It would be a bit smaller say around .0005 if memory serves me right.Originally Posted by whisler
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It would be a bit smaller say around .0005 if memory serves me right.
Not picking on you. Let's take this a little farther.
The latest thread I saw was here a couple months back was the fella shooting the 35 Whelen without any lube. We knew it and his pictures showed muzzle fouling up the wazoo. He produced groups that are competitive with others. That was the most valuable thread ever written here for opening minds and attitudes and it died.
Of two cast shooters, which produces good, working accuracy the longest?
1. The guy with a clean gun that hopes it doesn't foul.
2. The guys who develops loads when fouled that says, I hope it doesn't go clean.
1 is the guy that has to clean most often.
1 is the guy that has to deal with point of impact and group size changes.
1 is the guy that has to sing "Like a Rock" when molding.
1 is the guy that has to worry about how many shots he uses before others will qualify his load as a group.
1 is the guy that has to go to massive guns, larger bores, and larger calibers to drive them because he needs frontal area when stuck with rocks.
So many of the subjects discussed here are from 1 type guys / situations. And 1s today think that they are so much smarter than those that were mostly 2s that came before us.
This board is DOMINATED by 1s. Some guns perform as 1s. Ignorance, fear of leading and laziness to clean keeps us from discovering if they should be 2s.
Reading can provide limited education because only shooting provides YOUR answers as you tie everything together for THAT gun. The better the gun, the less you have to know / do & the more flexibility you have to achieve success.
Yeah, the third kind of guy who is lazy enough not to give too much creedence in any of it any more, by using chasers (a volly of slow very moving boolits) when accuracy needs to be re-tweaked during a long day's shoot. ... felix
felix
I guess I'm a 1.5.
Some of my guns shoot better fouled, some tolerate being fouled quite well, some need to be clean. Some can be converted from one kind to another through various break-in procedures, some cannot short of rebarreling. Some stay at a moderate level of fouling when shooting, some do not.
An essential part of sniper training is the "one shot, cold bore" test. What does the first shot from your particular cold clean bore do compared to the rest? If you already know, you have begun to deal with this issue.
My take on it is this. Learn what the system can and cannot do, learn what you can and cannot do about it, and adjust, adapt, and improvise accordingly.
I remember the Great Moly craze, which left a lot of discussion forums shattered, dazed and confused on the whole "leave it fouled" issue, especially when the words "sulpher" and "oxidation" get involved. Zealots abounded on all sides.
Most of the debate was pointless, as the proponents had different goals, different equipment, different standards.
What do I do? I live in a humid environment, so I clean my guns when I am done shooting. I also take notes all my shots, particularly my first shot of the day, not just the last best group of the day.
I have bench queens, hunting rifles, and in between. I don't know of a whitetail that gave me two sighters and the occasional alibi. The rifle I take hunting may not be my absolute best grouper on the bench. I do know where the first shot will go, though, and the second, from a hand or sling supported position, not just the benchrest. And I have a very nice benchrest.
-HF
PS I guess you are talking about this thread, too bad the pics are now missing: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=87949
Last edited by HangFireW8; 11-13-2010 at 12:42 AM.
I give loading advice based on my actual results in factory rifles with standard chambers, twist rates and basic accurizing.
My goals for using cast boolits are lots of good, cheap, and reasonably accurate shooting, while avoiding overly tedious loading processes.
The BHN Deformation Formula, and why I don't use it.
How to find and fix sizing die eccentricity problems.
Do you trust your casting thermometer?
A few musings.
Actually Felix, I would still put this as a two since the fear of lead will cause a 1 to clean anyway.
Reading can provide limited education because only shooting provides YOUR answers as you tie everything together for THAT gun. The better the gun, the less you have to know / do & the more flexibility you have to achieve success.
I guess I'm a 1.5.
Nicely put. And the intended use DOES affect all decisions. OR should anyway.
The point here is not really leading, or categorizing people, but having tried so that you know your firearm. And realizing that fouling is a normal situation as long as it stabilizes and doesn't continue to affect accuracy.
But the subject has to be broached to advance the knowledge. People who are opposites think differently and speak entirely different languages as far as technique.
It's just that it is the most ignored variable discussed and assumed that it doesn't / shouldn't ever occur. Recommendations to posters follow that thought process.
Reading can provide limited education because only shooting provides YOUR answers as you tie everything together for THAT gun. The better the gun, the less you have to know / do & the more flexibility you have to achieve success.
Amen brother manI guess I'm a 1.5.
Some of my guns shoot better fouled, some tolerate being fouled quite well, some need to be clean. Some can be converted from one kind to another through various break-in procedures, some cannot short of rebarreling. Some stay at a moderate level of fouling when shooting, some do not.
What do I do? I live in a humid environment, so I clean my guns when I am done shooting. I also take notes all my shots, particularly my first shot of the day, not just the last best group of the day.
I have bench queens, hunting rifles, and in between. I don't know of a whitetail that gave me two sighters and the occasional alibi. The rifle I take hunting may not be my absolute best grouper on the bench. I do know where the first shot will go, though, and the second, from a hand or sling supported position, not just the benchrest. And I have a very nice benchrest.
-HF
PS I guess you are talking about this thread, too bad the pics are now missing: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=87949
sb
Chaser rounds do not need to be lubed when shot within say 22LR speed. Using chasers is just another way of stroking the barrel to rid some of the lube buildup before purging actually takes place. Unfortunately, purging will not take place if the lube had gotten too hard between relays, and even then chasers might not work to satisfaction. Then, of course, ram rod action is required. ... felix
Last edited by felix; 11-13-2010 at 04:13 PM.
felix
Bass, you do bring up good points. This is human nature, and has to be dealt with everywhere, wise people always making the effort to fully evaluate the perspective and situation of anyone who posts.
That being said, I hate lead fouling, it is my enemy, and I'll tell you why. Lead fouling (when it occurs) usually makes the gun shoot unpredictably because its deposition evolves through long strings, or sometimes short strings. How much it matters depends on a thousand things, but where the lead is deposited seems to matter the most. If lead fills the rough spots on a revolver's forcing cone after two or three shots and never gets any worse (or better), it will have virtually zero effect on accuracy all else being equal, but if the lead is sticking to the bottom of the grooves in long, waxy streaks it can certainly make a difference in how the gun groups. Some guns, and I own a few like this, don't seem to care about lead fouling no better than I can shoot. Now, it can be true that lead fouling can be a symptom of something else entirely causing accuracy problems, but that brings me back to trying to eliminate the leading. If I do that, I've fixed maybe more than one problem. This isn't fear or loathing of cleaning lead from my guns, if they shoot great leaded then there is no need to de-foul them, it is my personal obsession created out of a handfull of formative experiences many years ago that leaded bores are not only bad, but not necessary, and a good judge of a load is one that groups on paper from first shot to last, and can be fired on a cold day as well as a warm one with similar or at least predictable results and doesn't leave lead fouling. YMMV.
This brings me to another point, also not discussed often here. That is lube fouling. Lube accumulation makes the bore an evolving runway the same way lead fouling or powder fouling can, and IME is a much larger problem than lead fouling. Often you can shoot a long, accurate, consistent string, and then let the gun cool, and it won't shoot well again until cleaned. Everyone that deals with this actively does it their own way, my solution is to use just enough of the lube the gun likes, and just enough of the powder the gun likes, and when the "pressure curve" of the burn is about right from primer spark to muzzle exit and the peak is high enough I find that the fouling from the lube/powder that is left in the barrel is very light and very consistent, and doesn't change very much from a cold barrel to a warm one if left alone and never cleaned. I was never able to accomplish this in my rifles until I started making and using Felix Lube. Session after session, with wide swings in temperature and humidity, Felix lube has eliminated most of the problems I ever had with lube fouling and accumulation, the trick is to use only as much of it as is absolutely necessary, and everything else has to be close to perfect to allow minimal lube use.
I guess you could say I'm a very steadfast Type 2 shooter, and I get there by first making sure that there is no detrimental lead fouling of my guns. The perfect gun/load combination never needs to have the barrel cleaned, only a loose, dry patch pushed through before storing at most, maybe not even that. I can get there 85% of the time, not every gun has a good enough bore to make lead-free shooting possible. But those guns usually fall into the category of "don't care" about fouling one way or the other.
Maybe I should use "IME" and "IMO" more, although I usually mean to imply it. I learn new things from other people and their guns all the time because my little world hasn't experienced those particular variables yet.
Gear
Last edited by geargnasher; 11-13-2010 at 02:59 PM.
OK so I have these AC50/50 all cast up, Can I heat treat them?
You sure can. I'm not up on the temps needed to create certain BHN readings with 50/50 as I usually work with straight WW but a new thread asking about heat treating 50/50 for desired BHN hardness would be a good go at a way to find an average temperature range for what you want in bullet hardness (BHN)
Search Babore's postings. He's done the testing and posted his results.
435 F for one hour, then quench. If your 50/50 alloy is 9-10 air cooled, then it will OHT to 20-22 bhn. The 435 F HT temp most closely duplicates my water drop temperature and results. A higher OHT temp will not result in a harder boolit, but will increase the core hardness. I prefer a softer core for a tougher boolit overall and better expansion. Wait at least 2 weeks before doing any serious work with the hardened boolits. Longer is even better if you can wait. The freshly OHT'd boolits should be sized within 24 hours. They will test out at 20-22 bhn within a day of quenching, but will never be as stable as when you wait to use them.
Babore will tell you right.
He has sent me test boolits made from 50-50 for a lot of calibers and I have yet to see any leading in any gun.
I oven hardened them per his instructions to toughen the outsides. I have shot them to near 1700 fps but found the alloy needs a gas check if shot too fast. No leading but large groups.
Be aware you can skid rifling with AC or PB.
I have the same problem with AC WW metal, larger groups!
Leading is the very, very, very last thing I have a problem with.
Oven hardened 50-50 leaves my bores clean as a whistle.
I don't use anything but WD, WW metal in the .44, .475 or .500 JRH because they need NO expansion.
Oven hardened 50-50 with a gas check just plain works fine and I have shot some super groups with them. Maybe a flier once in a while but not far out from center. No gas check will triple group size but still no leading.
I have the hardest time talking to guys about a barrel full of lead. It can be solved and more alloys can be shot without it being a problem. Develop your own rules for your gun by changing things until things work. Never, ever give up accuracy, but combine zero leading with accuracy, one does not mean the other. The worst loads ever made might not lead the bore so they are useless.
"Lead Everywhere". What does that mean, exactly? Is there streaking in the lands/grooves the length of the barrel? Or, are there chunks & pieces of lead in the bore? Big difference...
IMHO, leading is caused primarily by undersized boolits, an alloy incorrect for the pressure, or driving it too fast for the hardness. In the first case, gas cutting will cause lead to be deposited in the barrel and poor accuracy. In the second case, the bullet may not obturate if too hard. In the third case it is being driven too fast for the barrel twist and is stripping the rifling - and the same result as in the first case except the lead will be in chunks/pieces/gravel, not smeared. If the bullet is soft, MV is kept under 1200-1400fps, and sized .002 over grooves, then leading should be minimal and accuracy acceptable.
If you recently changed from WDWW to ACWW and everything else did not change, then look at what size the boolit came out of the water bucket vs the pad on your bench - chances are it came out smaller, or if not, try sizing it .001 less than you are currently (meaning the finished lubed boolit is .001 larger than your WDWW loaded rounds)... other than that, trying slowing it down.
And do not overlook barrel constrictions. It is fairly common to have bbl constrictions where it is threaded into the receiver. On long guns, also look at rollmarked areas, dovetails, etc. It's best to slug the bbl from muzzle to breech. Then do a second slug just into the muzzle, then back out the way it came. This can even be done on revolvers, but takes some explaining. If the muzzle only slug is the bigger of the two, you have some issues to resolve.
A hard alloy has some spring to it. Easily verified when you run a hard versus soft boolit through a sizing die. A hard boolit will overcome some bore constrictions with springback. A soft boolit, with the right powder and pressure curve, will also bump up after it gets sized down by a constriction. But, sometimes you use a soft boolit in a constricted bbl, and you don't have the proper conditions. It then gets sized down by the constriction and doesn't get bumped back up. Gas seal is lost and leading results. Then the shooter tells himself "My gun only likes hard boolits" and he lives life in blissfull ignorance.
....and that blissful ignorance turns to confused anguish when the next gun the shooter works up a cast boolit load for leads with his hard boolits because his boolits are undersized.and he didn't bother to slug the bore.
Gear
I use 50/50 WW/lead alloy in magnum .357 and .44 loads at 1400+ fps without any leading. I also only use it with AC'd GC'd bullets. I have shot 50+ rounds of such with minimal fouling that cleans out easily with my normal cleaning regimen. I've found the GC'd soft alloy cast bullets to shoot every bit as well as WQ'd or "hard cast" PB'd bullets. Most often the GC'd softer cast shoot more accurately, especially when compared to heavily bevel based cast bullets.
In rifles for hunting loads that is my alloy preference these days. I push such AC'd GC'd cast bullets to 2000 - 2200+ fps. I do find that there is some light leading that detracts from accuracy after 5-7 rounds which is why I always recommend cleaning every 5 - 7 rounds. For such excellent expanding hunting bullets, especially when correctly HP'd, such often cleaning is not a bother to me.
I use WWs + 2% tin for most of my PB magnum pistol bullets and they do fine upwards of 1400 fps. That alloy also does fine for most rifle bullets that are GC'd upwards of 2000 fps. I also use Javelina lube (having thoroughly tested numerous others) or Lars similar lube.
Larry Gibson
Thanks Larry. This is exactly my point. I usually heat up a handgun and don't care about what's goin on. If targets present themselves, you can't get nothin if you don't fling lead. Got two turkeys like this Saturday. But rifles were always different as I get anal about rifle accuracy as some do handguns.
In my Whelen, I get roughly 1 1/2" for the first 5 shots from a clean bore counting the flier. Second 5 measures in the steenths. Third group goes out to an inch. Fourth comes back to 1 1/2" and degrades from there. So I stop and clean at 20.
Well, I got some experts to give me a hand (kids) to shoot up a bunch of stuff I had loaded. These experts just bang away for about 105+ rounds and they keep the targets. Somewhere around 80 rounds accuracy came back.
They crossed the unknown that I never would have and danged if the gun isn't sub MOA now. So I am just leaving it. If it opens again, the move should be subtle and I will use slow lead to try and bring it back. Powder charges are trending higher for accuracy now than from clean too.
Never done this with big rifle, (22LR yes) especially higher velocity stuff. So it pays from time to time to see what's on the other side.
Reading can provide limited education because only shooting provides YOUR answers as you tie everything together for THAT gun. The better the gun, the less you have to know / do & the more flexibility you have to achieve success.
As a chronic tester, I did a batch of 50/50 for my new (to me) 358156 mould. Sized, lubed and GC'd 20 boolits. OHT'd another 20 at 435 for one hour then sized, lubed and GC'd them. Will shoot them in my 6" 586 the weekend after Thanksgiving to see how they perform.
I am thinking that even though the AC may shoot fine in the pistol, I would probably need the higher BHN for the Marlin 1894C. I will probably try the OHT'd boolits in the Marlin that same weekend.
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| 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 |
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