Factory lead ammo

[pocketace]

use a 357 magnum, using up my old Federal red box 158 grain lrn 38 special ammo. Bought both summer of Sandy Hook scare, so age may be a factor.

1. massive acrid smoke from the ammo now. Used to be smokeless, but now each shot creates a beach ball size cloud that just HANGS in the air and chokes me out bad.


2. it still leads, but NOW, after the leading builds up, the accuracy goes up. clean barrel, it barely stays on a gallon milk jug at 20 yards. but after 40 rounds,,,, i can shoot double handed and DA, baseball size groups at 20 yards.

the leading is all in the forcing cone, barrel just had the odd streak of something black and powder grains.

Is it something NORMAL or odd?

[Bazoo]

Odd that the ammo changed in smoke amount / deteriorated in that short of period. It's not odd you get better accuracy with a fouled bore. It's odd that the accuracy is that much differnt. The leading in the forcing cone will affect accuracy but the question is how much. If you're gun shoots 3" at 20 yards that's not great accuracy. But it's usable field accuracy. If the leading builds up to a degree and doesn't worsen, youre lucky.

Sounds like your gun does decent with factory, and thus would do a lot better with home cast bullets. I'm not familiar with which lube they use on their bullets, but cast bullets with 50/50 lube will produce less leading and offer better accuracy.

My GP100 will shoot some loads into 1 5/8" at 25 yards rested, but it leads to some degree. Once I firelap it and get the leading issue resolved, I expect one ragged hole with the better loads.

[nhithaca]

I would question how the ammo was stored, wet/humid or hot storage locations can cause all types of grief for the powder and primers. And lead will corrode if stored in humid conditions also.

[mjwcaster]

Are you sure it was really smokeless before?
I noticed during that shortage period some ammo had changed powder.
Federal American Eagle (red box) was one of them IIRC.
The stuff smoked and smelled like Russian ammo from several lanes away, outdoors.
I actually stopped and checked the guys ammo/head stamps just for kicks.
New production, not reloads.
My guess was during the shortage they were scrambling to get production out the door using whatever they could.
This was some auto loader caliber, 9mm/40sw/45acp, can’t remember which.

I noticed other instances during this period, but specifically this day during a class I had time to check the ammo.

Nasty smelling, smoky crud just like early Russian white box imports, loaded in brass American head stamped ammo.


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