Slugging a barrel

[Mmacro]

I need to slug my barrels and have a few questions:

1. Do you use a round ball or an actual cast bullet for the gun? I ask because I don’t have round balls in the various calibers I need to slug. I do have a round ball mold for my River Old Army... but I need to slug a .38 Spl, .45 ACP and a .45-70. I have SPFB molds for each and thought I might get away with using those.

2. Do you use pure lead or the alloy that you are currently casting in? My instincts say that you want pure lead because it will be easier to drive through the barrel and leave good rifling marks.

3. Any other suggestions?

[flgolfer29]

Opions may vary, but I've used fishing lead sinkers in the past.


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[swamp]

I have cast boolits of pure lead in various calibres for slugging. They work well for me.
swamp

[Wayne Smith]

Any soft lead that is larger than your bore will work. The larger you have over bore size the longer the rifling mark is - and you have a little donut of lead left, too!

[Bent Ramrod]

I use pure lead round balls. Your .45 caliber balls should work on your .45 caliber guns. Put one on a hard surface and tap with a hammer until it flattens a little on top and swells a little at the equator. You should have enough excess diameter to get a lead ring as the slug goes into your barrel, same as when you load your Old Army.

If you can’t beg a .36 round ball from some other black powder shooter, use the shortest .38 boolit you can find.

[Mmacro]

Thanks for all the advice. Another member suggested following, very helpful thread in a direct message...
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75944-Slugging-a-barrel-How
The biggest thing I had not thought of was how to support a revolver frame so you don’t warp/bend it while driving the slug through the barrel. Taking the barrel out of a semi-auto pistol would have been intuitive... but placing blocking in the frame of a revolver to support the barrel wasn’t.

[gumbo333]

If you have some lead egg sinkers for fishing, they can be easily made larger by squishng them lengthwise in a vice. Probably some YouTube vids on this . And use search on this forum.

[Rcmaveric]

There pretty much isn't a wrong answer when it comes to slugging. You can even just slug the throat and call it a day. That will give you an imprint of the throat and leade, and just the beginning of the riffling. Or just slug the crown end of the barrel. Lightly tap a bullet i in until you get a good imprint then nocknit back out.

I slugged with all kinds of things. Old egg sinker, pure lead RB and bullets cast of normal alloy. Soft lead is easier. Dont forget to lube the lead with somethings like sizing lube. Its a PITA to get started but once it starts all lead types are easy to push through after the first few inches.

I personally just make chamber pound cast and call it now. I size to throat diameter so all I need is the throat. Its also nice to see what your leade looks like. Thats the area where the throat transitions to the riffling.

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[Conditor22]

I also cast the largest boolit I have to each caliber and use that for slugging barrels. Out of the purest/softest lead, I have

Barrel sinkers & round balls work great in a pinch.

NEVER USE A WOOD DOWEL to drive the boolit through, you get one that has a cross-grain and it breaks/jambs in your barrel you will not be happy with yourself.

I like to use a steel rod wrapped with tape until it barely fits in the barrel. (you can use brass, aluminum tends to bend too easily on the smaller calibers.)

I start the slug (after oiling the slug and the barrel) with a leather mallet (you can use wood or rubber)

When the slug is flush with the muzzle I'l use a brass rod to get it 4-5 inches down the barrel giving a good start for my taped metal rod

** shove a rag in the breach, keeps out any excess oil, and stops you from having to chase/search for the slug when it pops through **

[oley55]

Thanks for all the advice. Another member suggested following, very helpful thread in a direct message...
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75944-Slugging-a-barrel-How
The biggest thing I had not thought of was how to support a revolver frame so you don’t warp/bend it while driving the slug through the barrel. Taking the barrel out of a semi-auto pistol would have been intuitive... but placing blocking in the frame of a revolver to support the barrel wasn’t.

I can not imagine how you could damage the frame on a revolver while slugging the barrel. However, you can mess up a revolver pretty good if you leave the cylinder hanging open while whacking on the barrel. The mass of the cylinder can do bad things to the crane.

Not specifically mentioned or fully explained by others is the relationship of the cylinder throat dimensions in relation to the barrel. Depending on brand, some revolver cylinders are sometimes undersized. Meaning the cylinders are swaging the cast bullets down to a size smaller than what the barrel needs and those revolvers will never accept cast bullets without leading (unless the cylinder throats are opened up). Also, it is not uncommon for the cylinders to be different sizes, i.e one or two will be slightly smaller than the others. I have gently honed out a couple but I still stopped short of a perfect match to the sister throats (I was/am too fearful of going too far).

My point of all of that is the need to slug each cylinder throat as well as the barrel on your revolvers. And yes, the cylinder needs to be removed to accomplish this.

edit added: I don't recall with certainty where I read it (in a book), but soft lead barrel sinkers were recommended over a solid slug. The theory being with a barrel sinker there is a place for the lead to flow in to and it will have less spring-back.

[mroliver77]

Soft lead rolled between two stiff pieces of metal plate will reduce the diameter very fast! I bet you could roll the round ball into a cylinder pretty easily. J

[mdi]

I too have used many different slugs for measuring barrels (I slug all new to me firearms whether I plan on cast or jacketed. I like to know my guns). One hint I use a lot is "case slugs". Today I did some casting for 9mm and I wanted to have a few slugs on hand. I started with some softer lead (9-12 BHN?) and filled a few empty 9mm cases. When cool I used my impact bullet pulling tool to remove the lead from the cases. I have a perfect sized, tapered slug for 9mm pistols. I can use the same method got testing alloy hardness...

[gwpercle]

I use bell fishing sinkers , small and pointy on one end larger on the other , round and with a brass swivel to tie line to . Get an idea of what size bore you wish to slug , head down to local fishing and tackle shop and buy an assortment . Some just the size you think is right + some a little larger... hard to judge sizes sometimes .
Clip off the brass swivel and insert the small end into bore and tap down with plastic mallet . Once started in and flush then use a good rod to drive through bore . Grease both bore and sinker with grease ... not oil . Bell sinkers are the easiest to drive into bore , come in an assortment of sizes , easy to find and not expensive . Most are made of pure or nearly pure lead ... check in your state is a lead free zone ... they could be zinc .
Gary

[mehavey]

fishing lead sinkers....OOC: are sinkers actually pure lead?
or just trash lead of any composition ?

[GARD72977]

I use case lube to coat a round ball slightly larger than bore

[OldBearHair]

OOC: ae sinkers actually pure lead?
or just trash lead of any composition ?

Answer is yes in my case. If it looks like lead and melts and I need sinkers, yes. Once I made some some sinkers with the ears that you bend over trapping the line tightly. You could barely bend them with pliers, they were that hard. Probably zinc. LOL

[OldBearHair]

Pleased to know about the barrel sinkers used on the bottom of nets. Stands to reason the hole through the middle of the sinker would be easier to push through the barrel with the displaced lead having a place to go to the center. Thanks

[mdi]

Don't overthink the process. You just want an impression of the barrel ID on a chunk of lead. On occasion I have used a cast bullet about .005" over groove diameter of approx 16 BHN. It worked OK but there are easier methods...

[blackthorn]

Lead alloys tend to have a bit of "spring-back". Pure lead, not so much.

[Petander]

Before using a bullet to slug a barrel, I drill a small hole in the bullet to make it go easier.