Lead in Henry 44 Mag

[Themoose]

I shot my first cast loads in my newly inherited BigBoy. Due to my vision and sight configuration I only shot @ 50 yds groups ran about 1.5-2.0". Plenty good enough for a woods rifle. I ran dry patches after 10 shots and found many small shiny pieces of lead. The bore was slugged @ .430,. I resized some LBT 270gr sized to .433 down to .431. I'm thinking this may be the source of the shiny particles.

I'm not sure what I should try next:. Possibly try the sized .433's without resizing to .431. Cast and size a new batch down to .431? Other option using molds would be to beagle or bump up some from .429 moulds I have.

I did use a barrel break in procedure on first range session and perhaps that is why the lead is removed with only a dry patch???
I value the experience of others more knowledgeable than I.

Thanks for your help.
TheMoose

[2ndAmendmentNut]

If you were able to remove whatever was in your barrel with only a dry patch I doubt it was leading. Or at least not enough leading to worry about. Accuracy sounds good. You might try the fatter .433, but you may run into chambering issues. Also if the barrel is fairly new it may simply need to be shot some in order to smooth everything out.

[Prairie Cowboy]

Deleted

[shoot-n-lead]

Shoot it 50 times and look down the barrel...if it is leading, it will be event.

Also, the accuracy will start degrading if it is leading badly.

[kungfustyle]

Did you slug the barrel? Don't take other peoples word for what size your rifle is. Slug the bbl and run the leads .001 over bore diameter at a decent hardness of about 15 to 18 and you should be good to go with a decent soft lube to about 1400fps. Anything over that gas check it and run it as fast as you want. Strips/peaces of lead no problem, smeared lead down the bbl problem. Does it feel smooth or rough when you run a patch down the bbl? If it feels like glass you don't have anything to worry about. If its rough, well, you've got leading.

[Themoose]

I did slug the barrel myself @ .430. I have two LBT moulds for my other rifles that cast @ .433 and I sized them to .432. Cast from water cooled WW lubed with LBT softblue and have gas checks. When cleaning bore I get small shiny flakes of lead, no smearing.

[ChristopherO]

Sometimes gas checks clear up the problem and sometimes they don't. My Marlin 1895 in 45/70 leads up a bit about the first 3" past the chamber with slow PB or faster GC loads. Accuracy is still very good and I push out strips of lead when cleaning up. This is with a barrel I hand lapped before ever firing a round in. The smoothness of the bore is greatly improved over what it was when purchasing new last year.
I suspect my BHN is about 12 on what I am using now but do not have a hardness checker to verify. The first PB loads of no more than 1150fps were extremely hard with linotype added but still pushed lead out. These are all sized .459 with a .4575 bore.
They are accurate, kill paper and deer well and I can push out the lead with 2-3 swipes. I'll live with it for the time being.