is that in the larger diameters they are okay. Once you get down to 30 caliber the "cheapness" starts to show up.

[reddog81]

I'm still waiting on my first suppressor so I'm not sure how much help I can be, but I'm not sure how lead is shedding from the bullet after leaving the bore. Where in the can is the lead deposit? Is it right outside the muzzle or even throughout? If lead is flying off in the suppressor I'd gues that lead is flying off all the way to the target. How's the accuracy?

I'm not sure how a different bullet design would help. I'd guess a powder coat issue or alloy issue is the cause if the bullet is truely throwing off lead deposits.

[popper]

IMHO, the BT design just causes problems with no gain, the Lee BT is long. Pistol gas, slow fps & BT means you have a great setup for gas cutting on the base. You could use a body sizer to size the nose smaller, then drive band size - kinda a PITA. Hitek coating thickness is much less, might work - it's also a harder coating. I size, coat then size again but I'm pushing PB supers pretty hard. I designed my 145gr. boolit with a slightly smaller nose for PC, the drive band still goes 1/10" into the throat but it is sized. The nose never hits the grooves. I did a RD mod. 170gr PB that also shoots well in the BO, PCd. Nothing against NOE but I can design my own, get 3-5 day delivery and $$ is about the same from Accurate. Just cast a pot full of 145gr in a 2x Al. this morning, ~2hrs start to finish. Haven't looked at them with a loope yet but appears to be no rejects.

[Greg S]

There is a concoction the guys with sealed 22 lr suppressor are making (hydrogen peroxide and other over the counter items) and dunking their suppressors in the liquid and bubbles and removes the residue without harm to the suppressor itself. Look for maintenance information on sealed 22 suppressors. Since yours is cleanable it sould be alot easier to clean than a seal unit.

[JimB..]

There is a concoction the guys with sealed 22 lr suppressor are making (hydrogen peroxide and other over the counter items) and dunking their suppressors in the liquid and bubbles and removes the residue without harm to the suppressor itself. Look for maintenance information on sealed 22 suppressors. Since yours is cleanable it sould be alot easier to clean than a seal unit.

"Dip" is 50/50 hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Lead dissolves to form lead acetate. Lead acetate is readily absorbed through the skin. I have an old skillet that I use to boil mine away after use, the solids reform as the liquid boils and eventually it will be thrown in the recycling.

There is a theory that adding table salt to the lead acetate solution will cause the lead to precipitate, and it does to some extent, but is not nearly effective enough that you'd want to either come in contact with the liquid or dispose of it down the drain.

"Dip" eats aluminum. It is not effective on carbon, so cleaning is a bit of a multi-step process.

Last thing, how long is it between loading the rounds and firing the rounds. The bullet coatings deteriorate when exposed to certain powders and I've always wondered if the deterioration would result in suppressor leading. Maybe load and shoot some on the same day and see if you still get leading.

[wonderwolf]

One reason i'm considering a Liberty Mystic X....need to clean it? Sandblast it

[mcdaniel.mac]

"Dip" is 50/50 hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Lead dissolves to form lead acetate. Lead acetate is readily absorbed through the skin. I have an old skillet that I use to boil mine away after use, the solids reform as the liquid boils and eventually it will be thrown in the recycling.

There is a theory that adding table salt to the lead acetate solution will cause the lead to precipitate, and it does to some extent, but is not nearly effective enough that you'd want to either come in contact with the liquid or dispose of it down the drain.

"Dip" eats aluminum. It is not effective on carbon, so cleaning is a bit of a multi-step process.

Last thing, how long is it between loading the rounds and firing the rounds. The bullet coatings deteriorate when exposed to certain powders and I've always wondered if the deterioration would result in suppressor leading. Maybe load and shoot some on the same day and see if you still get leading.

Forget the table salt. Put the lead acetate solution in a glass container (Pyrex would work, but it needs to be non-reactive) and in a well-ventilated space slowly add diluted sulphuric acid. The precipitate lead (II) sulfate is nigh on unreactive. Keep adding the acid until there is no more precipitate, then pour off the liquid and dispose of it safely.

Wines used to be sweetened with lead acetate, and when it was discovered as a poison the use of sulphuric acid as a test was devised.

[Electric88]

"Dip" is 50/50 hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Lead dissolves to form lead acetate. Lead acetate is readily absorbed through the skin. I have an old skillet that I use to boil mine away after use, the solids reform as the liquid boils and eventually it will be thrown in the recycling.

There is a theory that adding table salt to the lead acetate solution will cause the lead to precipitate, and it does to some extent, but is not nearly effective enough that you'd want to either come in contact with the liquid or dispose of it down the drain.

"Dip" eats aluminum. It is not effective on carbon, so cleaning is a bit of a multi-step process.

Last thing, how long is it between loading the rounds and firing the rounds. The bullet coatings deteriorate when exposed to certain powders and I've always wondered if the deterioration would result in suppressor leading. Maybe load and shoot some on the same day and see if you still get leading.

I've heard rumors that Titegroup is one of those powders that can eat away at powdercoating, but I've never seen any proof of that. I've not heard of other powders that do that, but I haven't looked to hard either.

[JimB..]

Forget the table salt. Put the lead acetate solution in a glass container (Pyrex would work, but it needs to be non-reactive) and in a well-ventilated space slowly add diluted sulphuric acid. The precipitate lead (II) sulfate is nigh on unreactive. Keep adding the acid until there is no more precipitate, then pour off the liquid and dispose of it safely.

Wines used to be sweetened with lead acetate, and when it was discovered as a poison the use of sulphuric acid as a test was devised.

Good chemistry, but I am not certain that the sulphuric acid will precipitate antimony or metal salts from the primer. Boiling seems easy and effective, but I do it outside and don't huff the vapors.

[JimB..]

I've heard rumors that Titegroup is one of those powders that can eat away at powdercoating, but I've never seen any proof of that. I've not heard of other powders that do that, but I haven't looked to hard either.

Titegroup does, I've seen it and there are threads here. I believe that lil gun does also but have no direct experience. In any event I have never had a problem as a result, but then I shoot what I load within a week or two. Folks that store ammo for longer periods haven't told me of any velocity or accuracy issues, but I haven't talked to anyone about lead deposits in a suppressor.

[Electric88]

Titegroup does, I've seen it and there are threads here. I believe that lil gun does also but have no direct experience. In any event I have never had a problem as a result, but then I shoot what I load within a week or two. Folks that store ammo for longer periods haven't told me of any velocity or accuracy issues, but I haven't talked to anyone about lead deposits in a suppressor.

I guess I'll have to test it out by letting the rounds sit for a couple weeks and seeing if it leads the barrel, before moving to suppressor use.

[maliveline]

Ok I’m going to take a crack at this. I have been shooting cast through my .556 recently and I just got done cleaning my can and it was not pretty. Lead acetate is really something no one wants in their life so how can we shoot cast bullets through our cans? When you shoot a cast bullet out of a gun the base of the bullet heats up so greatly that there is some formation of molten lead at the base of the bullet while it is traveling through the bore of the weapon. Once the bullet exits the muzzle the molten lead at the bottom of the bullet splashes out everywhere inside of the blast baffle and possibly even into the baffles. Does powder coating prevent this? Absolutely not. Does it help? It does help a little but you are still going to get excess lead build up in your can overtime that you would not get with jacketed ammunition. A quick fix for this would be to use a gas check. I’m kind of kicking around the idea of sizing bullets/seating gas check in my lee sizing die and then powder coating everything. So this basically explains why your bore is still clean but your can is dirty because the lead doesn’t really become an issue until it is splashing out of the end of your muzzle and building up inside your can.

[xdmalder]

Ok I’m going to take a crack at this. I have been shooting cast through my .556 recently and I just got done cleaning my can and it was not pretty. Lead acetate is really something no one wants in their life so how can we shoot cast bullets through our cans? When you shoot a cast bullet out of a gun the base of the bullet heats up so greatly that there is some formation of molten lead at the base of the bullet while it is traveling through the bore of the weapon. Once the bullet exits the muzzle the molten lead at the bottom of the bullet splashes out everywhere inside of the blast baffle and possibly even into the baffles. Does powder coating prevent this? Absolutely not. Does it help? It does help a little but you are still going to get excess lead build up in your can overtime that you would not get with jacketed ammunition. A quick fix for this would be to use a gas check. I’m kind of kicking around the idea of sizing bullets/seating gas check in my lee sizing die and then powder coating everything. So this basically explains why your bore is still clean but your can is dirty because the lead doesn’t really become an issue until it is splashing out of the end of your muzzle and building up inside your can.

This is 100% all wrong. When using a filler like dracon why is not burned? When shooting a sabot why is it not melted?

[JimB..]

Ok I’m going to take a crack at this. I have been shooting cast through my .556 recently and I just got done cleaning my can and it was not pretty. Lead acetate is really something no one wants in their life so how can we shoot cast bullets through our cans? When you shoot a cast bullet out of a gun the base of the bullet heats up so greatly that there is some formation of molten lead at the base of the bullet while it is traveling through the bore of the weapon. Once the bullet exits the muzzle the molten lead at the bottom of the bullet splashes out everywhere inside of the blast baffle and possibly even into the baffles. Does powder coating prevent this? Absolutely not. Does it help? It does help a little but you are still going to get excess lead build up in your can overtime that you would not get with jacketed ammunition. A quick fix for this would be to use a gas check. I’m kind of kicking around the idea of sizing bullets/seating gas check in my lee sizing die and then powder coating everything. So this basically explains why your bore is still clean but your can is dirty because the lead doesn’t really become an issue until it is splashing out of the end of your muzzle and building up inside your can.

If you glue a piece of paper to the base of a bullet, fire that bullet, and recover the fired bullet you will find that the paper is unburned. This has been proven a number of times.

Looking at recovered bullets it doesn’t generally look like the sides have been melted.

My guess is that imprinting the rifling causes very small bits of lead to separate from the bullet, that splatter ends up in the gases which cool inside the suppressor.

Lead acetate, I have a dedicated pit that I dump spent dip into. That pot is heated and the contents boiled away. In this process the lead, tin, arsenic, and other metals fall out of solution and stick to the pot. The pot will eventually go to a landfill. I do this outdoors.

[maliveline]

So you think if I was to shoot cast bullets through a suppressor with a gas check on the bottom of the bullet I would still get “splatter” inside of my can?

[Boolit_Head]

Gas checks through a can are generally not a good idea. On the off chance it seperates it could very likely strike a baffle.

[JimB..]

So you think if I was to shoot cast bullets through a suppressor with a gas check on the bottom of the bullet I would still get “splatter” inside of my can?

Yes, pretty sure you will.

I have switched mostly to powder coating, I still get some buildup, but nothing like the .22 LR cans. I find powder coated bullets to be more accurate than plated bullets like those from Berry. Others prefer plated.

[maliveline]

If you powdered coated your bullets after you seated the gas check I highly doubt it would pop off. For that matter you could put a drop of jb weld or super glue inside of the gas check cup if you were that worried about it. I imagine you would still get leading in the can even with a gas check though if what you say about the paper disc on the bottom of the bullet is true though.

I was actually looking at plating my bullets instead of powder coating for another option to be able to shoot my own castbullets through a suppressor without having the leading issues. However, I have tried plating in the past and found it to be very labor Intensive and much less efficient than powdercoating. I did see a pretty amazing video of a guy on YouTube the other day with a home plating setup though.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oRFd64unCck

[JimB..]

Which brings us to swaging to get a bullet with no exposed lead at the base or the sides that engage the rifling. Should have all the gear to try 38cal bullets in the next couple weeks.

[FISH4BUGS]

I have a 300 BO that I have been casting the 230 lee and powder coating it to bring it up to proper size. Still not real happy with it but its the only boolit I can powder coat and get a good OAL that will function in the ar platform. THe problem is with the suppressor I am getting lead in the suppressor, none at all in the bore. I can take my can apart, (form 1 titanium can) and clean it but lead is stubborn. Has anyone fired cast using a can, subsonics, and not having any leading issues? What mold are you using, powder coating, lube, hitek, or not, etc etc.

I have a Bowers CAC9 can that I use on my S&W 76, MAC 9mm and MAC 380 and Uzi Sub machine guns. The maker of the can, Tom Bowers ( the former owner of subguns.com), told me when I bought it to go ahead and shoot lead bullets. The can got so leaded up he finally changed his mind and now says NO LEAD!
The moulds are H&G #331 for 9mm and H&G S55 for 380
My bullets are cast from 5lbs ww to 1 lb linotype, I use WW231 powder and Magma Hard Lube sized to .356. Since I stopped shooting lead through the can, I haven't had a leading problem.....funny how that works I have switched to Berry's Plated Bullets for all subsonic shooting.
One thing you can do is coat the baffles and the inside of the can with Frog Lube. It helps keep crud from building up so bad. Just clean it after every 200 rounds or so.
My 22 can is good for about 200 rounds only. But 22 is inherently dirty anyway. Nothing you can do about that.
Try the Frog Lube thing. It MIGHT be of some help for you.