Shooting jacketed to help with leading

[mirage2521]

Hi Guys,
I remember reading a few threads about shooting jacketed bullets to remove leading after shooting cast. Can anyone post a link to any of those threads? I had some people on another forum asking about it and I remember seeing a couple of really good explinations of it on here.

Thanks

[cf_coder]

Even better shoot a lead gas checked boolit. The edges on the gas check act as a scraper going down the barrell and remove most of the leading.

Though you should really figure out why you are getting leading in the first place. Are these boolits that you cast or are they commercial?

[runfiverun]

i have heard that too.
i have also SEEN a properly fit and lubed boolit do it.
i once heard it claimed that the front driving band on the keith boolit was designed to scrape fouling from the bbl too.

[TNFrank]

We always use to shoot a few jacketed bullets after we'd get done shooting lead bullets to clean out the barrel. Don't know if it did any good or not, seems to have worked.
Still, with a properly fitting lead bullet at the right velociety you shouldn't have much if any leading problems anyway and I've always found that some 4 Ought non-scratching steel wool around an old bronze brush soaked in the cleaner of your choice made short work out of leading anyway.

[rfroy]

I have been doing this for years not knowing if it really made a difference or not. An old boy in his 70's told me to do this in the early 80's

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[kaiser]

I've about this procedure in Ken Water's book, "Pet Loads" and have used it in my guns. He recommends that after a "session" of shooting cast loads, using 5 to 10 jacketed bullets to "help" with reducing the effects of "leading". It does seem to help, but I have yet to determine how much!

[BulletFactory]

Any way to put a gas check on a non gas check boolit so I dont have to get another mold made?

[nanuk]

I think Pat Marlins makes a check maker for PB boolits

[GabbyM]

Cast boolits lubed with any good lube will wipe away years of crud from a pistol barrel.
I’ve had the same results with plain based bullets as with gas checked bullets.

Shooting J bullets down a fowled barrel will just add a layer of copper fouling in most cases.

[StrawHat]

I always felt the jacketed after lead to be a good way to iron out the lead and add a coating of copper to a really thin layer of lead.

The best way to get the lead out of a barrel is to use a load that doesn't lead. Next best is something like a brass thread (think grass wool) on a bore brush. Old fashioned and sometimes a bit of effort but the results are worth it.

[pdawg_shooter]

Or you could paper patch and not have to worry about leading.

[MT Gianni]

With good bullet fit and lube there should not be much leading. I was going to clean the gun anyway, at least with a light patch so I generally don't shoot jacketed. I have several calibers that I don't own jacketed in maybe as many as eight. I see this as a how do I clean up the oil from the garage floor idea. If I remember to put the bucket under the truck before I change the oil there is a lot less to clean up. I get better groups from a fouled barrel, not a leaded one but fouled with lube.

[popper]

Just a few twists of copper chore-boy on a brush, wet or dry. Even half-jacketed won't clean it.

[Wally]

Any way to put a gas check on a non gas check boolit so I dont have to get another mold made?

I have a Freechex GC making tool....I have successfully Gas Checked Bevel Based bullets in the .38, .41, & .44 Calibers. When you form the gas check cup you don't form it all the way so it looks like \___/ like l___l . Really does wonders on the Lee TL type bullets.

[ku4hx]

Any way to put a gas check on a non gas check boolit so I dont have to get another mold made?

Back in the '70s and '80s I use to load .357 Magnum using plain base 140 grain SWC boolits with a Lyman gas check placed upside down (cup open toward the powder) in the charged cases just prior to seating the boolit. This was my attempt at adding a GC to a non GC design.

They shot just fine but all indications were the practice was a waste of time. No idea if doing this was dangerous or not since in those days I was much more immortal than I am now.

[Rocky Raab]

Some where back in time, somebody had that bright idea without thinking it through.

If you have a layer of lead in your bore, firing a jacketed bullet down it is shooting with a partial bore obstruction. Most jacketed bullets have a curved ogive, and that curve HAS to act like a wedge. The result is that the lead will be forced deeper and harder into whatever space in the grooves it can find. You may remove some, but you hammer the rest into place darn near permanently.

And don't even BEGIN to think about what pressures occur with that first jacketed round!

[Larry Gibson]

And don't even BEGIN to think about what pressures occur with that first jacketed round!

Does it really raise pressures? Sounds like it should right? Well it appears this is another one of those theories or concepts that sounds reasonable and logical but that just don't turn out to be correct.

I have been testing this very idea in in multiple pressure tests using several handgun and rifle cartridges for over 2 years now. Normally I clean the barrel between test strings of 2 fouler + 10 test shots (SAAMI standard) but many times when developing a load using a single bullet of the same alloy/lube and a single powder I do not clean the barrel between test strings as I also want to determine how the combination shoots with a well fouled bore and if the combination or accumulation will foul/lead the bore and at what psi/velocity that will happen. Many times I have 150 - 200+ test shots through a barrel. At the conclusion of such cast bullet tests I shoot a jacketed load of normal velocity/psi for the cartridge through the cast bullet fouled barrel without cleaning.

Now granted very, very seldom do I really shoot any loads that seriously lead any barrel. If that begins I stop shooting that load as it really isn't necessary to shoot loads that lead a barrel severely. However, I find some leading of the throat area to be acceptable, particularly with commercial cast with the hard wax lube. Thus my testing has been with mildly leaded barrels or those that are just heavily fouled from multiple cast bullets.

I have found so far no evidence that shooting a jacketed bullet through a barrel fouled with cast bullets or even mildly leaded will raise the psi. Many times the psi of the first 2 -3 shots of the jacketed ammunition is most often below the average psi for the test string. This is clear indication the psi of the jacketed bullets through the cast bullet fouled barrel do not raise the psi.

Again, I have not conducted the test with a severely leaded barrel and have no intension to do so because I do not let any of my barrels get to that state, there is no need to. A severely leaded barrel should probably have most of the leading, if not all, removed with a Lewis Lead remover, ChoreBoy or some other manual means.......just to be safe.

Larry Gibson