pre-treated fire lapping pistol bullets

[lx2008]

hey guy`s,
do you know of any company out there that makes pre-treated pistol boolits for lapping
like David Tubbs products? i have used his with good success for rifles but he has no pistol
boolit products.

[Winger Ed.]

I'd never seen 'em offered.
But it's no big deal to make your own.
Amazon has a bunch of compounds for doing it. From gunsmithing kits to diamond paste ones.

[murf205]

I have read about the procedure to make your own where by you take 2 flat pieces of metal and roll the boolit in the paste with a bit of pressure. I would want to take a clean boolit and roll it on the clean plates to see if it effectively reduced the diameter and if so, by how much to check for the proper amount of pressure on the top plate.

[Mr Peabody]

I've rolled a bunch over the years, following Marshall Stantons ideas on fire lapping. You don't bear down on the boolit hard enough to change the diameter. Every firearm I've done it to shot better

[lx2008]

link to marshall stantons ideas? thnx!

[HWooldridge]

Be careful - it's easy to lengthen a rifle throat and essentially create the same amount of wear that a few thousand normal bullets would generate.

[lx2008]

i`m going to call NECO for some instructions on their kit. but i was wondering if anyone who has done this for 44 mag pistol
can tell me what the the max pressure of the loads should be? from what i have been reading so far reduced loads should be used.
just not sure what max pressure should be. to do this i`ll be using 240 jacketed boolit.

[stubshaft]

You do NOT want max pressure. What you want is a very slow bullet that will NOT lead the bore. I used 44 special loads to fire-lap my SBH (7.0 Herco, 200 gr bullet).

[GregLaROCHE]

I’m surprised they are available in rife calibers. As others have said, they aren’t that hard to make yourself.

[megasupermagnum]

i`m going to call NECO for some instructions on their kit. but i was wondering if anyone who has done this for 44 mag pistol
can tell me what the the max pressure of the loads should be? from what i have been reading so far reduced loads should be used.
just not sure what max pressure should be. to do this i`ll be using 240 jacketed boolit.

Pressure is no concern. Velocity is the concern. Definitely read the instructions, but basically you want to shoot that bullet as slow as you possibly can, which turns out to be in the 400-500 fps range. You start with a load that sticks the bullet in the barrel, and work up from there until they clear the barrel. They should have suggestions for loads for you to start with .You obviously need to be very careful, and you will need a rod to knock a few bullets out of the barrel. I like to shoot a target when doing this so I can see that bullet hit and know for sure it came out.

[lx2008]

thanks for the input guys.

[rusty marlin]

I have read about the procedure to make your own where by you take 2 flat pieces of metal and roll the boolit in the paste with a bit of pressure. I would want to take a clean boolit and roll it on the clean plates to see if it effectively reduced the diameter and if so, by how much to check for the proper amount of pressure on the top plate.

You're over thinking it. Just roll with enough force to embed the grit and wipe off the excess.

[rusty marlin]

Use lead, not jacketed. The lead conforms to the rifling better and can be shot with much less pressure.

[Barry54]

Has anyone tried the Puff-Lon fire lapping ballistic filler?

http://www.pufflon.com/FireLappingFiller.html

[charlie b]

If you have cast bullets and some lapping compound then just go with it. I've only helped do two guns (both were pistols). Both had pretty bad chatter marks in the barrel. We did two different grits, IIRC 10 rounds each (don't remember the grit sizes). It cleaned them up enough that they stopped collecting lead from cast bullets. They were not collector guns.

[murf205]

You're over thinking it. Just roll with enough force to embed the grit and wipe off the excess.
Soft boolits, as in almost pure lead?

[Gtek]

Pistol or revolver? A lot of other things to consider IMHO before you start feeding grinder boolits. Throats, cones, groove diameters, thread choke, etc. should all be investigated before first step. Depends on what you are trying to "fix" and remember you can't put that metal back!

[lx2008]

i`m planing on doing a model sw 69. they are EDM rifled. my shooting buddy bought one...impulse ( which is why i bought one) and his didnt
shoot very good groups @ 25yds (2.25 to 3.0in ) using 240gr jhp factory. he decided to lap the bbl. and now with the same factory loads he`s getting 1.25 to 2.0 groups. whether is true or not i & he read that edm rifled bbls. can be really good from the factory or just so so.

i was using the same factory loads as his and from 25yds my 69 was shooting about the same as his before lapping. i`m not going to do this yet, i`m still going to get some more information beforehand but as long as i do this right...and yes when i decide to do or not, i`ll be using lead 240 gr "keith style" from Missouri Bullets.

[charlie b]

Soft boolits, as in almost pure lead?

We used wheel weight lead.

[charlie b]

FWIW, the best way to accomplish all this is with lapping. It takes a bit more effort and is best done with a jig to hold the lap rod and barrel in alignment, but, it treats the entire barrel 'equally' and does not erode the throat/chamber.

[Gtek]

The few that I have done, the cylinders were pinned and I was happy, forcing cone close enough. So, I took a small artist brush and cut it off and placed the mixture in a VERY, VERY thin coating in forward cone area and I used range scrap on full wad cutters tumble lubed and @ 700ish. Years back chasing thread choke I went the other way with same application. Brushed grit from rear just past choke/frame area and pounded through pure slugs from front on through. Very slow and tedious but can get you where you want if patient. My fear has always been on doing this with loaded rounds in revolvers is possible damage to throats. But if they were found undersized now I think I would blast away monitoring throat and then send Mr. Doug a cylinder to make perfect for application if it worked out that way.

[Bigslug]

I've done a number at this point to remove frame crush from the rear of the barrels. As others have said, you want enough powder to reliably get the bullets pooping out the muzzle, but not a great deal more. If they're hitting the ground less that 25 yards in front of you, you're on the right track. Make sure you see a downrange impact EVERY time, and have a brass rod and mallet handy for when you get one that sticks.

Going in, one other thing to check is if you have uniform diameter of your cylinder throats. In cases where some are tighter, I shoot my fire-lappers ONLY out of those chambers.

It's also worth taking your cleaning equipment and pin gauges to the range with you so you can verify that the frame crush is gone from your bore and your chambers have reached uniformity. If you don't have a set of pin gauges, get one (MSC). In this game of bullet casting, you'll find it pays its way VERY quickly.

[fecmech]

I had a rough throat in a 94 Winchester .357. I put automotive rubbing compound in the lube grooves (instead of lube) of some wadcutters and shot them. Cleaned the throat up nicely.

[lx2008]

dont want to beat this thread to death but i found an article in an old handloader magazine of mine about lapping bbls.
i was about a fellow who hand lapped his bbl. using a fire lapping kit only instead of embedding the series of finer grit compounds
in boolits, he use a lot of cotton bore mops in with each finer compound. anyone ever hand lapped this way? basically just "scrubing" the bbl with each compound.

[crash87]

I use the LBT method, have done on quite a few revolvers. Mostly to get rid of thread choke, but also smooths out rough spots where roll engraving was used on the barrel. Fermin explains it very well here.....
https://gunblast.com/FerminGarza-Firelapping.htm