Browning 53 in 32-20, LEAD ON CASES

[Prairiewolf]

I've never seen lead deposits on cases before. They look like gray globs of lead attached very firmly to the cases, and very difficult to remove, even by scraping with a pocket knife, which makes me wonder if the lead didn't actually melt first. Also makes me wonder if my bore isn't a mess. It's a new Browning 53 (although made in 1990 I think). I'm shoosting 115 gr LaserCast boolits, .313", over 8.5 gr 2400, and getting 1480 fps. Apparently that's quite a bit over published velocity for that load, which makes me wonder if that rifle doesn't have a tighter chamber/bore. I haven't done a chamber cast, but would like to. But my question is concerning the Lead On The Cases. Surely some of you other shoosters have seen this, but it's a new one on me. What the heck is causing it?

[Jack Stanley]

I had a little of that when I was fooling with different size bullets for my fifty-three . For me , smaller than throat or groove size tended to go that way especially with harder lubes . The lead I had wasn't as bad as your case but it went away when I started using bullets just over .314" . The load I was trying to get to was to be a medium to high velocity load .

Oddly enough though , when I was using softer .312" bullets with Alox and only pushing them with 3.2 of Bullseye there was no problem at all . So I'm not sure I have a real handle on what causes the lead sticking on the case .

Jack

[Prairiewolf]

Thanks, that's interesting. My plan at this point is to try Unique, with a tight crimp with the Lee crimp die, and see if I can get a quicker case neck expansion to seal the neck in the chamber before the lead has a chance to blow back, although I'm not getting any powder residue on the case, just lead, all the way back over the shoulder. Weird. If it came off in the tumbler I might not even worry about it, but I can't even clean it off with lead remover. Nothing will touch it except steel wool. Maybe the chamber cast will shed some light on what's causing it.