Cast Bullets and leading in 45 ACP HI Point

[jh45gun]

I just loaded up some Cast Bullets 200 grain RNFP or as Lee Calls them with their mould FP. I shot about 15 tonite and when I got home to clean the gun I noticed I got a fair amount of leading in the bore near the muzzle. Now I cast bullets for several rifles from 30 cal to 45 cal and for 45 colt and never see leading like I had in my 45 HI Point. So barrel that needs to be broken in more or don't they like cast bullets? There was actual lead smears that you could tell were lead. I am shooting straight Wheel Weights and never had an issue with straight WW in any of my other guns. Comments?

[jh45gun]

Some one replied on an other forum they were having issues too until they coated them with Alox.

[462]

Leading at the muzzle is a lube issue.

[jh45gun]

Yea what I figured. The lube I am using is the old Lyman Black stuff that is Alox and Beeswax. But that bullet only has one narrow lube groove and a crimp groove which is narrower yet. I got some loaded up and I do not have a puller so maybe I can dip the exposed part in thinned out LLA and that will suffice until my next batch. What I have that I have not loaded I will Tumbe lube with LLA even though they are lubed with the lyman lube and ran through a .452 sizer.

[MtGun44]

How smooth is the bore? In that price range I might expect a rougher than usual
bore, which may be a significant contributor. Of course, maybe they are extremely
smooth, I have no idea.

Bill

[jh45gun]

I think it is a dirty bore the only cleaner I had on hand was some Hoppe's 9 Semi Auto cleaner. I worked on the barrel again tonite and it just does not pull out all the carbon and deposits. The stuff is junk and I am gonna pitch it. I am going to a friends place on Sun for a picnic and a impromptu shoot. Gonna clean it again at his place with some good solvent and try it again. I got this gun used and the bore was dirty and I have not been able to get it perfectly clean I think due to that junk Hoppe's calls their semi auto cleaner. Odd because I have always liked the standard Hoppe's number 9 solvent but this semi auto stuff is junk. I think the guy that owned it only shot a box or two through it and I have shot a box through it. I will see what happens after I get the bore clean. I cannot say about the bore how rough or smooth it is until I get it clean. I thought I had it clean when I bought it but since I never seen the bore new I had nothing to compare to. I think a good solvent would have made a huge difference in getting the barrel clean. It looked clean at a glance until I really inspected it with a good bore light.

[462]

Home-made Ed's Red is an excellent bore cleaner (do a search for the recipe). Also, don't forget to remove the copper fouling (Montana X-treme Copper Killer).

[jh45gun]

Yea I am gonna clean it with some Sweets on Sun and an other bore cleaner for anything the sweets does not remove and then shoot it and see what it does.

[Char-Gar]

Good smooth barrels cost money to make. They are not often encountered on low end hanguns.

[jh45gun]

Very well could be but if that is the case Most 22 pistols are considered low priced that I see in the market today and they have good barrels. My 22 A Smith has a great barrel and that is not an expensive semi auto. More than a Hi Point but not excessively so. The barrels on these High Points are Button rifled.

I have shot cast in some pretty rough Milsurp barrels with out any issues. Like I said I think dirty bore and copper buildup could be part of the issue. I will know more once I get the barrel cleaned.

[MtGun44]

If the bore is rough, a session of fire lapping may be well worth the effort. Less dramatically,
a few hundred jacketed bullets may help a lot, too.

Bill

[jh45gun]

Yea I don't think this gun was shot much so some good solvent on the to buy list and some more shooting has to help it I would be betting.

[Char-Gar]

I have two Ruger Mk II 5 1/2" heavy barrel pistol One has the factory Ruger barrel and the other has a Douglas with a match chamber. The Douglas barreled pistol will produce group half the size of the Ruger barrel.

Good barrels have cut rifling (single point of broach) button rifled or hammer forged. Each these methods are also used to produce crappy barrels.

Good barrels cost more money than low end barrels and there is just no way around it. To expect a bargain basement firearm to have a high quality barrel is to live in fantasy land.

[jh45gun]

Never said it was a match barrel Chargar. It is what it is but that does not mean it is bad. I know you get what you pay for and it is a inexpensive gun but it shoots well and it held its own today against the guys shooting their glocks and 1911s. I sighted it in today using a peep sight rear sight on it and it took some shooting to get where I wanted it to shoot. When I was done I had at 20 yards a softball size group with some touching in the center. The whole target at 20 yards had all of them in the target circle even the sighters getting it adjusted. I was satisfied as it was 95 and muggy and sweat was in my eyes not the best for shooting groups but every shot out of the 40 rounds would have hit center mass on a human silhouette target. It shoots with out a hiccup and a few more boxes through it of my reloads I should get better getting more used to the pistol. It is not like shooting my SSA or my Encore or my 22 A but I will get used to it. The rear peep gets a bit getting used to but I like it.

Now for the leading issues I cleaned out the bore with some sweets and it had copper fouling I also used some JB Bore paste on it which really helped.

Bore looks good tonite with a slight bit of leading but nothing that will not come out using a good solvent. No chunks of lead like before. I think if I resize these with my lyman lubrisizer and then tumblelube using some LLA I will have no leading at all and that should help break in the bore.

[Char-Gar]

I have not found 45 caliber pistol barrels to accumulate much jacketed bullet metal fouling. I can go from jacketed to cast without any issues.

I have no had good luck with LLA, but others have.

I have ran across a few pistol barrels that leaded badly no matter what I shot in it. That quit once I removed the machine hickies and polished the bore. My favorite K-38 was once such pistol. I kept after it until the issue was resolved, because the handgun was just too accurate to give up on.

I won't take space telling how to do the above, but it does not involved fire lapping. I don't suppose that is a bad thing, but I just can't bring myself to fire gritty bullets down a barrel. The notion make me queasy.

Best of luck with your pistol and shooting

[jh45gun]

Thanks I figure the JB bore paste helped along with the better solvent.

[Char-Gar]

JB bore paste does a good job of cleaning, but won't do anything to remove machine hikies.

1. Fire 200 rounds of ball ammo through the pistol as fast as you can load the mags, aim and pull the trigger.
2. Wearing gloves (it will be hot) remove the barrel at the range.
3. Using a new brush and a good solvent give the barrel 200 back and forth strokes.
4. Go home and clean the barrel with JB.
5. Using tight fitting patches loaded with Flitz or Semi-Chrome metal polish, give back and forth stroke until you arms feel like they are falling off. Usually about a half hour to an hour of work.
6. Put the barrel is a vise and life will be much easier.

When you get through you will have a finely polished barrel, free of machine hickies. None of the dimension will be changed as happens with fire lapping. It won't lead with any sensible load. It will be very easy to clean the powder trash from it. It very well might deliver better accuracy. This takes some time and the cost of 200 rounds of jacketed bullets. But it will bring even the most reluctant barrel to heel. I don't do this to all my hanguns, just the ones that give problems and I intent to keep for a very long time.

[felix]

I use Charger's method for run-of-the-mill guns, especially the older ones. If the gun remains cantankerous, I mix motor mica in the lube because it if far superior to moly for the purpose, and adjust the mica to be less and less as time goes on. If the gun is a target gun, then I use 40K cup loads using boolits having high antimony, low tin, keeping in mind these loads will extend the freebore potentially more than condom bullets. But, that is OK because the gun will adjust to that particular boolit's dimensions in no time and become more accurate. ... felix

[jh45gun]

Good tips

[felix]

Ruger barrels are the hardest by far with 4140 steel, so keep that in mind. Shoot hot loads in them continually until the barrel wears in properly for boolits. We are talking about a 1000 rounds or more at 35-40K CUP to put a dent into them. Treat the 454, 480 pistol/revolter guns softer until proven otherwise. They use a different steel which appears to be somewhat softer with increased spring back characteristics for the cylinders for sure. BFR uses Ruger guns? If so, I wonder what they do to them to make them shoot out of the box, statistically speaking. ... felix

[jh45gun]

I ran the bore mop I had put the JB and looked at the barrel and it looked good I think the leading issue was just not having a good solvent that did not remove the copper in the bore.