powder lubed .45 bullets leading

[Doug Bowser]

My friend has a Para-Ordnance 1911 .45 and we loaded some whit powder lubed .452" RN lead bullets at about 800 FPS. He fired 50 of them and the leading was fierce. I have a Star Model P .45 and I fired 100 rounds and no leading. I think his problem is a rough bore. I offered to use JB Bore Paste on it and we will do that next week. I will let everyone know how it works out.

Doug

[thegreatdane]

what is this whit (white?) powder lube you speak of?

[captaint]

I have some Hornady swaged lead boolits with white (ish) powder on them. In my 38's and 357's they were always fine. No problems - and accurate. Your friend could have made them smaller while loading - or rough bore indeed... You may need more than JB Paste though..enjoy Mike

[RobS]

If you haven't slugged bores then the bullets may not have leaded your bore because the bullets fit it meaning they were bigger than your barrels groove diameter. Your friends bore could have been larger than yours and the boolits leaded due to gas blow by.

If your friends gun had copper bullets shot down the tube before the cast there is also a possible problem since lead will stick to the copper that was left in the bore from the jacketed bullets.

[donaldjr1969]

I've shot that exact same Hornady LRN through my P90 and seen leading. While it was not major, it was not just a speck or two either. I did tumble-lube them in some "uncut" Lee liquid ALOX and found it to be effective at reducing leading. However, it wasted a lot of lube. More went onto the bullet ogive than into the knurling. Plus what was in the knurling saw a lot of it scraped off during seating.

So what I did was this. I took the ALOX, put a bit on my finger, and smeared the finger firmly against the knurling. This worked a good amount of ALOX into the drive band area, probably more so than tumble-lubing, and leading was close to non-existent. Yes it is a slow method and is rather messy. But it did work. So Doug, if you have access to some ALOX, try that.