Barrel Leading

[rjathon]

I am fairly new to casting. Before shooting cast bullets I cleaned my bores until they were bright and shiny. This took weeks of work and soaking and a pile of patches. The bore would be almost clean but little dark streaks abutting the rifling were extremely stubborn.

Now, as for shooting lead if the load is accurate I don't even check for leading or clean until the accuracy drops off. If the load is innacurate from the start it seems that leading is a problem. A dry patch through the bore reveals shiny little bits of lead. If there is a lot I try the copper Chore Girl on a smaller brush and then various solvents and patches and it takes forever to get it perfectly clean.

Is perfection necessary?

[bigted]

YES YES YES...short answer is yes when it comes to leading...perfection is imperative for prolonged accuracy with anything that is softer then the barrel.

there is several fairly easy ways to remove the lead from a barrel and a bunch of ways to keep it gone!

first off get some "pure gum terpintine spirits" and use this for soaking for 1/2 to 1 hour. now take a very tight patch and soak it with the terpintine...after it is soaked up, shove it thru the barrel once. look at the patch with wonder at the lead that is adhered to it...now repeat till no lead is on the patch's. this trick was repeated to me several years ago and as i shoot a bunch of boolits both patched and greesers i,,from time to time,,have need to remove lead from my bore.

now to keep that lead on the boolit instead of smeared thru your bore try a couple things...first slug your bore to find out exactly what the bore and groove diameters are. keep your boolits...both greesers and patched...at or above the groove diameter. when using smokless powder this is mandatory. i like to keep my nekid boolits at .001 inch above the groove diameter. also make sure that the lube is workin for you as this alone will or can cause troubl with the lead deposites. a damaged bore will lead badly also. another thing that will lead to bad leading is a long chamber...meaning that as the boolit jumps from the end of the case and as it goes into the rifling it starts its little leading job as the powder gas burns past the grooves and in so doing the gas melts the lead that flies past the boolit momentarilly and then gets ironed onto the rifle bore when the boolit goes its merry way down the bore. another check is as to the alloy or your boolits.

there is much that can and do go wrong to make a rifle a lead miner...many things that will cure a lead miner too.

books that will help immensly are by 'mathews' and 'venturino' and 'write' and other authers that cover a great deal of just this kinda thing.

what id suggest is to get her very clean...then shoot a good diet of paperpatched boolits downbore to smooth it up so the leading is less dificult to remove when it rears its silvery ugly head....and YES paperpatched boolits work wonderfull in a lever. WAY better then id ever have suspected before i gave it the old colledge try.

good luck and hope this helps in a small way.......:drinks:

[btroj]

It shouldn't take long to get lead out with a brush and chore boy. Use a brush normal for e caliber and wrap a bit of chore boy or 4-0 steel wool around it. Run that thru a dry bore a few times. Follow with a dry patch. Lead should be gone, if not, repeat. Never have I needed more than that to remove lead. The brush needs to be a snug fit with the steel wool or chore boy in order to work best.
Follow that with a few damp patched with solvent, dry the bore and go shoot.

If you commonly get lots of leading from the get go with some loads then you need to re-evaluate load choices. Are they with a different bullet? Different powder? Different alloy? Different lube? Why are they leading? This is the learning process.

As for "perfection" in getting the lead out. Not generally required. In fact, many here find that shooting a properly fit bullet with a good lube will actually remove some leading left by previous rounds.

Proper fit of the bullet as it pertains to the gun in question is important. Good alloy, sensible powder choice, and decent lube help too. Most guns will shoot a variety of loads well with no leading.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
I will throw in my 3rd's for as tight fitting boolit. Once a caliber is above .30 I just figure on a .002 over diameter boolit. I have never had any leading from a too fat boolit. I guess you could go too soft a booliot but it takes a whole heap of pressure and hardly no lube to lead a barrel with a +.002 oversized boolit in caliber .375 and up.
Been shooting my .414 Supermag Marlin 336 with 50/50 boolits at 1950+ (cronographed) lubed with whatever is in my Lyman luber and not a hint of lead. Boolits are sized as fat as my chamber will permit .416+. I do basicly the same with all my rifles. Sometimes fat is far healthier.
Mike in ILL.

[fecmech]

As for "perfection" in getting the lead out. Not generally required. In fact, many here find that shooting a properly fit bullet with a good lube will actually remove some leading left by previous rounds.
Amen to that. Once you get your leading problem solved your cleaning chores will pretty much go away. Good luck

[rjathon]

Thank you very much.

I wonder if the dark stuff that lives next to the rifling might be another type of fouling. The bore can look beautiful except for that and it takes forever to remove.

[runfiverun]

are you using alox?
if so the calcium soap has a tendancy to cling in that area.
it's a combo of powder fouling and the tar it leaves behind.
it's the good/bad/ugly of calcium soaps.
limiting the amount used really helps the build-up issue. [i use no more than 15-20%]
if it's really stubborn,using a lube with an aluminum stearate or a lithium stearate will make the calcium start appearing in the bbl [pulling it out of the land area] which you can clean out with a patch/solvent.

[bigted]

my stance hasnt changed and i do look for perfection inside my bore...to get this with my marlin SBL i had to scrub the bore with some valve grinding compound to get the very sharp edges and tight spots gone but then after the compound work and cleaning... i shot around 100 paperpatched boolits patched to the groove diameter + .001 inch and now my accuracy is outstanding and cleanup is a snap for the PERFECT bore i look for. my blackpowder loads slip thru with patched loads and with the aid of a cookie in the load column...my cleanup efforts are slight with 4 patches and done. just matters how fastidious a feller is and what the expectation is for
the rifle.

have fun!