Totally Unexpected Cure for Leading in SRH

[Indybear]

I purchased a SRH 9.5" a little over one year ago with the goal of developing some heavy cast loads for Hog hunting. I went through dozens of cast boolit styles and weights from 200 - 310, sized .430-.432 of both commercial and home cast of every alloy and lube I could find. I tried everything from a very light charge of BE all the way up to 18 of 2400 but all I did was put a shotgun pattern on the paper and wear out a bunch of chore boys pads removing all the leading. Early on in my testing thinking the issue was break in I run 200+ of Hdy 240 HP .429 20+year old J-words with a max charge of H110, which were all very accurate but no still joy with PB I even picked up Lee 310 GC, which did much much better but still no joy. Thinking that I would never be able to use cast in this gun I ordered a back issue of Handloader that had an excellent article on loading the SRH to +P and some Hdy 300 XTP. Loaded up 6 with a starting load of H110 up to a normal max and then 6 more .5 into +P into new Starline brass and headed to the range. All 12 rounds went through a very tight clover at 25 yards. I put 30 more down range with a Lee 200 RNFP sized .4305 and lubed with Darr/carnuba red and 8 of unique and these were even better!!! Since this was the first time for me for the big XTPs and this molds I thought I had finally hit something. When I got home and looked down the bore it was cleaner than when I started!!! After that day no matter what PB I put down the barrel it would not lead... My assumption is those 12 - 300 XTPs, which are .430 sized, when loaded to higher than standard pressures did what over 200 standard sized (.429) j-words could not do.... WOW... just like I've read firelapping would do but with none of the risk... Had to pass this tip on....

[newton]

That's interesting. I've had a hard time myself and feel your pain. Sounds like you got your gun figured out though. I have thought about running some j words down, and now if I ever do I'll be sure to get some heavy ones. Thanks for the info.

[LUCKYDAWG13]

my encore in 454 casull gets real bad copper fouling with the 240gr xtp
so bad that i cant shoot 20 rds out of its not as bad with a 300gr cast
i think i will try your trick out with some 300gr xtp and push them to max
and see if it works in my barrel
thanks for the tip

[Indybear]

I'm not sure why but the XTP 300s are .430 and are labeled as such but all other j-words I've seen including the XTPs 240s are only .429. I assume that extra .001 was enough to press the copper all the way down into the grove combined with the high pressure of the +p loadings did the trick but with only 12 rounds??????

This may have been the only time a +P loading did anything good for a gun..... This could only happen with a Ruger....


BTW: if you think the LEE 310's are a handful with 21.5 H110/296 those 300 XTPs loaded long and +P take it to another level.

[Salmoneye]

Hornady makes no .429" bullets or boolits...

They are all .430"...

[Indybear]

I have "several" boxes of HDY 240 HPs that are 25+ years old that I purchased in bulk way back when I had my FFL and they all measure .429.... The one box of 300s and 240s XTP are the first J-words I have purchased in a very long time and they measure .430 .... I could be wrong but I think Speer and many others are .429 but I do not own any to check,.,,,

[tomcat388th]

I have the same gun with a red dot scope have shot a lot of 240 xtp and noslers down it. Just set it up this year for cast I'm using the lee 310 mold that I machined the gas check out of to make it a plain base. My bullets are poured with wheeel weights and air cooled they weigh 315 grains lubed and sizes. My load work up with h110 leaded really bad swapped over to imr 4227 no leading. My accuracy load with h110 was 21 grains 1310fps avg with the imr4227 18 grains 1120 fps avg. Don't know if it's a lead hardness,velocity or lube with the h110. The bullet are lubed with darr lube and then rolled in lee alox with the gas ck milled out it just had the one lube groove so I figured it couldn't hurt. Off of sandbags at 50 yards it'll stay on a 2 inch target dot.
Justin

[ole 5 hole group]

I'm not sure you found a "cure" Indybear - I think it was a coincidence that the barrel "cleaned-up" at that point in time.

If one has a rough barrel – meaning more than the usual machining marks in the barrel – you can clean it up by shooting jacketed bullets. However, you really need to clean the copper from the bore after each shot to maximize your efforts – at least for the first 20 to 50 rounds.

I’ve had to clean-up a couple revolver barrels in my time and they all took closer to 50 rounds than 20 to clean-up and back then we only had “blue-goop” to clean out copper fairly quickly. Today we have chemicals that will remove the copper in less than 3 or 4 minutes from revolver barrels – still a PITA but you can clean-up a barrel in a short day of shooting.

Shooting several jacketed bullets without cleaning doesn’t smoothen up much, as every jacketed bullet fired after the first bullet does very little compared to that first jacketed bullet fired.

[subsonic]

Contrary to what everyone will tell you, I've actually found less leading with a slighty copper fouled barrel. Accuracy was still GREAT.

YMMV, flame suit on.