Leading In Front Stuffers

[Guy La Pourque]

Hi Guys, I am headed out to the range this weekend to try out my first batch of home made bullets in my Spaghetti Plains Rifle.

I am going to need to drive them pretty hard to get them to stabilize in that friggin 1:48 rifle twist. Is it possible to lead rifling in these front stuffers? I am using good ol' black powder FFg.

Your two cents is sincerely appreciated...;-)

[Omnivore]

I don't know about others, but I've never had a lead problem. Certainly it could happen with enough pressure, but with a good lube you can push pretty hard.

What caliber? What bullet? How much of what powder are you using? A 48" twist is fast enough to stabilize a fairly heavy bullet in a 50 cal, for example. I've had decent results with 385 grain lead Hornady Plains bullets in the 50, with a 48" twist, using up to about 100 or 110 grains FF, but that was a long time ago and I haven't used those bullets since. Recoil was enough to dislodge my shooting glasses and crack the European walnut stock slightly, but I never have noticed any leading, including with hand cast pure lead 250 and 320 grain REALS with up to 110 grains FF.

The proof is in the result in your rifle though, so give whatever it is you're thinking about a try and let us know what happens.

[Shooter]

Don't push a 1:48 twist. They shoot well with a charge about equal to bore diameter.

[fishhawk]

never had a patched round ball lead the bore yet

[stubshaft]

Never worried about it even when feeding the smokepole a steady diet of Maxi Hunters.

[10 ga]

Plenty of lube! Test and see what does best with each bullet. Shoot what is accurate. I have a 1/48 twist in a 50 cal and it shoots good with everything from 300 gr. down, including PRB. 85gr of FFF Swiss and a 300gr or less belted or 180 gr PRB is a sweet spot.

[Boerrancher]

never had a patched round ball lead the bore yet

Amen to that Brother!!! In my 50 cals with the iron sights they shoot good enough out to 100 yards with a Patched round ball to kill a ground hog every time and kill a deer at 150 yards. I don't think people have much business shooting at anything much over 150 yards with regular iron sights anyway. If you have a hot rod like Idaho Ron then that is a different story. But for standard ML ranges a PRB, will work well,

Best wishes,

Joe

[Sasquatch-1]

I'm with the patched ball shooters. That's all I have ever fired in my 54 cal Tradition's Hawken. No leading. Patches lubed with Crisco.

Maybe that's why I get a yerning for fries when I'm done. [smilie=1:

[44man]

Don't push a 1:48 twist. They shoot well with a charge about equal to bore diameter.
That's true. 1 in 48" seems to work well with a boolit and a RB too.
It has been a long time since I had the original .50 cal TC Hawken but it would clover leaf both at 50 yards. For target I would use 50 gr but for hunting I went to 90. Both loads shot the same from mine. The original was a wonderful rifle but it just never fit me, I hated the stock.
I sold it and built a real Hawken.
I have never seen leading in a front stuffer and all I use is pure lead.

[yovinny]

I had bad leading with conicals in my .50 1/48" Lyman deer stalker, with anything over 50gr ffg.
Tried every lube known to man, all with almost the same results, poor accuracy and leading as soon as I went over 50gr.
Finally found I had to use a lubed felt wad, which allowed me to up the charge and also improved accuracy quite a bit.
Now my SOP is a 320gr LEE real with 2 coatings of LLA and a 1/4" felt wad well lubed with bore butter, over 80gr ffg.

I punch the wads with 11mm punch and 1/4" felt from McMaster Carr. Then place wads with a good amount of bore butter in a plastic container and microwave to liquify, stir well and lay them out on some waxed paper to stiffen up.

Thats what works for me, YRMV.
Cheers, YV

[DIRT Farmer]

In my trade guns I get leading from shooting lead shot. The best way I have found to remove it is a shooting session with tight fitting patched round balls.

[Boerrancher]

In my trade guns I get leading from shooting lead shot. The best way I have found to remove it is a shooting session with tight fitting patched round balls.

What happens if you wrap your shot in a cloth patch with the front end left open so the patch would basically fall off the shot like it does a PRB? Build everything at the muzzle, in your cloth patch, put a card wad on top of it, and cut the remaining excess off at the muzzle with your patch knife and seat the shot. Heck I don't know anything about ML and shot, as I have always been a rifleman myself, just more or less thinking out loud.

Best wishes.

Joe

[DIRT Farmer]

Don't know Joe I never though of trying it, but after you mentioned it I will have to try it. One more dang thing to try out.
Wonder if it would improve my pattern for turkey season. The Bess is already out of the closet and in the "ready" corner.

[wgr]

put 90 grains of black under a good maxie. ball and go

[frontier gander]

what model italian is it? What conicals are you shooting now and have tried?

[shdwlkr]

You know I have only shot ml rifles for around 45 years now and I have never run into leading with 1:48 twist. But I only have 7 or 8 of them so who knows maybe some day I will.
If you are shooting a patched RB and getting leading the patch would be interesting to see after you shot as a patch tells you a lot about that shot.

I have shot the maxi balls which don't have a patch and they work just fine if you lube them. I have used them in every thing from a .32 up to and including a .54 caliber. I even fired a few when I first started using them with no lube and still no leading.

One thing to be mindful of is you are shooting black powder or one of the new fakes and you are not going to get the same affect I think I want to say as you do from using smokeless powder. What I am getting at with black powder yes you can stuff a lot of powder in the barrel and then stuff a patched lead ball or a maxi ball that is lubed well and fire it. Sometimes it will go off and seems like nothing has happened then you notice the barrel looks strange or that nothing has happened or that you have just blown up you rifle. In the last case you are dammed lucky to be here.

In shooting black powder firearms a new rule must be looked at and the old timers knew it also for the most part the charge should stay around caliber. What I mean by that is if you have a .50 caliber then a good start load is 50 grains and a good max load is 100 grains. I have found this to work with all my black powder firearms. In shooting the smaller calibers I have found that I can go to half the caliber for a load that will work when say hunting squirrels with a .32 caliber and the max I would use would be 60 grains although I have never found a reason to go there in the little .32. In my .36 caliber I most often use 40 grains. In my 50 caliber I use from 50-90 grains never found the reason to load more. In my 54 caliber it most often gets loaded with 60-90 grains again never found the reason for more powder.

You must remember you are using a firearm that really has a safe range of around 150 yards in the larger calibers. Yes I have shot my .36 farther and hit a clay target but that doesn't tell me what it would do on real game. So I limit it to around 75 yards in real hunting and my .32 I limit to around the same distance. I am more concerned with my ball having the needed energy to do the job when needed than how far it can go at maximum distance and still do the job.

I even limit my smokeless shooting for the same reason. I know my limits and impose them on my shooting distances as I really hate looking for a wounded animal and having to finish the job because I over extended my abilities.

[Good Cheer]

Yep, you can get lead build-up just like any firearm using cast bullets.

Quantity of lube, lube suited to the application and avoiding gas cutting are frequently issues, depending to a large degree upon the bullet used and the rifling pattern.

A few days ago was firing 405 grain round noses out of a .458" bore diameter 24" twist. To stop getting lead on my cleaning patches I had to switch lubes, use two 1/2" diameter card wads and not exceed the powder charge limit that worked. In this case 70 grains of FFg is what worked, which is a good thing because that's what I wanted. 80 grains overcame the cards, gas cut the slugs and made little shinies on the patches. Using enough powder to seal the bore with bullet expansion can also be a factor. The lube that worked is LOOB (lanolin-olive oil-beeswax).