Could really use some help with leading

[alping45]

Not sure if I put this in the right place, this is my first post. I am a bit of a noob to casting and reloading with cast boolits and have been trying them out with .38sp, .357mag, 40s&w, 45acp, .45lc and .454 casull. I have no problem with the casting, trouble is I can not get rid of the leading in my guns. Thing is, I have almost zero trouble with strait lead as long as I keep it under 900fps or so depending on the gun. But I have not been able to develop a single load using wheel weights, either strait or alloy, without leading my barrels. I have tried adding solder to harden, and lead to soften. I have been quenching the boolits out of the mold, also tried air cooling, but not heat treating? Guns I am using are a GP100, SRH Alaskan .454, S&W m15 .38, SIG P220 .45acp and a SIG P226 40s&w. It seems that with the revo's the leading is closer to the chamber while in the autos its towards the bore. I have tried basically every pistol powder there is in varying charges ranging from very low to very high to try get the bullet to obturate, with no real success. I have slugged all my bores and am sizing my boolits .001 to .002 over. I have checked the cylinder throats on all revo's and they are where they should be, about .001 - .002 over the bore.
I have been using all lee molds, and have been tumble lubing all my bullets with the lee liquid alox, after sizing. Now that I think about it, I guess the lube would be the only thing I have not experimented with yet...? And just to see if the problem was my boolits, I bought some commercial hardcast 158gr swc .357 from wideners and get the exact same results in my GP.Can anyone tell me what else I am missing? I have spent a ton of time over the last few months experimenting trying to figure this out and am getting close to going back to jacketed/plated bullets.

[Blammer]

You need a better lube.

Also check the throats on the cylinders of your revolvers, make sure they are not too small.

[HangFireW8]

How much are you crimping the boolits? Too much can resize them into something suboptimal.

Have you tried sizing to bore diameter? There should be no need to go as much as .002" higher.

-HF

[bigboredad]

I would say the lube is the problem. I would try pan lubing them or adding another coat of the tumble lube

[LouisianaMan]

alping,

I'm pretty green at casting, too, but I went from WWs leading to little or no leading when I changed from straight LLA to a 50-50 mix of LLA and mineral spirits. It provides a far more uniform coating of the bullet, for sure. If a single 50-50 doesn't work, try a very light second treatment of straight LLA.

I tried these techniques after finding them explained by others, and it has worked for me. My .38s & .45s straightened out, and I was even able to shoot some marginally undersized bullets in .32s w/o significant problems. What little leading I had was easily removed with a bit of Chore Boy (pure copper) pot scrubber wrapped around an old bore brush.

Best of luck!

[shooting on a shoestring]

Alping45...if I'm reading you right, you get 900 fps and do OK. Also you're using LLA. Sounds right. LLA is good up to about 800 to 900 fps. I use LLA for some .38s (TL158SWC) and keep the velocity in the 800s. Works great. Same boolit with LLA in any of my .357s over 1000 fps...big time leading for me.

I use Felix lube (find the sticky for the recipe) for all my pistol and rifle boolits. Most of which I use LLA on first as a metal preservative to keep them from oxidizing if it takes me several years to get them shot up, then lube with Felix lube and shoot as fast as I want. Now I only have the one tumble lube boolit. The rest of mine have conventional lube grooves. So if you only have TL moulds, try a conventional mould, use Felix lube (or any good lube such as from our vendor sponsors) and I predict you'll find happiness.

LLA just can't cope with velocity over 900 fps in pistols.

[Dale53]

I have been shooting cast bullets in LARGE quantities through revolvers and pistols for sixty years. I have NO problem with leading.

When you discuss revolvers, the critical dimension is the cylinder throat. It MUST be a bit larger than the barrel groove diameter. The bullet alloy needs to be hard enough (strong enough) to resist the forces of pressure (light target loads can get by with softer alloy than magnum level loads). The bullets are sized for the cylinder throats. Right at cylinder throat size is good and some use +.001" over with good results.

I use WW's + 2% tin as my "standard" alloy for light target to 1000 fps with the appropriate powders for the velocity. I use harder bullets for magnum use (often WW's + Linotype 8/1 to as much as 5/1).

I get excellent accuracy to 100 yards. Most of my shooting, however, is with target loads at 25 and 50 yards. I expect, and get 2" ten shot groups at 50 yards off a Ransom Rest (do about as well off sandbags with a scoped handgun).

Using a Thompson Center Contender (scoped), I have shot groups at fifty yards as small as 1/2" off a bench (.221 Fireball with gas check bullets at Squirrel speeds). My TC .30 Carbine with 165 gr bullets at 100 yards (for Hunter Pistol) has shot 2" groups.

You are doing something fundamentally wrong (I say this respectfully). I believe that you have already stumbled on the answer. One difference between what you relate and my practice, is that I use a good, standard bullet lube with a lube/sizer. I am currently using Carnauba Red from Lars' White Label Lubes (scroll to the bottom of the page - Lars is one of our sponsors).

That would be my first suggestion - try a good NRA 50/50 Alox/Beeswax lube or Carnauba Red (my choice these days) and see if that doesn't solve it.

I have a good friend, who posts on here from time to time, that was using Lee's liquid Alox and having some leading in a standard velocity revolver load. At my suggestion, he switched to Carnauba Red and NO MORE LEADING.

Some have good results with Lee's liquid alox but I have seen some conspicuous failures, also.

Just a thought or two...

Dale53

[NickSS]

The lube is the problem. I use some LLA and a tumble lubed SWC from a lee mold for my 45 ACP pistols. I had some problems with leading at first but decided to double lube the bullets. This cured the problem as long as I was shooting at velocities below 900 fps. With 50-50 or other good bullet lube on my other bullets I get no leading to speak of only an occasional flake or two comes out during cleaning.

[alping45]

Cant say how much I appreciate all the input. Lube experimentation will definitely be my next plan of attack. Also been reading up and discovered I've definitely been using way too much LLA on my boolits. I've got few hundred boolits all stickied up, how can I remedy this? Another thing I read was to lube the boolits, size them, and then lube again? I don't understand, wouldn't the sizer just take the first coat of lube off? I've just been sizing and then lubing.

[Echo]

Alping45, you say that you size your boolits 1-2 thousandths over groove (you said bore, but I bet you meant groove) diameter, and the cylinder throats are 1-2 thousandths over groove diameter - so it seems that you might be sizing your boolits too small. They should be right at throat diameter, and the throats are 1-2 thou over groove and you are sizing boolits 1-2 thou over groove - see what I mean? They may have clearance in the throat when they should be a near-push fit.

[alping45]

I have to wonder though, why am I not having trouble with strait lead with the LLA, only with harder WW boolits? Heres a specific example I tried tonight out of my SRH Alaskan: .45lc case with a Lee 200gr flatnose, non-TL(all my other molds are TL) over 6.5gr of Trailboss. Bore slug's at .452, cylinder throats at .4545, boolits were sized to .454.
Tried it both with pure lead boolits and ww mix boolits, there was zero leading with the lead, and plenty of leading with the ww. I pulled one of the ww loads after crimping to check the boolit, still the same size.

Anyway, I saw online that my local home depot carries the johson paste wax, figure first thing I'll try is mix up a batch of Recluse's 45/45/10 concoction and see what happens.

[alping45]

I must have been typing the last post when you posted, Echo. Yep, meant groove not bore. But I think my boolits must be sized pretty darned close to my cylinder throats on the SRH as they will not pass through with just gravity, I have to give them a slight push.

[462]

alping45,

I"ll go out on a limb and say that your boolits are too small.

With pure lead boolits sized to .454", you said they didn't lead, but wheel weights sized the same did. Could it be that you need a lager wheel weight boolit ? That .0005" difference between the larger throat size and the smaller boolit size may be the reason.

The lead boolit, being softer, will obturate to fill the cylinder throat, whereas the harder wheel weight boolit won't. Since the harder boolit is not obturating, hot gasses are vaporizing the base and bands, and depositing the lead in the barrel. If you look at the cylinder throats, you may find they are leaded, too.

[runfiverun]

462 and i have the same thoughts.
you could try upping the load some also.
recluses lube is pretty good for tumble lubing.
i use b-wax in my mix of it for regular lube ring type boolits and swirl till the lube groove is full.
it dries dang hard but works nicely.

[Three44s]

I would add this:

I notice you are attempting to cast for many weapons.

I would concentrate on one or two and get things right with them. Too confusing with so many guns at once when you are having trouble.

Second, as mentioned by others ........ LLA is for slower velocities. And your softer slugs are likely obuturating while the harder ones are not. But by the time you get obuturation on the harder ones ..... the LLA is not up to that velocity.

I do have better luck with two treatments of thinned LLA than with one non-thinned treatment. (I use my LLA on tumble lubed boolits ...... thinned, two runs ......... with powdered moly added to it ........ and shoot them as cast .... no sizing) ....... and all at target velocities

I also clean with Copper chore boy, USP bore paste, whatever solvent I have on hand ....... AND post cleaning treat with CorrosionX.

CorrosionX does not hold a candle to the old Bore Cote for a "less" sticking bore treatment but it's the best I've found thus far.

I use USP bore paste as a mild hand lap process and while it's cleaning .... it's mildly polishing as well. When a load quits materially leading ....... the abrassive bore paste gets laid by.

I have not used the JP wax but I bought a tub and would encourage your efforts with it ....... as I plan on giving it a wirl soon.



Three 44s

[44man]

I had some problems with WW boolits and I think it is the alloy mostly. There does not seem to be a bond with the metals after they cycle them forever. A little tin should help balance the alloy.
With a gas checked boolit I found it really helps to anneal the check.
I make up an alloy starting with WW's and it works great. I feel WW metal is one of the worst that can be used straight. Nobody knows what metals find their way into them so the only good thing about them is they are either cheap or free.

[Shiloh]

Boolit size is king

SHiloh

[tall grass]

If you want a different lube and don't want to go to the trouble of making your own check out White Label lube. Bottom of the page and Lar's Stuff.

Jim

[kelbro]

Try the 45/45/10 first. It virtually eliminated leading in my SBH and I'm shooting 1200-1300 fps loads of Lyman#2 alloy.

[alping45]

Try the 45/45/10 first. It virtually eliminated leading in my SBH and I'm shooting 1200-1300 fps loads of Lyman#2 alloy.

Thats the plan. I'll report back with results.