Glocks lead

[Lloyd Smale]

add this to the urban legends! Fired 300 10mms ea through my 29 and my 20 today loaded with 180 lees sized to 401 and 12 grains of aa9. Nothing but a light wash that was there from the last range trip that you get in any gun. never got a bit worse. Don't know how many rounds through these two guns since the barrels were cleaned but its got to be north of 2k.

[dragon813gt]

Let me guess, stock barrels? I'm shocked I tell you, completely shocked :laugh: While my G20 doesn't have as many rounds down the barrel as yours does. I have the same results where there is no trace of leading.

Now sit back and wait for all the "you need an aftermarket barrel to shoot lead" posts......

[Tom W.]

Ain't gonna get that from me. I had two Glocks in 9mm and one in .45 acp and never had leading with the stock Gen 4 barrels.

[bedbugbilly]

Don't own a Glock - yet. One in the near future though. Just curious . . . . no or minimal leading . . . any correlation to lube you are using? I tumble lube in alox/pastewax. I know there are those that PC everything and others that use lubesizer. So just curious if there is more of an issue with one lube method than another?

After much reading, etc. - form posted experiences with the stock Glock barrels and lead boolits, I'm no longer leery of taking the plunge. I know speed/alloy play a factor as well but am just curious as to the lubes used versus any leading or wash. Thanks!

[KenH]

I've got a G43 with stock barrel that's had perhaps a 1,000 cast bullets down the barrel with NO sign of leading at all. I do powder coat everything - just seems to work better than alox or any of the other lubes I've used over the years.

[WebMonkey]

Sweet!

G26 stock everything.
Lee 356-124 round and Lee 358-137-hp and lee 358-125-rf.
Powder coated over 3.5 titegroup.
No leading.

[beechbum444]

titegroup works for me too, what are you sizing the boolits too......356. .357?? whats the OAL (1.050??) with the lee 125 -358 RF???

[Lefty Red]

add this to the urban legends! Fired 300 10mms ea through my 29 and my 20 today loaded with 180 lees sized to 401 and 12 grains of aa9. Nothing but a light wash that was there from the last range trip that you get in any gun. never got a bit worse. Don't know how many rounds through these two guns since the barrels were cleaned but its got to be north of 2k.

So how was it?
Was there a major difference in recoil or time on target from one shot to the next, between the 20 and 29?

Lefty


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[EMC45]

My G36 got dirtier shooting jacketed (copper wash) then when I shot lead over and over again-hundreds of rounds.

[P Flados]

I envy all the lucky dogs that have not had to fight the Glock boolit battle.

My boy's 9mm leaded with everything I tried (including PC - HF Red asbb). The only "cure" I found with the factory barrel was dropping loads below the point of cycling the action.

We gave up and bought an aftermarket barrel. We are still having problems.

First problem was that all of our loaded ammo (a bunch) would hang up on the throat and the action would not fully close without lots of help. The new barrel was smaller (0.3555" or so) than the stock (0.3565" of so). Boolits were also shaving due to the sharp edge between the chamber and the throat. I lapped a small bevel at this location and re-seated all my ammo to pass the plunk test.

After the intial "fixes" we tried some Lee 110 RNs with min powder and BLL. Shaving was fixed, but accuracy went south before 30 rounds. Cleaning was a bear due to the heavy leading.

Next round was ASBB HF Red Lee 125 RNFPs and min powder. Results were Ok but just marginal. PC coated 110s still leaded up fast.

I am hoping I am just too big at 0.3575" for my boolits. A lee 0.356" sizer is on the way.

[Lloyd Smale]

yup factory barrel. I had a wolf barrel for the 20 and found the stock barrel out shot it with both lead and jacketed and had a bit looser chamber that made it more reliable.

[Lloyd Smale]

Bullets were cast out on an alloy that is about 15bhn. Lubed with a batch of lube that has beeswax, alox, lars corduba and left overs from about 5 different batches of commercial lube mixed together in a crock pot. About a 1/5 of them were pc'd

Don't own a Glock - yet. One in the near future though. Just curious . . . . no or minimal leading . . . any correlation to lube you are using? I tumble lube in alox/pastewax. I know there are those that PC everything and others that use lubesizer. So just curious if there is more of an issue with one lube method than another?

After much reading, etc. - form posted experiences with the stock Glock barrels and lead boolits, I'm no longer leery of taking the plunge. I know speed/alloy play a factor as well but am just curious as to the lubes used versus any leading or wash. Thanks!

[6bg6ga]

Fired lead thru my 20 and my 23 with no ill effects. My thought is its all about proper bullet size. No leading, no problems, just another BS idea.

Another legend...local deputy sheriff told me you cannot reload 40 cal without it blowing up the gun. It would appear who ever loaded for them didn't know their butt from a hole in the ground.

Hardness.... I've loaded anything from 5-17 in hardness. The pure lead I kept the FPS below 1200 and still no leading.

My lube was 1/2 alox beeswax or Ben's red. or a mixture of the two of them because I do not dump the lube but keep adding to it.

[WebMonkey]

titegroup works for me too, what are you sizing the boolits too......356. .357?? whats the OAL (1.050??) with the lee 125 -358 RF???

Lee push through .356
Seated with crimp groove barely showing 1.045
Chronograph showed 1100fps @ 15'

[KenH]

Well, my dinky G43 seems to shoot most anything just fine.... that's cycling without any FTF - well, there are times when I didn't get a bullet seated deep enough, or not enough powder to cycle. Once the load is worked up, from a Lee 102, Lee 127, or Lee 158 grain bullets they all seem to cycle and function just fine.... as long as there is enough powder to make the slide pop back nicely. I tend to load plinking rounds as light as they will go so there is less noise and recoil. I do keep factory +P loads for defense.

I found the 158 cast bullets have less recoil and less noise than the lighter bullets. I'm loading 3 grain of Unique for the 158 and it cycles just fine.

I'm using Smoke's clear for PC - and alloy of COWW, range lead, etc. Nothing exceptionally hard, usually less than 10 BHN. The HF red PC I used doesn't cover as well as the clear, but shouldn't cause any leading. The only think I can think that might cause PC'd bullets to lead could be either of two things. Not baking the full 20 minutes at 400ºF which might prevent the PC from curing as strong as it should. OR - the brass not being belled a bit to allow bullet to slide in without shearing the PC exposing some lead on the sides.

I'm sizing my bullets to around .358" to .359" - either seems to work just fine. PC that passes the smash test should NOT allow any lead to touch the barrel, unless it's been sheared during bullet seating to allow bare lead to touch barrel.

Bullet length depends strongly on the bullet nose shape. The Lee 102 has a 1R nose radius while the 127 has a 2R nose radius which requires the 102 to be seated deeper to allow bullet to chamber fully. A SWC usually has a smaller nose than the bore so it can be seated much longer and stuff chamber nicely.

Now, as to how accurate my cast bullets are in the Glock? Heck if I know - I can't hit side of barn with the darn thing, that's which factory loads or cast loads. I've never been able to hit much with a semi-auto pistol. I like my old Colt Trooper .357 MUCH better - I can hit with that thing. Maybe I just need to shoot a few more thousand rounds with the Glock?

Ken H>

[EMC45]

I will say this much in regard to Glock factory barrels. When I shot my old Pastor's G19 the factory barrel did not like .356 sized bullets. They would tumble and would lead badly. Bumped to .358 and it was a laser beam. No lead.

[P Flados]

I envy all the lucky dogs that have not had to fight the Glock boolit battle.

My boy's 9mm leaded with everything I tried (including PC - HF Red asbb). The only "cure" I found with the factory barrel was dropping loads below the point of cycling the action.

We gave up and bought an aftermarket barrel. We are still having problems.

First problem was that all of our loaded ammo (a bunch) would hang up on the throat and the action would not fully close without lots of help. The new barrel was smaller (0.3555" or so) than the stock (0.3565" of so). Boolits were also shaving due to the sharp edge between the chamber and the throat. I lapped a small bevel at this location and re-seated all my ammo to pass the plunk test.

After the intial "fixes" we tried some Lee 110 RNs with min powder and BLL. Shaving was fixed, but accuracy went south before 30 rounds. Cleaning was a bear due to the heavy leading.

Next round was ASBB HF Red Lee 125 RNFPs and min powder. Results were Ok but just marginal. PC coated 110s still leaded up fast.

I am hoping I am just too big at 0.3575" for my boolits. A lee 0.356" sizer is on the way.

Update: My Lee 125 RNFP with HF Red ASBB PC and 3.9 of TG has plenty of power to fully cycle the action and does not lead in the new barrel. This is with boolits sized both 0.357" and 0.356".

Last trip to the range still had more than a few "Fail to fire". The problem was that slide was not going full forward. After the range trip, I pulled the barrel and inserted a bunch of rounds by hand. The first few seated great. However as I kept going, I found others that did not do so well. Lets say about 14 out of 15 would go very close to full in with very low force (light pressure with one finger). The worst offenders were about 0.010" from full in with around 5 - 10 lbs of force. Reducing the OAL by 0.015" to 1.005" made a big difference in feel with no outliers while hand inserting a big batch.

I am thinking that my PC coating (the surface finish on the un-sized portion of the boolits does have occasional "bumps" where the powder "clumped on" during shaking) may at least part of the cause of the inconsistency with some seating fine and some not. The other potential is that I may have cast some with a small gap (say 0.0005" to 0.001") between each half of the mold.

It is a real shame that aftermarket barrel makers (who get a big portion of their buisness from people wanting to shoot cast) do not wake up and give us throats that are cast friendly.

Regardless, I am happy with the new OAL so far. With TightGroup powder, my 3.9 gr load still has some free space under the boolit. Range testing for final confirmation is expected Friday morning.

Once I get happy with PC coated 125's, I will probably go back to the 110's and/or BLL and try to establish mupltiple "good" options for boolits in this gun.

[Cold Trigger Finger]

I guess I drank the aftermarket barrel CoollAid. Which is ok. The LW barrel I now have in my G20 has a tighter chamber which is easier on my brass and it still feeds 100% with everything I've fed it. So, while it may not be mandatory, it's ok. But it is good to know I can shoot cast in the oem barrel. If I can ever find it again.:-/

[Love Life]

All barrels in all platforms will lead if not done correctly.

That being said, casting for Glocks is no different than casting for anything else. I love Glock barrels. Chambers and throats are usually done well, and interior finish is very good.

Years back I did testing between poly rifled and traditional rifled barrels using coated bullets to see which cut or hurt the bullet the most.

Poly barrels were easier on the bullet. The accuracy was better with the traditional cut barrels, but I attribute that to the pistols used and fit/barrel lock up.


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[Greg S]

Only reason I went aftermarket in my gen3 G20 was for a tighter chamber. Midrange loads (180@1150) were guppied.