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Thread: Horrible leading...need input

  1. #21
    Boolit Buddy slownsteady22's Avatar
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    Try water dropping and pan lube. You can check out white lable lubes Lars makes great lube.

  2. #22
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    I too would suggest dip lubing to get a bit more lube on the bullets (tumble lubing with alox or 45-45-10 does not need to fill the lube grooves, the entire bearing surface is coated). I dip with the 45-45-10 just warm enough to flow (tepid) and the bullets at room temp (70-80 degrees) and mebbe I get a bit too much, but there's nor excess smoke and I get very little leading. I dip, set the bullets on a sheet of wax paper or aluminum foil, and come back the next day (if I remember) and they are dry enough to handle...

    I'm not sure about alloy as I cast for 15 years before I got a hardness tester and shot a lot of range scrap. If the bullets fit the gun and I had a decent lube, there was very little leading...
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  3. #23
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    The forgiving nature of that combo is the only reason your bullets weren't tumbling. Sounds like a confluence of factors–not enough lube, too soft alloy and a fairly high powder charge (4.8 may be their published starting load, but it's a hot load by Bullseye standards). Address any or all of these factors and your guns performance will improve.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boolseye View Post
    The forgiving nature of that combo is the only reason your bullets weren't tumbling. Sounds like a confluence of factors–not enough lube, too soft alloy and a fairly high powder charge (4.8 may be their published starting load, but it's a hot load by Bullseye standards). Address any or all of these factors and your guns performance will improve.
    I'm not using Bullseye. I'm using Titegroup, 4.8gr of which is a 200gr bullet rated at ~870 fps. That's low velocity for a 200gr boolit. Hornady lists charges as high 5.9gr IIRC and 1000 fps, but that seems very excessive to me and dangerous.

  5. #25
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    Got an update.

    At a minimum, lube does seem to be an issue. I did a second coat of 45 45 10 and loaded 50 with the same powder charge. I load my OAL slightly longer (as long as I could make it and still chamber). I still got significant leading, but it was considerably less. More lube definitely improved the situation.

    I've got the rest of my boolits drying today with their third 45 45 10 coat. However, I may just do the dip lube with the next 50 boolits just to see what that does, but I won't be doing dip lube as a normal procedure. I'm willing to do it this time for testing, but it's otherwise too time consuming. I'll cough up the money for a star lube sizer before I do that. Actually I'm probably coughing up for the Star anyway unless I decide to go the PC route.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by slownsteady22 View Post
    Try water dropping and pan lube. You can check out white lable lubes Lars makes great lube.

    I have a couple of questions about this. Lets assume my scambay alloy is very soft with very low alloying percentages in it, which would fit my observation that I can scratch my boolits with a thumb nail. Given the content of the metal, how would water dropping harden it? For that matter, I always thought water quenching was something that only worked with ferrous metals.

    If water dropping doesn't help with hardness, what metal would add to the alloy to harden it? Linotype?

    I will consider pan lubing if I can't get TL to work.

  7. #27
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    Water dropping works to harden lead alloys with some Antimony content. Adding Linotype to your alloy would harden it and also supply Antimony to make it respond to water dropping or heat treating.
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  8. #28
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    I have shot pure lead in my 45 just to see if I could. It was lead sheeting. I melted it myself.

    Guess what happened?


    It shot fine and no leading. I us3d randyrats tac lube. Your problem is that junk alox. The only time I could get it to work was tumbling some already lubed rifle bullets with regular lube first.

    One trick you can try is to run a patch with alox on it down your barrel before you shoot your loads.

  9. #29
    Boolit Master mehavey's Avatar
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    ALOX is not only fine, it's my go-to solution when max stress is expected -- like 220gr/30 cal at 2,200fps.

    That said, my first counsel to the OP is go-ahead/use *pure* ALOX, just wipe a *light* coat on with coated fingers as you pick up a bullet, let dry overnight (or throw in oven on warm for 90 min then let dry.

    Stay *soft* at 45ACP speeds, and kick the pressure up fast. That light a bullet, go bullseye




    post: When *I* use ALOX, I wipe light coat on/warm oven for 60 min/cool/2hrs and (gas check if necessary) push thru the Lee sizer. Then wipe second *light* coat and warm/dry again overnight.
    Last edited by mehavey; 02-20-2018 at 12:46 AM.

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by jamesp81 View Post
    I'm not using Bullseye. I'm using Titegroup, 4.8gr of which is a 200gr bullet rated at ~870 fps. That's low velocity for a 200gr boolit. Hornady lists charges as high 5.9gr IIRC and 1000 fps, but that seems very excessive to me and dangerous.
    I meant Bullseye Pistol, as in target loads, sorry I was unclear.
    I understand it’s titegroup, pretty fast burn rate I think. I’m fully confident you’ll get this dialed in. Best of luck.


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  11. #31
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    James, I'm taking a little different thought on this thing. It sounds like you have the ducks in a row and I fully know how frustrating leading can be, especially when you do everything right.

    I have come across some supposed to be soft lead that was just weird( that's another story). Although theoretically, you should be able to shoot soft lead without any problems, I would suggest trying a different batch.
    If only a small test batch of different lead and add some extra tin to toughen up the alloy and see what happens.

    It might just be the barrel. What if the maul is bigger and gasses are bypassing causing leading and the next shot just irons it in farther down the barrel? I know I have some barrels that seem to simply refuse to lead up and 1 or 2 that are super finicky. Also you might have better luck with a round nose type bullet just in case the jump to the bore is a little long for the SWC with a big lube groove.

    I have mentioned it before about my GP-100 that cleans up with one patch on a jag and never leads unless I try to defy physics and common sense and a had a Taurus that could not shoot anything without leading up.

    Anyway, that is all I can think of to add. I feel your pain bro.
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  12. #32
    Boolit Buddy coloraydo's Avatar
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    Station 5 was a Lee FCD backed out almost all the way...the FCD can swage boolits down, so I set it to size the cartridge only partially, and not down to the boolit base. Basically I used just enough FCD to get the rounds to chamber (swaged nose down some, not base).

    I made three dummy cartridges first. One of them had a boolit seated without having been run through the partial FCD stage. The other two had a boolit seated and were run through the partial FCD stage. I pulled all three boolits and measured the base. Bases still measured .4528 in all cases.

    Question, did you measure the front driving bands on these pulled boolits; what did they come out at?

    And you said you have fired approx. 1,000 jacketed bullets before firing cast boolits. Have you meticulously cleaned out all traces of jacketed material? If not, it could be stripping your cast boolits, especially if your front driving bands are undersized.
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  13. #33
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    Antimonial Lead alloys will harden if water dropped, but I hold with those who vote more lube.
    Linotype will harden your alloy, or some super hard from rotometals, one of our sponsors, but I would first double coat my boolits. Try about 30 drops, for a hundred, let it dry, then tumble again with another 30 drops. In the last 27 years, I have lubed something in excess of 50,000 boolits with liquid alox lubes, LLA, BLL, and 45/45/10 and save for my S&W 69, which I do believe would lead with solid copper bullets, I have never had leading like you have.
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  14. #34
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    Horrible leading...need input

    Alright, let’s consider Occam’s Razor here for a minute-the solution to a problem is usually the simplest. Why do boolits lead? Almost always because they’re A) undersized or B) underlubed. That Lee FCD worries me a bit, even if it is only the front driving band he’s sizing down. That’s still bearing surface on an HG 68. Next is lube-first thing I’d do is fill up that grease groove with something and see if there’s still an issue. Lead sounds pretty soft, yeah, harden it up a bit too. Maybe drop the powder charge a bit too-get ‘em down to 750-800 FPS to start with. Just a couple thoughts.


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    Last edited by Boolseye; 02-20-2018 at 10:42 AM.

  15. #35
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    If your loaded cartridges will pass the "plunk" test, ditch the Factory Crimp Die. It should only be used to get oversized cartridges to chamber.
    Your barrels look like you are shooting undersized bullets.

  16. #36
    Boolit Grand Master fredj338's Avatar
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    TG & LFCD are most of the problem, imo. Not a fan of alox lubing but TG just doesn't play well with most bullet lubes. If everything is perfect, you might not get leading. So ditch the LFCD, use a separate taper crimp die instead. Then try diff bullet lubes or maybe a thicker alox coating. Certainly consider switching to a cooler burning powder than TG when loading conventional lubed lead bullets.
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  17. #37
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    What is the measurement at the crimp?

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check