leading with Liquid Alox?

[Link23]

i have the lee 228 Grn round nose boolit for my Llama 45 Max-1
i have a HEALTHY amount of LLA and im still getting HORRIBLE leading(big flakes of lead hanging off the barrel) any ideas what i might be doing wrong? with that i couldn't even hit a full size propane tank at 40 yards

My Data is

Lee LA tumble lubed
4.8 grain of TiteGroup
CCI Large Pistol Primers


Thanks
Link23

[Jim]

Have you slugged your barrel and sized your boolits accordingly?

Did you put the alox on in one coat or two?

How long did you let the alox dry before you loaded them?

[RobS]

Many things needed before helping you out.

1. What is your barrels groove diameter (have you slugged your barrel?)

2. What are your boolits diameter before loading them?

3. What alloy are you using?

4. Are your boolits being swaged by the case? Easy to figure this one out by loading a dummy round, pulling it and measuring the very edge of the base of the boolit.

[Link23]

i shoot them as cast, and no i haven't slugged my barrel i'm using air cooled Wheel weights,

i don't have any soft lead big enough to slug my barrel here at school

[RobS]

You can take a freshly cast boolit.......say as soon as it cools and set it down on a flat, hard surface and pop the nose of it until it is a larger diameter then slug your bore and measure it. Doing this just after casting the boolit will keep it soft and prevent spring back from skewing your measurements.

How long after casting before reloading the boolits?

[CPL Lou]

If you are using a Lee Factory Crimp die, that will cause you to have undersized bullets.

CPL Lou

[GabbyM]

That LLA needs to dry for a full week before you load the bullets in a case.

But I’d about put down some money you are swaging your bullets undersize in the crimp operation.

[Papa smurf]

I had the same thing happen with streight wheelweights,air cooled. I started adding pure lead to soften the mix after reading that the boolet was not upseting and not letting the alox work. Now I have NO leading using very little alox. My mix is 50/50 wheelweights and pure lead. Good Shooting-----------Papa Smurf

[Link23]

these were cast AND lubed over a month ago, i bet i am swaging them down when i crimp them, that sucks now i have about 300 rounds loaded like that
Thanks guys

[shotman]

dont the llima have the polygonal rifleing like glock???? thought they do .??

[Ben]

It is all about the fit of the projectile.

Ben

[Tom W.]

And too much LLA is not your friend.

[RobS]

And too much LLA is not your friend.

I've never had this issue??? Why? Other than smokey as all get out.

[Gee_Wizz01]

Too much LLA will gum up your dies, especially your seating die. This can result in deeper seating of the boolits as you load and the dies get more gummed up. Too much LLA is just plain messy and attracts dirt and grit. In the past I made sure I had plenty of LLA on my boolits, but after reading many posts here, I found out all I needed was a light coating with a slightly golden look. Another issue is that too much LLA will always be sticky, a light golden coat dries quickly and isn't sticky.

G

[RobS]

I understand the sticky part of it with the dies and dirt etc. but is there something I'm missing with it as it relates to "too much" regarding accuracy and leading of the barrel. The thread is talking about leading with Alox lube.

[Doby45]

dont the llima have the polygonal rifleing like glock???? thought they do .??

Nope, they have standard rifling.

[pls1911]

I agree with the poster regarding size.... sounds like you're undersized or too soft, or both.
I shoot 'em big and hard with good success.

In all my 45 ACPs I've not had any leading with LLA/WLL, no matter if thinned 20% with mineral spirits or used straight up.
I never eave an excess on the nose and hand dip each bullet to the beaing surfaces only, and load nominal loads in lieu of max.
All bullets are as cast or .452, and heat treated to 25+BHN.
I do believe the 45-45-10 mix of JPW-LLA-MS is as tough in this applcation.
With a few quarts of the white label lube on hand, I've been using it wherever possible.

[MBTcustom]

Its just my own opinion and Ill probably get slapped for it but I have been shooting cast boolits for 18 years now, and I started out shooting strait WW. I always had to run my loads light or I would get leading. Here in the last few years the WW supply has dried completely up and I have had to go with pure lead at times cause that's all I could find. The funny thing is, that pure didn't lead my barrel near as much as WW did. I could push it faster too. But the best results I have gotten is when I mix WW, pure, and solder equally. Huge improvement!!! Then I got tired of my lube sizer and ordered one of lees push through size dies and it came with the hallowed, revered and debated LLA. I tried it. I couldn't believe it.
It was love at first sight-picture.
Now, IMHO I think that WW are like chalk. They are hard and they easily shed particles of themselves onto any surface that provides friction. On the other hand I think that pure lead is like silly putty, It is very soft but it holds together fairly well for how soft it is. Seems like all this alloying is trying to blend chalk with silly putty to produce a cork like material. Kinda trying to get the best out of both because neither pure nor WW likes to be pushed past 1200 FPS without some serious help.
Also I second what many others have said about sizing to your barrel diameter.
In fact I always get best accuracy out of my pistols if I size .001 over the groove diameter, and while i'm on the subject, You should be sizing those boolits! if you shoot as cast, and you are not using very strict casting practices, you will be getting boolits that are not round. If your boolits are not round and gas is able to cut around the base, and escape past the grooves, you will be plagued by leading and accuracy issues!!!
Hope that helps!

[GabbyM]

Antimony wash is what you were getting with pure WW. Is my guess anyway.
Sn bonds with Sb which helps that out. You do not want more tin than Sb.
When you mix your WW with pure it takes less tin before all the Sb is bonded, combined or whatever they call that. In the Lyman books it shows the formula for the bonded metals.

When I make rifle bullets I have some scrap solder ingots I like to mix with my 2/6 alloy. Lead in the solder brings down the Sb % and I get the tin up to about 3%. Then you can take a piece of spru and bend it a while before it breaks. Straight 2:6 alloy is somewhat brittle. That’s my uber scientific way of telling when I have a rifle bullet that will stay in one piece rather than frag out.

[noylj]

There is only one way to diagnose why you are getting leading: Where exactly along the barrel are you getting leading.
At the beginning of the rifling and for a short distance after?
All along one edge of the grooves?
Only over the last half of the barrel?
Then, you have to tell us exactly what your barrel's groove diameter and what your as-loaded bullet diameter (as the act of loading the bullet can swage the bullet diameter down) is.
I only "dry" my LLA bullets for 24 hrs and they perform fine.
I know that if I want to use up some undersized bullets, I apply a couple thin coats of LLA, drying between coats.

I believe the following is from Richard Lee:
A clue to what is causing the leading is where the leading first begins to appear.
If it appears near the chamber, chances are that bullet diameter or hardness are the cause. A diameter too small or an alloy too hard will allow high pressure gas to leak past the bullet, which erodes the bullet and leaves leading near the chamber.
If the leading first appears on the leading edge of the rifling (if you imagine the bullet being pushed through the barrel, you will note that one edge of the rifling does most of the work of imparting a spin to the bullet. This is the edge you see when you look through the barrel from the breech end), the bullet might be too soft or the velocity too high.
If the leading appears in the second (front) half of the barrel, the bullet is running out of lube. If you see a star shaped pattern of lube accumulate on the muzzle, this indicates that there is a little excess lube and things are good.