leading is solved, thanks guys

[Whiterabbit]

I hijacked a couple threads in the past asking about leading and did not want to bump them just to thank the folks here. It's solved.

Opening up the sizing die to .0005 less than throat diameter and changing lube was sufficient to solve the problem. I went from LLA tumble lubing to pan lubing with a mix of *something like* 40/40/20 grocery store paraffin, home depot toilet bowl wax gaskets, and high-smoke-point home cooking oil (I think I used peanut? maybe canola.) night and day difference, AND no more smoky rounds at the range.

Now I have a lubrisizer (with no die yet) to play with in the near future too.

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Do I still have leading? You bet! BUT, I push two Hoppes #9 soaked patches through and one dry patch (dry patch goes through 3-4 times) and any lead is OUT.

That's a far cry from the way it was before, using multiple lead-out chemicals, brushes, an hour of time to get 90% of it out, yadda-yadda-yadda....





Now I just have to see if group sizes open up as I shoot. See if I can't stretch cleanings apart farther and farther and farther.

You guys rock.


(and my warne rings that arrived last Friday are amazing too, compared the the stock ultradot rings.)

[Love Life]

What caliber and handgun?

[Whiterabbit]

460 S&W, BFR 10", right now I'm using the 300 grain lee bullets which come out to about 318-ish after gas checking.

H110 seems to be the most accurate powder for them (I think reduced #9 isn't pushing them fast enough to stay supersonic to destination) and was having trouble with lead stcking to the barrel. No idea the speed, but interpolation of the Hodgdon website says 1875 fps (probably through an 8.375" S&W X-frame).

Now I can shoot 50 of those loads and push out the lead with three patches and about 5 minutes of time.

Followed the advice of the folks here one at a time and could stop after size and lube. I suppose I could continue down the path they've laid out to eliminate it altogether, but if 44man can shoot like gangbusters out of a dirty BFR, maybe I can develop loads down that path too.

[Whiterabbit]

oh shoot, I sweetened my lead with some solder and waterdropped them too. So three things.

[feets]

Good to hear you made progress!
My 460 is an Encore with a 15" barrel. Velocities are way on up there. I was running 335 WLNGC Cast Performance over 39 gr of H110 and averaged 2030 fps. Factory Hornday 200 gr loads are advertised at 2200 fps. This barrel runs them at 2690.
When I tried slowing things down a bit it got ugly. I tried dropping 270 gr Thunderheads and 300 gr Silhouette (both cast by Penn Bullets) over a variety of published charge weights of 5744. This was the result:

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/381608_308199165865821_100000272212256_1214358_355 404376_n.jpg

Yes, that's lead clogging up the brake and blasted over the front sight. The barrel was a mess.

The bullets work fine over full charges of H110. I was looking for a way to slow the bullets down for more comfortable shooting. I found out the hard way that you can't safely reduce H110 lower than 10% of max so I tried another powder.

I'm now a believer that the charge behind the bullet will make a big difference in leading.

[Whiterabbit]

I had similar issues with penn bullets. my gun liked them with AA#9 (the 340 grain casull bullet), but not H110 or trailboss. Just opposite with home case 300 grain LEE's. strange.

[leadman]

Have you tried 680 powder? This powder works great in the 445 Super Mag. Velocity is not quite a high as H110 but accuracy was better. Acurrate Arms mades AA1680 that is similar to the surplus WC680.