leading in sig p220

[happyfast79]

fired 100 rounds out of mt sig p220 with bullets cast from a lee .452 230 rn tl mold useing 5.5 gr of bulseye and LLA for lube with wheel wieghts as the alloy. what am i doing wrong?

[Larry Gibson]

For starters 5.5 gr of Bullseye is a bit much for a 230 gr bullet. You might want to drop back to 5 gr.

Also are you sizing the bullets? If yes or no what diameter are they?

Larry Gibson

[Silver Jack Hammer]

I use straight wheelweights 5.2 gr Bullseye 230 gr LRN and Lyman Alox with zero leading in Colt's 1911s. Sig barrel's have a reputation of being highly polished from the factory, my guess would be your lube.

[sqlbullet]

Have you slugged the bore. Generally I find modern handguns are very tight, but there are exceptions.

Is the leading worse at the breech or at the muzzle, or consistent all the way through?

Air-cooled or water dropped from the mold?

5 grains of bullseye seems to be the consensus for lead 230 grain boolits, and Larry is pretty well informed. I would start there, but if you can answer the above that will give us more info.

[MtGun44]

Too small or too hard are first guesses. You need to measure the boolit with a good
micrometer and slug the barrel. Alox is an OK lube for these pressures and velocity, but
is not one of the superstars in the lube field. You might try another lube if you can.

Bill

[azrednek]

For starters 5.5 gr of Bullseye is a bit much for a 230 gr bullet. You might want to drop back to 5 gr.

Also are you sizing the bullets? If yes or no what diameter are they?

Larry Gibson

I shoot 4.0 and 4.5 of Bullseye with 45 ACP and 45 AR 230 gr cast. Usually my mix is 50/50 clip-on and stickys, tin added if needed but usually not. I've used Lee's TL, NRA 50/50 and various other lubes. I don't recall ever having any leading and the milder loads work fine in autos.

It only takes one bad Boolit to lead a bore. If the leading was on your first and only outing with it it may have been one bad Boolit and not the entire batch. If you're not sizing, possibly your mold dropped an under sized casting while you mold was heating up.

[ColColt]

I've had good luck with ww's and the 200gr Mihec H&G #68 equivalent in both 45's(S&W) sized to .452" using 5.4 gr of 231 or 6 gr of Universal with zero leading. I haven't tried a 230 gr lead boolit as yet. I use BAC in all cast boolits.

[happyfast79]

Thanks for all replys, i havent measured the bullet or slugged the bore, im not sizing the bullets just casting and tumble lubeing. yea i noticed that the 5.5 gr load was a little stiff but i saw it listed in the manual as safe and its what i load my 185 gr nosler custom competition bullets to on my dillon so it was already set up for it. ill have to cast up some more and measure them as i loaded up the 600 that i cast earlier. also the bullets were aircooled but ill probabally water quench the rest. also have a lee 230 gr tc tl 6 cavity mold showing up tommorow and probavally wont mess with the rn mold much any more as it was just a 2 cavity.

this sig is a 1995 model marked west germany but it will out shoot my kimber tle rl 2 ss 1911. but the sig has issues will getting the rim of the ejecting case stuck on the mouth of the case in the mag and failing to eject

Thanks again for the replys , also the lee liquid alox was hardly visible after the first tumble. im putting it on my 30-30 bullets much thicker and only have a very small amount of lead in the barrel after 30 rounds and 2000+ fps.

also i didnt clean the sig barrel after 700-800 rounds of jacketed bullets so that may not have helped.... i know im getting lazy

[sqlbullet]

Back off the load, but leave them air-cooled for now. I would bet that load was enough kick to strip the bullet in the rifling, but I could be wrong.

Harder is not always better, but may be called for. First I would reduce the charge and try again. Also, clean that bore good before you start. But don't change too many things at once. If you change a bunch of variable, you won't know if it was one specific thing, or another, or the combination.