I'm leading but very accurate

[sheepdog]

Have severe leading after only a couple dozen rounds. Using 230 tumble lube Lee SWC and round nose. Very accurate but getting tons of leading. Load is 5.3 of bulleye. Alloy is roughly 3/4 clip on 1/4 pure with snip of solder, aircooled, lubed in 45/45/10.

Pictures to come.

[JesseCJC]

What are they sized at and what are you shooting out of?

[454PB]

That doesn't make much sense. I've never seen a gun that shot well with a leaded barrel, at least in the long run. Heavy leading = loss of rifling.

[sheepdog]

That doesn't make much sense. I've never seen a gun that shot well with a leaded barrel, at least in the long run. Heavy leading = loss of rifling.

True but it was sparkling clean and leaded quick but groups were pretty true.

On sizing I though microbands don't need sizing?

[sheepdog]

Ideas?

[sagacious]

Ideas?

Severe leading?

I squinted pretty hard at those pics, and that does not appear to even vaguely approach severe leading. Looks like light to barely-moderate leading or fouling. Like the song says, be happy, don't worry. That's not enough leading to really foul-up the works, so that explains the good accuracy.

It's very likely that a minor amount of load recipe tweaking will cut that to zero leading. What does your barrel measure, and what size do the tl bullets drop at?

An important question is whether the leading builds up. Does it stay at that level during the shooting session?

[Recluse]

That's a bit more Bullseye than I normally care to load for my .45's.

4.3 to 4.6 gives me my absolute best accuracy and with no fouling or leading. I have a TL230RN, but not a TL in SWC. Might check your seating and see where you're at also. I hate letting any bullet or boolit have to much free ride from chamber to barrel before engaging the rifling.

Agree with Sagacious--doesn't look like severe leading.

[Cloudpeak]

I think you're in pretty good shape, sheepdog. If you get severe leading, your accuracy will go down the tube. Your barrel looks pretty good to me and is similar to what I get in my 9mm STI and I have no accuracy problems with that pistol.

When I think of severe leading, I think back 35-40 years ago when I shot a .357 single action Ruger I owned. My reloads were fine but I made the mistake of firing a box of factory Remington lead .357's through the Ruger. You couldn't see the rifling when I got done and accuracy did become very bad as I got towards the end of the box. Looked like a shotgun bore and took a long time to clean up.

[mooman76]

Lee just states you may be able to shoot unsized but it doesn't mean that it is always the case. You might try an extra coat of lube or you could try beagleing your mould to get the bullet larger but if the lead comes out easy I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.

[Shiloh]

Have severe leading after only a couple dozen rounds. Using 230 tumble lube Lee SWC and round nose. Very accurate but getting tons of leading. Load is 5.3 of bulleye. Alloy is roughly 3/4 clip on 1/4 pure with snip of solder, aircooled, lubed in 45/45/10.

Pictures to come.

I run 3.8 gr of Bullseye for a 200 gr TLSWC. Accurate and cycles fine. 3.6 gr for a 230
TLTC (Actual Wt 238)

Lyman's 48th edition hand loading book has a max load of 5 gr of Bullseye for a 225 gr boolit. Alliant doesn't list a load for Bullseye at that wt. neither does LEE in there load book.

Alliant lists 5.3 gr of Greendot as max and 5.8 gr of Unique.
What weight recoil spring do you have? Buffer on it??

Shiloh

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Yup you ain't seen no leading yet.....I agree that you could back off a bit on the 5.3 and probably get better accuracy and reduce the fouling you are seeing....as far as unsized TL boolits or any other for that matter, alox , dry then maybe try another lite coat, dry shoot .
Most of my Lee boolits for pistols don't need sizing....357, 44, 45...no 9mm they are a pain. I would slug the BBL just for my own knowledge...if your boolits are .001-.003 oversize, there should not be a problem, as long as they chamber ok.

If you push them to hard , they may need more tweeking.....

[Rottboy]

Have severe leading.....Load is 5.3 of bulleye.....aircooled, lubed in 45/45/10. Pictures to come.

Am using the same 230 gr Lee 6-cavity RN TL mold. Here are my loading parameters - 100% WW, water quenched, sized to .451 (apply Alox lightly once prior and then a normal dose after), 4.9 grns. of W231 for an ave. 739 fps/170 PF (over IDPA CDP Div. of 165 PF). Rounds are very accurate with no leading at all.
After seeing the pics of your leading it reminded of my barrels when I first started to use tumble lube molds (9mm, .40 S&W & .45 ACP). It took hundreds of rounds till it was apparant I had been too stingy in applying enough Alox. What looked sufficient, wasn't. It may be a simplistic suggestion, but you could try applying double the Alox from your current level and it may solve the leading. It solved mine completely!!! Happy shooting!!!

[1911fan]

Yup you ain't seen no leading yet.....I agree that you could back off a bit on the 5.3 and probably get better accuracy and reduce the fouling you are seeing....as far as unsized TL boolits or any other for that matter, alox , dry then maybe try another lite coat, dry shoot .
Most of my Lee boolits for pistols don't need sizing....357, 44, 45...no 9mm they are a pain. I would slug the BBL just for my own knowledge...if your boolits are .001-.003 oversize, there should not be a problem, as long as they chamber ok.

If you push them to hard , they may need more tweeking.....

Slow Elk, why do you say 9mm is a pain??? I am just starting to cast for 9mm with a Lee TL 124gn LRN, want to know what I am in for. Thanks

[NSP64]

Thats not leading. You can still see rifling.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

I remember bring a RUGER - is there anything else? - home to slobber over in the early 60s.

Decided against it. The Leading was so heavy it was starting to flake off the bore!

Now, that was "leading"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had my second casting session today for my - new to me - RUGER #1-s 45/70.

Hope I have leading like Sheepdog does!

Would be happy camper!

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[MT Gianni]

You may try just clip on ww with a bit of tin. I think that the soft is being wasted. I have a couple of guns that would be happy with that bore after 200 rounds.

[jimb16]

I've got a load for my .44mag contender that is extremely accurate for 12-15 rounds then the lead builds up to the point where the accuracy goes to he double hokey sticks in a hurry. Its a very hot CB load and I only use it for deer hunting so lead buildup is not a problem. How accurate is it? Well.....I can bounce pop cans off-hand at 100 yards with it with no difficulty. And I've never recovered a bullet from a deer. You see there is this huge hole on the other side!

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Well, I'm shooting a .44mag with 310gr LBT with gas checks and cast of ww which are quenched directily from the mold.

5.5" Redhawk which is giving me 1317fps average for six shots.

Load is 19grs of AA #9.

That seems reasonably fast for a barrel of that length and I'm seeing very little leading even after sustained firings.

Nothing worse then the origional poster on this thread, which is close to none.

Personally, and this is just IMHO, I think I would make some changes if my load was leading.

Now, having just loaded my first 45/70 loads with cast boolets, I hope the leading situation will never been more then I have seen over the years in my handguns.

Time will tell, but I'm not big on major lead removal so not expecting any change in that picture. I hope!

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[wistlepig1]

We would get some batches of reloads that were bad for leading, after Qualifying with our service S&W's you could pull stings of lead out of the barrels. This would be after only 100 rounds, So I would say you don't have much of a leading problem. So much for low bid ammo,.

[JIMinPHX]

I'll assume that the barrel in the picture is out of a 1911. It looks a little fouled, but not bad. I usually load up my .45acp lead with 4.4 grains of BE. That seems to work pretty well across the board for me.

I usually size about .001" over groove diameter, even with a tumble lube boolit. If you need to take off more than about .003" when sizing, you sometimes loose too much of the lube groove with that style boolit & that can contribute to leading. That's the biggest down side that I know of with tumble lube designs.

Also, in taper crimp cartridges like .45acp & 9mm, it sometimes helps to go easy on the crimp. Too much crimp can squeeze the boolit diameter down too far & that can cause leading just forward of the throat.

I've found that if I use Lyman Super Moly lube for a few dozen rounds, followed by normal cleaning, followed by a second batch of moly, then after that, anything I shoot seems to lead less. The moly seems to leave a non-stick coating in the barrel. I see this effect more on high speed rifle rounds, but it applies to pistols too. I've gotten .223 slugs up over 3,000 fps with no leading using moly.

For some reason that I don't fully understand, Unique gives me less leading than BE does in many pistol cartridges.