How much is too much?

[mike3132]

How much leading is too much? I shot 12 rounds the other day out of my clean barrel 454 using reduced 45 LC loads @1130 fps and had some leading. Not a lot but you could see it. I used a homemade lube of 50/50 paraffin and petroleum jelly with a couple tablespoons of carnuba wax. The bullets are real hard. Are you always going to get some leading no matter what you do? Would gas checks help? This is mainly a hunting gun.

Another thing the first 6 shot string out of my clean gun shot about 100 fps less than after it was fouled. The bullets were all loaded at the same time using a beam. Thanks, mike

[felix]

Do you take more than 6 shots to shoot your quarry? That is the only question in your situation you should be concerned about. ... felix

[Bass Ackward]

This is a difficult question to answer. If you are asking about GC bullets you would get the standard line of as long as it doesn't affect accuracy. If you are talking PB, then the question needs to be asked what type of leading is it and where are you getting it? This makes all the difference in the world. Gas cutting is never acceptable and most always preventable.

Galling is another matter entirely. Some guns, especially new, simply won't not lead with even the best lubes and there it is more important to simply shoot and let it work itself through it which may require lower powered loads. Stainless revolvers seem to be better right off and clean up quicker than chrome molly guns too, as a generality.

As an example, I get forcing cone leading mixed with the lube and powder fouling buildup in the area not touched by the bullet in passing. It occurs from high pressure gas as the base breaks the seal of the throat. I actually like this type of leading because it minimizes cone wear from powder impact. Since it is 360 degrees, this also tells me a little about my load technique and mechanical alignments.

But as to other types of leading, I have some loads that shoot better than most loads, that lead up the wazoo. Accuracy is actually improved as you get to say 100 rounds and then it levels off. I use these in hot weather when leading is most difficult for me to prevent anyway. So I would say that everything is geared to generalities and really dependent on the conditions you are shooting. I have seen something as simple as sizing .0005 larger or smaller eliminate all leading. Just so you don't panic and throw the baby out with the bath water.

[VTDW]

I have been shooting hardcast boolits from my .444 Marlins and a RH 44MAG for a little over a year now. I have not had to 'clean' lead from my barrels...yet and I shoot quite a bit. Felix has a great point though.

Dave

[Buckshot]

.............When accuracy deteriorates, THAT'S too much leading.

...........Buckshot

[wonderwolf]

I subscribe to the school of thought that you need to fit the bullet to your barrel. I shoot water quenched Wheel weights out of all my guns and with the exception of my buffalo classic 45-70 I have yet to have leading in any of them. The buffalo classic had some experiments done on it with lubes so thats why in that case. As far as my handguns go however I give them a good scrub after every range session which is on average 100 rounds and have yet to have any leading. While shooting my buffalo classic I did not have accuracy issues with the small amount of leading that was present.

[44man]

You will sometimes get a few loose flakes that push right out with a patch, but I have guns that I never even get that. Small amounts that either wipe out or is shot out with the next boolit will not hurt a thing. It is when it builds in the rifling and can't be wiped out that you have a problem. If you can see lead streaks in the grooves like they were soldered in, you need to solve it. It will do nothing but get thicker and maybe it is the reason some get better accuracy after fouling the bore when shooting undersize boolits. The bore gets smaller! I don't believe in the crap that you have to run 100 shots before you get accuracy. I want the first boolit from a clean bore to be almost on and every shot from then on must be were I want them. If I shoot my gun for 6 months without cleaning, I still want the boolits to go where aimed and still shoot tight groups. There is no excuse for your shooting to change because of changing bore conditions.

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive got guns with thousands of rounds through them that have never seen a brush. John Linebaugh once told me that a gun wont even settle in and shoot its best groups unless its got at least a 100 rounds down the pipe and even changing lubes can change this and require shooting to settle the gun down. Alot of people give up on a load at the range that gives mediocure accuracy that after a few cylinder fulls would settle in and shoot like gang busters. Ive tested this theroy and its alot more then a theroy. I will clean my barrel with a brush only when theres a noticeble deterioration in accuracy and if your gun is right to begin with this will never happen. You may get a little steaking of lead in the gun but it will usually never get worse. If you have an out of spec gun and expect soft lead to bump up to get your accuracy you will be scrubbing your bore!! I hear all the time that to hard of lead will cause leading. My ppc gun likes a load with a 120 cast bullet and it shoots its best out of straight lynotype (i wish it didnt!) and that gun has saw thousands of 850fps loads and the barrel looks as clean as when i started. Ive scrubbed the bore on that gun exactly twice in all the time ive owned it. Granted its a good clark barrel to start with but hard lead at low velocity sure dont bother that gun. I would guess thats why a competitive cast bullet shooter never shows up at the range with a clean bore.

[1hole]

I'm no lube exert but the NRA is. I have followed their 50/50 beeswax/alox experiments since they first published them in the mid 60s. It works GOOD!

They also found that no petroleum product worked very well as a bullet lube. The petroleum jelly and pariffin wax in your mix may not be helping much but the carnuba is good stuff.

[toecutter]

I use a lube pretty similar. Except I'm using 2:1 paraffin to petroleum jelly. Yesterday I tried adding some solid lanolin on about a 2:1:.1 ratio (.1 being lanolin) and did a little bit of shooting out of my .44 mag. A gun which I got leading with when I was using LLA, and still got leading with using javelina (50/50 allox/beeswax) I noticed a few flakes when cleaning, and it shot well enough. It seemed to be on par performance wise with javelina, but was a bit more shelf stable during a warm day at the range.

As far as leading goes, I'm in total agreement with Buckshot, leading isn't a problem as long as it doesn't affect accuracy. But it's always good to characterize the way the bullets are leading.

I remember a few years ago, while helping clean out my grandparents house, we found an old .22 revolver. Since my aunt who was taking over the house wasn't a gun person, she offered it to me. Later that day I got my cleaning kit out of the car, and proceeded to give it a good cleaning. Lead was coming out in very long thick strips. At one point, something more resembling a chamber casting came out. Rather frightening, but it didn't appear to have any actual damage as a result. On the up side, that caked in lead probably protected that bore for the 50+ years it had been in storage.

[mike3132]

The leading I'm getting is on top of the lands and at the base of the grooves in the corners. It doesn't seem excessive and runs the full length of the barrel. I didn't know if this is normal or not? The gun shoots very accurate with these 300 grain lead bullets. They were made by Bull-X and come with a special lube coating. I pan lubed them with 50-50 paraffin/petroleum jelly and still got some leading. Being new to cast bullet shooting made me wonder how much leading is too much and if i needed to do something different to try and stop the leading. thanks for your replies, mike

[44man]

OK, talking about breaking in the bore for each lube, explain this! I had been shooting my Marlin .44 all morning at 50 yd's with the Lee 310 gr and LBT Blue but could not get decent groups. I left everything on the bench and came up and loaded 5 with Felix lube, same load and everything. I went down and shot the 5, then shot more with LBT Blue, same results, groups opened again. Look at the Felix group on the right and the LBT on the left. Since then I have shot some fantastic groups with Felix to 100 yd's.

[Bret4207]

IMHO every gun is an individual case and the same goes for every load/alloy/powder/primer/case combo. My experience tells me I need that 50-75 rounds to see what a combo will do. My Savage 23 32-20 is an exception. It shoots most everything good right off the bat. Same with my '03A3 35 Whelen. My Win 94 30WCF, Rossi 44mag, '93 Mauser 7x57 need that 50 rounds to settle in and show me what they'll do USUALLY. My kids 250 Ruger UL wants 10 rounds of jacketed before it settles down between loads or different weight bullets. Doesn't mean it's a law or anything, just an observation. Half of this stuff is magic anyway.

I wonder if part of it isn't getting the little gremlins in the barrel used to the taste of the new lube. Maybe Felix lube just tastes better?

[Bass Ackward]

OK, talking about breaking in the bore for each lube, explain this! I had been shooting my Marlin .44 all morning at 50 yd's with the Lee 310 gr and LBT Blue but could not get decent groups. I left everything on the bench and came up and loaded 5 with Felix lube, same load and everything. I went down and shot the 5, then shot more with LBT Blue, same results, groups opened again. Look at the Felix group on the right and the LBT on the left. Since then I have shot some fantastic groups with Felix to 100 yd's.


44,

Your lube changes your coefficient of friction. Change friction, you change vibration. Change vibration without compensating for all the other variables from diameter to hardness or load factors and who knows what happens. You .... should look at lube just like a powder. You need to select one that does what you want it to do. You just have to understand what that is.

If you buy the theory that the best lube is the one you need the least of, then it only stands to reason that that lube would perform better once a bore has loaded up and stabilized. Is that one shot, 5 shots, 50? Depends on the lube AND what you are doing with it. 22LRs are notorious for this. How many lube grooves on a 22LR bullet?

If you are asking for an opinion on LBT Blue, I can tell you that it is a good lube. It hangs together and won't separate over time which is good for loaded rounds. It is basically a high pressure lube or works better with softer bullets that will put it under pressure. It's a warm weather lube or good for higher rates of fire. (If you look at LBT designs, he tends to favor smaller lube grooves so you don't need as much of it.) It works well in .... marginal bores but can be beat in really smooth or worn situations, basically because it will cause lube fliers. It isn't too good for soft bullets in colder weather. Or handguns unless you add Vaseline and soften it to Blue soft. Can it shoot good groups? Oh yea. Can a person screw it up? Sure.

Your Felix lube can be altered / taylored property wise too. So it depends how much of this and what percentage of that you used as to what you get there as well. That's the beauty of it. You can make the lube do what YOU want it too instead of working around it. This is the greatest service that Felix lube provides in my opinion. You simply have to learn, by making the lube. That in itself is an education toward understanding. The more you learn the better off you are.

But every lube has things it does well, and that it doesn't. Want another reason why a bullet design shoots for one guy and not the next? Lube.

[Dale53]

Bret4207;
>>>Half of this stuff is magic anyway.<<<

Actually, it is NOT magic. It is "VOODOO!":mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Dale53

[44man]

Bass, you are right and LBT Blue works in some of my other guns just great. What I was showing is that some guns do not need a bunch of break in shots with a lube change to show a difference. I repeated the above test many times with the same results. Other guns can be picky about it, might even need cleaned before starting another lube.
Could I have made LBT Blue shoot in my rifle by changing the hardness? Most likely. But I have to ask if it would be worth fooling with when I found what the gun likes so easily? I told you I was lazy and don't pick one lube and work everything else to make the lube work. It is easier to work the lube only, to find one the gun and boolit loves.
Thats what I have been saying forever; don't get stuck with one lube for all of your guns, some will just not like what you have.
Everyone here uses different powders, different brass, different primers, different guns, different boolits but have you noticed that almost everyone uses just ONE lube? They try to make it work with slow handgun loads, to hunting loads all the way to rifle loads with all different hardnesses of boolits and all kinds of other components. Some lubes can be stretched a little but some have a tiny window that they work in.
It's like the guy that only drinks Bud Light, he doesn't know what good beer tastes like.
I love it when you agree with me.

[Lloyd Smale]

I can answer why at least i tend to stick with the same lube at least for alot of bullets before swithching. I make it in 3 lb coffee cans and usually run the same lube till i make a differnt batch. It also is a pain to empty the lubesizer and change lubes. My star has an extended capacity tube on it and holds the equivelent of at least 4 sticks of lube. So even though ill play with powders primers alloys and bullet styles and sizes i tend not to fool that much with lube. Maybe if i had more time id do it but i just dont. So i try to make a lube that is a compromise for all my shooting. Its an altered vesion of felix lube and its worked well for me. But sometimes its what i have. As in right now. Im out of the main lube and had a 3lb can of beeswax/alox/jojoba oil and thats whats in it now. As to lube breaking in in a barrel. Ive proved it to myself. I really dont care what someone elses opionion on it is as Ive seen it work in my guns. Ive taken loads that shot 2 inch a 25 with a lube that isnt my normal lube and shot a couple hundred of them out of the gun and sat down and shot one inch groups with the same load. Was it the lube. I guess we will never know for sure. Could be i was just having a better range session but its happened on a few occasions so i have to believe theres some truth to it. I dont think youd see a competitive cast bullet shooter switch lubes in the middle of a match and you dont see competitive shooters cleaning there bores before a match so im guessing theres something to the seasoning of a bore to the specific lube your using. Now ive got to add this to it. For me alot of it is just experimenting. I dont need to sit on a bench until my sixguns shoot one inch groups at a 100 yards and dont really care if they do. As a matter of fact i probably will never know as i dont waste my time doing it. For what im using them for 2 inch a 25 for the most part will handle anything and one inch a 25 certainly will. That even includes my competition guns. So thats what i consentrate on when working up loads for a gun. Guns used for hunting will be sighted in at 50 yards and a few groups shot there and maybe one or two shots out to a 100 yards to see where there hitting. I dont think ive ever measured a group at a 100 yards. Ive seen some small ones like you talk about but most time i just write it off as getting lucky because my eyes dont see open sights good enough to shoot a 4 inch group at a 100 yards let alone a 1 inch group.

[felix]

Once you know how good a certain combo does shoot, and indeed the combo found is more than excellent for the application intended, then you can play games to optimize COST/EFFECTIVENESS instead. Total cost includes things like time, effort, and just plain ol' mickey-mouse for sh-ts and grins. An example right now would be to change out primers, or perhaps a deal using a powder having a like speed (never the same). Getting fairly close to the optimum previously established usually comes out OK intellectually wise. Perhaps not emotionally, though. ... felix

[tomf52]

Mike - I have used Felix lube, Johnson's paste wax,a number of home grown concoctions and to this day have found nothing that seems to work as well as liquid alox. Just doesn't leave lead in any of the loads I work up. Rifle or pistol. Most of my loads are mild however.

[44man]

See, thats what I talk about! I have NEVER had Lee L.A. work in any of my guns. It depends on the gun and the load. Some guys love the stuff but I hate it. It is one of those lubes with a tiny window.

Lloyd, I have always tried for the best a gun can do. I want the gun to shoot WAY better then I can shoot it. Then when I miss I can only blame myself. The only thing I don't like is a gun or load that shoots where my sights aren't. Consistant 2" groups at 25 yd's with any load or boolit means a sold gun. Any revolver that won't hold an inch at 50 yd's except for called shots, is sold off.
If I wiggle 2" left and the gun goes off but the hole is 2" left, I am happy. If it is 6" right, something is WRONG. If I can't solve it, the gun is GONE!
Some guys accept a bad shooting revolver but want a rifle to shoot to the sights. NOT ME. The revolver should shoot as good. If I take aim at a pop can at 100 or 200 yd's from a good rest, I expect a hit on the can. If I shoot offhand and the boolit goes where the sights are at trigger break, good, even if it is a miss. I will not accept less!
I am no Bob Munden but you can bet your life if his boolits did not hit where he was looking, he would not be shooting them.

[mike3132]

Very interesting stuff. Thank you all for your suggestions and comments. mike