Ricochet
11-11-2006, 07:04 PM
Went to try out a new load today in my Mosin M91/30. It slugs at .312". I always keep the bayonet mounted on this rifle. If I didn't, I'd've never known about this. The boolit I was shooting was the .312" Fat 30 Tumble Lube boolit from a group buy a few years ago, a 165 grain Loverin with Lee style mini grooves and a plain base. I lubed them with LLA (these were the ones that caused the phenomenon I'm reporting), and also tested some with another promising tumble lube agent. Alloy is about 1 part wheelweights to 3 parts soft scrap lead, water dropped. They're a little harder by crude hardness tests (hand pressing the edge of a screwdriver, that sort of thing) than air cooled wheelweights. These boolits are intended for low velocity shooting, but I thought I'd see what happened with a load of 3.1cc (about 37.5 grains) of IMR 7383 under them. Gave a muzzle velocity averaging around 1850 FPS, a bit fast for plain base boolits of relatively soft alloy. From the first few shots with the LLA, I saw a heavy, rough, chunky looking black buildup on the base of the bayonet facing the muzzle. There was a nice greasy lube star on the muzzle, and I thought I was seeing lube and powder soot. I can't comment on grouping, as the POI was somewhere way off from where it shoots with Hungarian heavy ball, I couldn't see where the boolits were hitting, I couldn't get closer due to the range being in use by others, and I never got it on the paper. But the muzzle showed light streaky leading, nothing that bothered me. When I switched over to the other lube, which I'll have to test further, no more lead showed up in the bore, and the buildup on the bayonet stopped growing. The black mess got coated with a trace of white ash from this lube.
When I got home and went to clean my rifles, I expected that stuff to wipe off the bayonet easily. As I said, the bore was barely leaded and there was a nice greasy brown deposit on the muzzle crown. But the stuff on the bayonet was HARD and rough! I polished it by rubbing, and it was silvery and shiny! It was lead, soldered tightly to the steel bayonet! It was in the form of a fine spray, mostly, but there were several large drops just like solder blobs. Had to scrape it off with a pocket knife, it was really stuck on there!
The same alloy in the much heavier, gaschecked 8mm Maximum boolit, lubed with LLA, over the same powder charge at about 1800 FPS, shoots very nicely and made several respectable groups from my Persian Mauser right after this.
Now I'm not surprised that the Persian would shoot better and lead less than the Mosin. The Mosin's a WWII vet, and the Persian's barely used if at all before I got it. The bore's slicker'n slug snot. The Mosin's is a bit frosty. And I was shooting plain based boolits at gascheck speed from the Mosin. But I sure was surprised to find it actually spraying molten lead like that! And I'd never have thought anything of it if I hadn't had that bayonet on to catch the spray. The bore leading is very light and didn't bother me a bit. Wish I could see what some of those boolits looked like!
I'll bet this sort of thing's going on in some of the cases we all know about where a particular boolit in a particular load with a particular lube doesn't cause bore leading problems but won't shoot well.
I'm not going to do any further testing with this load and these boolits. They need to stay with the light, pistol powder loads at modest velocities.
When I got home and went to clean my rifles, I expected that stuff to wipe off the bayonet easily. As I said, the bore was barely leaded and there was a nice greasy brown deposit on the muzzle crown. But the stuff on the bayonet was HARD and rough! I polished it by rubbing, and it was silvery and shiny! It was lead, soldered tightly to the steel bayonet! It was in the form of a fine spray, mostly, but there were several large drops just like solder blobs. Had to scrape it off with a pocket knife, it was really stuck on there!
The same alloy in the much heavier, gaschecked 8mm Maximum boolit, lubed with LLA, over the same powder charge at about 1800 FPS, shoots very nicely and made several respectable groups from my Persian Mauser right after this.
Now I'm not surprised that the Persian would shoot better and lead less than the Mosin. The Mosin's a WWII vet, and the Persian's barely used if at all before I got it. The bore's slicker'n slug snot. The Mosin's is a bit frosty. And I was shooting plain based boolits at gascheck speed from the Mosin. But I sure was surprised to find it actually spraying molten lead like that! And I'd never have thought anything of it if I hadn't had that bayonet on to catch the spray. The bore leading is very light and didn't bother me a bit. Wish I could see what some of those boolits looked like!
I'll bet this sort of thing's going on in some of the cases we all know about where a particular boolit in a particular load with a particular lube doesn't cause bore leading problems but won't shoot well.
I'm not going to do any further testing with this load and these boolits. They need to stay with the light, pistol powder loads at modest velocities.