Old And Out Of Touch

[MostlyLeverGuns]

If you really are getting 'sludgey' smokey dirty weapons using cast bullets, there are many fixes. Less lube, different lube, different powders, different firearms lubricants. My 1911's are no dirtier shooting 155 and 200 grain lead SWC than my 9mm's shooting factory jacketed. Same number of rounds. I shoot maybe 50 rounds a week through about 5 different handguns and another hundred through various rifles 70-30 cast to jacketed on handguns, 50-50 on rifles. No smoke or sludge to speak of. Clean when accuracy falls of or I feel the action slow or the Wyoming wind is blowing dirt over everything. I do clean the pistol/revolver before using as a carry gun, hunting rifles get a detail strip and clean before season, barrels are left fouled.

[Char-Gar]

If you really are getting 'sludgey' smokey dirty weapons using cast bullets, there are many fixes. Less lube, different lube, different powders, different firearms lubricants. My 1911's are no dirtier shooting 155 and 200 grain lead SWC than my 9mm's shooting factory jacketed. Same number of rounds. I shoot maybe 50 rounds a week through about 5 different handguns and another hundred through various rifles 70-30 cast to jacketed on handguns, 50-50 on rifles. No smoke or sludge to speak of. Clean when accuracy falls of or I feel the action slow or the Wyoming wind is blowing dirt over everything. I do clean the pistol/revolver before using as a carry gun, hunting rifles get a detail strip and clean before season, barrels are left fouled.

I am old school. I clean my firearms after every time they are fired. I relube and then go wash my hands. That is the way I was taught and I consider it a part of shooting and therefore am not bothered by any of this stuff that seems to afflict so many these days. Like I said, I am just old and out of touch. I have started to think something is wrong with me, that dirty powder, dirty guns and dirty hands are not bother to me.

"Times they are a changin"

[tazman]

I am old school. I clean my firearms after every time they are fired. I relube and then go wash my hands. That is the way I was taught and I consider it a part of shooting and therefore am not bothered by any of this stuff that seems to afflict so many these days. Like I said, I am just old and out of touch. I have started to think something is wrong with me, that dirty powder, dirty guns and dirty hands are not bother to me.

"Times they are a changin"

You are NOT out of touch. You just have different priorities and habits than the younger set.
I do things the same way you do as far as cleaning and washing my hands.

[David2011]

If you really are getting 'sludgey' smokey dirty weapons using cast bullets, there are many fixes. Less lube, different lube, different powders, different firearms lubricants. My 1911's are no dirtier shooting 155 and 200 grain lead SWC than my 9mm's shooting factory jacketed. Same number of rounds. I shoot maybe 50 rounds a week through about 5 different handguns and another hundred through various rifles 70-30 cast to jacketed on handguns, 50-50 on rifles. No smoke or sludge to speak of. Clean when accuracy falls of or I feel the action slow or the Wyoming wind is blowing dirt over everything. I do clean the pistol/revolver before using as a carry gun, hunting rifles get a detail strip and clean before season, barrels are left fouled.

I would welcome recommendations of lubes that smoke less and deposit less sludge. I never thought of putting less lube in a lube groove and run those back through the Star that don't have the grooves filled completely. I've tried a LOT of lube and powder combinations and while some were worse than others none were good. I'm not talking about shooting 50 rounds. I'm talking about single practice sessions or matches with a 300 to 500 round count with a $50,000 prize table at the end of the day. Most competition disciplines don't have the high round counts per stage that are found in USPSA and I realize that most shooters don't shoot any form of competition. I can see that people would not understand total obscuration of a target during a timed fire situation if they had never been there. Outside of competition I'm more like everyone else. A little smoke and grit is no big deal. Randy Rat's TAC-X is my favorite for ease of use and low smoke and it makes the room smell great! I haven't had any leading problems with any lube in my competition gun.

[9.3X62AL]

I am just happy that I can still shoot and own guns in this Worker's Paradise. I do not give a flip about dirty guns or smoke (You gotta be kidding me.....), that is what Hoppe's #9 was designed to address.

I guess I am "out of touch" as well. I am good with that.

[Mal Paso]

Smoke is good. Goes with the flame and roar as another 250 grains passes the sound barrier.

I have demonstrated the ventilation inadequacy of a couple indoor ranges.

[David2011]

For plinking smoke and crud are a non-issue, just like for the rest of you.

I must be the only participant of this thread that shoots United States Pistol Shooting Association matches. All USPSA shooters expect to be able to see the target all the way through a string of fire and expect the gun to run 500 rounds without having to be cleaned in the middle of a match.

[9.3X62AL]

For plinking smoke and crud are a non-issue, just like for the rest of you.

I must be the only participant of this thread that shoots United States Pistol Shooting Association matches. All USPSA shooters expect to be able to see the target all the way through a string of fire and expect the gun to run 500 rounds without having to be cleaned in the middle of a match.

No--you are not. In such situations, I spend a bit of cash and buy jacketed bullets for the marathon shooting sessions. The J-words DO have their place from time to time.

[David2011]

No--you are not. In such situations, I spend a bit of cash and buy jacketed bullets for the marathon shooting sessions. The J-words DO have their place from time to time.

Thank you! I feel less like a leper now. I have done that in the past but find the powder coated boolits work just as well. In .45 ACP I first used Precision Bullets that were coated, then when I went to .40 I tried jacketed but that got costly fast at 2000-2500 rounds per month. Donnie Miculek shot many of the same matches I shot so I got him to coat my boolits and after I moved away from that area I eventually started coating them myself.

No Char-Gar, you are not out of touch. You just have a set of requirements that you have met. Some things require a different tool, just like my truck is much better for hunting that my sports coupe is. For most of my needs a bare lead boolit sized in the Lyman or Star sizer with good old waxy lube is perfect. I just have this one exception. Funny thing is, even the older coots at the Cowboy Action shoots are starting to load coated boolits.

[megasupermagnum]

The day I fell in love with cast bullets was the day I smelled a cloud of canaruba red mixed with Blue dot. Not quite as good as a hot chocolate with the first shot of the day duck hunting, also with blue dot, but nothing is.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

For plinking smoke and crud are a non-issue, just like for the rest of you.

I must be the only participant of this thread that shoots United States Pistol Shooting Association matches. All USPSA shooters expect to be able to see the target all the way through a string of fire and expect the gun to run 500 rounds without having to be cleaned in the middle of a match.

It's been a couple decades, but I was a USPSA member and I would shoot regularly in a IPSC league. That was all before I cast my own, and I was shooting jacketed bullets.

Recently, I've been to a few 'casual' IPSC shoots and once I was shooting boolits with a lube that contains alox, the smoke would fill the shooting alley and you couldn't see the target. SL68B and not using Unique solved that problem for me.