cleaning the out lead with jacketed bullet

[lead chucker]

Any one heard of cleaning the lead out of your barrel by shooting jacketed bullets through it i have heard of guys doing this. Any info would be great.

[shooterchris]

Rifle or pistol barrel?

[JeffinNZ]

Good idea but how do you get the copper out to shoot lead again?

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Sweet's. BvT

[JIMinPHX]

My wife's pistol leads up a fair amount. If we put 2 jacketed rounds through it at the end of a shooting session, it pushes 80% of the lead out but does not leave any brass behind. That makes for the easiest cleaning. If we put 5 rounds of jacketed through it, then I have to clean out a little brass too. I've had similar experience with a few other guns over the years.

[pdawg_shooter]

Try 5 or 6 paper patched bullets. Not only cleans but polishes the bore!

[44man]

I have heard that a bullet can iron lead to the bore so tight it is hard to remove.
I don't know because my bores don't lead so I just clean them before jacketed and again after. Even if I shoot the wrong boolit alloy with a PB, it wipes out with a patch or two.
Mr. Baker at Freedom says shooting jacketed over lead will warp the bore out of round and also enlarge it. He might have a point because the magnum bullets are a lot tougher. [smilie=l:
Don't argue with me about it, I didn't say it! :holysheep

[Rocky Raab]

Short of heavy instrumentation and high-speed photography, I don't know how it could be proved, but I have long SUSPECTED that the ironed-in theory is correct. I can't see how lead that's hit by the shallow angle of the bullet's ogive gets pushed out before it gets ironed in. There'd be a lot more force perpendicular to the bore than parallel to it, in other words.

[Lloyd Smale]

been doing it for years on minor leading. I dont have any guns with major leading problems or there fixed or sold. when shooting a gun like a 1911 i just run a few jacketed through it after shooting maybe 500 rounds. Im one that rarely cleans a handgun barrel. I just never saw a use too. If its not leading it sure not going to rust with a coating of bullet lube in there. About every 5 years i get the bug up my but and clean all my handgun barrels.

[9.3X62AL]

Call it a "response to training", but I was told as a young shooter to clean any bullet metal accumulation from a barrel before changing to another type of bullet metal. Most of my barrels don't metal-foul very much, but I still persist in this ingrained practice/belief. It seems like one of those things that may not do a lot of good, but likely does no harm either.

I share Rocky's view that the possibility exists of ironing lead into a bore by shooting jacketed bullets over a leaded barrel, though I'm not able to prove it. His reasoning is sound, and I'm prepared to believe it. With the good copper removing solvents available today--and the Chore-Boy pads at the ready--I see no reason to put up with metal fouling of any kind in this day and age.

[AZ-Stew]

A story that's been posted here before, but bears repeating...

30+ years ago a friend of mine showed me a M-28 Smith Highway Patrolman 6 inch that had a bulge in the barrel just ahead of the frame. Here's how it got there.

The revolver belonged to a friend of my friend. He wanted to do some cheap shooting, so he bought some of the Speer swaged lead semi-wadcutters. These bullets are nearly dead-soft lead and are excellent for shooting up to 900 fps or so. Instead of studying their limitations in the Speer reloading manual, he made the assumption that he could shoot full-power .357 Magnum loads with them. After a dozen or so shots, accuracy went out the window. The barrel was heavily leaded and bullets were "squirting" through the remaining opening in the barrel. His shooting buddies that day recommended that he shoot out the lead using a couple of jacketed rounds. The first one treated the leading as a bore obstruction and bulged the barrel.

A very light amount of lead streaking near the muzzle can safely be removed with jacketed loads, but full-length barrel leading should be addressed by other methods.

Regards,

Stew

[Dframe]

Well said. For VERY light leading I've been known to put a j-word or two down the bore.
For everything else there is the Lewis lead remover!

[Slow Elk 45/70]

AZstew has it right, you best pay attention to How Much Lead is in the BBL before blasting full power jacketed bullets through it... I have also seen lead "Ironed' in by j-bullets and then it is pure He.. to get out....use the conventional methods to remove lead or copper fowling , it isn't that much work when done properly and regularly.

[Don McDowell]

Any one heard of cleaning the lead out of your barrel by shooting jacketed bullets through it i have heard of guys doing this. Any info would be great.

It's bullspit. If you have lead in the barrel a jacketed bullet won't remove it.
Been there done that , recovered jacketed bullets with lead smeared on them and still had to scrub and scrape and scrub to get the lead out. Most of what folks think is leading being removed is most likely just lube/powder fouling.

[ph4570]

In both my 1885 45-70 and 1885 38-55 I get a slight leading just beyond the chamber. It is not much even after many shots. It is not a chore to remove the small amount using standard methods.

I normally shoot PB boolits. A while back I tested some GC boolits as the last 10 shots. Low and behold -- when cleaned there was no leading. So, I have begun to shot a couple or three "cleaner" GC loads a the end of the range session. That cuts about 5 minutes out of the cleaning time.

[462]

My logic says that lead should be removed with a Chore Boy or Lewis Lead Remover, and copper fouling by Sweet's 7.62 or Montana Extreme's Copper Killer...or similar methods and products.

[Recluse]

I don't get it. . .

My guns, most of them, cost me somewhere between $500 and $1500.

Why would I want to risk damage or harm by running a copper bullet behind a bunch of lead bullets when it would only cost pennies and and a little time to properly clean the barrels out?

And I'm with Al--early training going all the way back to my daddy and grandaddy, up through and especially the military, then law enforcement. . . I had it drilled into me that when it came to guns, cleanliness was godliness as well as a very cheap insurance policy for which you set the price and terms.

Either a bit of Chore Boy or 0000 steel wool wrapped around an old bore brush soaked in a bit of solvent (Hoppe's #9 or Ed's Red or Shooter's Choice) and a few strokes generally gets the lead--what little there is of it--out of the barrel.

But not being a particularly fond fan of leading, I prefer to slug the barrel and determine what size/diameter boolit I need to cast, size, load and shoot.

:coffee:

[S.R.Custom]

...A while back I tested some GC boolits as the last 10 shots. Low and behold -- when cleaned there was no leading. So, I have begun to shot a couple or three "cleaner" GC loads a the end of the range session. That cuts about 5 minutes out of the cleaning time.

Indeed. The leading edge of that gas check really seems to scrape that stuff out of there.

[454PB]

A gas checked boolit does remove heavy leading, but so will a plain base boolit at very reduced velocity. I've used barrel slugging to remove heavy leading in revolvers. It was easier to slug the barrel than shoot a light load or scrub it out the conventional way.

Just be sure the boolit makes it all the way out of the barrel.

[Lloyd Smale]

Yup a gas checked bullet or even a bullet cast very hard will do the same. Especially if its a kieth style bullet with a sharp shoulder. As to damaging an expensive gun. I couldnt immagine owning an expensive gun that leaded so bad that i couldnt shoot a jacketed bullet through it to take care of the little leading that i got. For the most part most guns that arent in need of repair my lead a little but they lead to a point and dont get worse and the small ammount of leading that occours really doesnt hurt anything. If your using a proper alloy (hard) and a good lube and have a bullet fitted properly to the gun and it still leads bad there somethng wrong. You should NEVER have to scrub lead out of a gun with a brush or harse chemicals. Like i said i rarely clean handgun barrels and have guns that have shot well over a 1000 rounds without touching a barrel brush to them. As to all the internet experts that claim you will do damage shooting a couple jacketed bullets through a mildy lead fouled gun i say BS. Ive been doing it for twenty years and have handguns worth well over 2 grand and it hasnt hurt them yet. Its nothing i would do if i had leading so bad i couldnt see rifling but then that would be a one time cleaning as the gun would be sold the next day. I personaly havent put a brush to a handgun barrel in over 10 years and probably never will again. If you put any stock in John Linebaughs experience (and i do) he preaches that a gun wont even give its best accuracy until at least 50 rounds of cast have "seasoned" the barrel. We dont some testing that showed that well this wasnt allways the case that it was extreamly rare that a gun shot worse and most did shoot better. you cringe at shooting jacketed bullets through an expensive gun and i cringe at running a brush and rod through mine and risking the damage that can do. Especially when im probably going to get worse accuracy for a while by doing it. Lots of guys make the mistake of working up loads for a sixgun then just before they go hunting they scrub the **** out of it just asking for a first shot flyer. I chuckle at guys that go out and shoot a box of shells through a sixgun then run home and scrub the **** out of it. I relate it to hammering a couple nails with your hammer then taking metal polish to it to shine it up before you put it away.

[44man]

Darn it Lloyd, I have to catch my breath when I read your long paragraphs! :mrgreen:
But I agree, I sometimes only clean the cylinders when the STP on the pin gets so mucked up it starts to get hard to turn.
I solve the problem of jacketed by never buying any.
I had to clean my .44 recently because Whitworth borrowed it to test Hornady 300 gr bullets on pigs for an article. There was no lead but it sure was filthy.
He slammed some pigs at pretty long range, loves my SBH so I hope I get it back! :Fire:

[Don McDowell]

There's no need to "put a brush" to a barrel to get the lead out. A flannel patch wet with either pure gum spirits of turpentine or Kroil fitted on a jag will lift the lead right out.