Bullet stripping

[lead chucker]

I was cleaning my 44 red hawk and pushing a tight patch through the barrel I found lead shavings on the patch thin long ones. Can this be bullet stripping?
I have not had this problem till i heat treated my bullets. They are a brinell 18 acording to my tester. Mabe some of you more experienced guys can give me some insight on this, I hope . Lots and lots to learn about this.

[303Guy]

Hi lead chucker.:drinks:

Might I ask what the BHN was before heat treating? Any idea of the exact composition of your alloy? (I don't have a direct answer for you but your finding is likely to be of interest to quite a few folks - have you looked at the threads on BHN vs Speed and Stripping: Are you part of the problem? You have a valuable contribution to make, I suspect!)

[Calamity Jake]

It may be stripping I don't know but you have the solution to the problem!!!!




DON'T HEAT TREAT this boolit for this application!!!

[243winxb]

My guess is the lead shaving are just displaces lead cut from the bullet as it takes the lands. When testing the difference between air cooled and oven hear treated/water cooled in 45 acp, i find the harder bullets leave the shavings & a dirtier barrel. Accuracy was the same, no difference. Alloy was WW with some pure, hardness unknow. I feel its not stripping, but not sure. Soft lead bullets seem to push the excess lead from the lands to the base of the bullet & not shave it.

[lead chucker]

303 Guy Thanks for your reply I use 50/50 ww to lead and 2.5% tin I think they were a brinell of 6 Im using the lyman 429/421 mold with 22 gr. 2400 It shoots nice groups. My crono says im pusshing them 1550 fps. The lead on the patch is like little shards of glass. My softer bullets lead the barell but but not bad.

[runfiverun]

cut the tin back from 2.5% to 1% and see what you get.
you have exceeded the antimonial content with your tin, causing hard spots of free tin surrounded by soft spots of pure lead.
the other thing you can do is switch to a slower powder at the same velocity.

[lwknight]

cut the tin back from 2.5% to 1% and see what you get.
you have exceeded the antimonial content with your tin, causing hard spots of free tin surrounded by soft spots of pure lead.
the other thing you can do is switch to a slower powder at the same velocity.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Tin and lead alloy and blend perfectly , regardless of antimony content.
Its antimony that will not mix well with lead without enough tin to bind it.

Sorry Runfiverun, but that was just wrong. A high antimony content with too little tin will seem hard but , in reality will be pure soft lead with hard antimony crystals in it.

[btroj]

What are you sizing them to? My super redhawk leads badly with that bullet unless I beagle it so I can size to .432.
I tried diffferent sized bullets til I found one that was a snug fit in the cylinder mouths. That largely stopped the leading- and improved accuracy too.

Brad

[44man]

That makes no sense whatsoever. Tin and lead alloy and blend perfectly , regardless of antimony content.
Its antimony that will not mix well with lead without enough tin to bind it.

Sorry Runfiverun, but that was just wrong. A high antimony content with too little tin will seem hard but , in reality will be pure soft lead with hard antimony crystals in it.
I have to agree with this, too much tin is just a waste of money and around 2% TOTAL tin is about right for a good alloy. What you can figure the WW's have must be added.
Leadchucker, that boolit is just too soft for the velocity and even though the powder is slow, you are slumping the heck out of them and skidding the rifling. Take the boolits to 100% WW's and water drop them. Even harder alloys would be better.
Even 50-50 with a little tin, water dropped, aged, will give you fliers but stop the leading. That will give you 18 to 22 BHN and toughen the whole boolit.
Those strips you find are being mechanically sheared from the boolits because they can't take the initial spin of the rifling.
You confuse me when you say they were heat treated but are 6 BHN???? That is almost pure lead. Are your WW's full of stick on weights? They will not harden without enough antimony with a trace of arsenic.
On top of that, too much pure will make smaller boolits that might not fit the gun. Tin will do nothing to help that.

[longbow]

I will weigh in here with my Marlin experience.

I used to get considerable leading using top end loads. The leading I tended to get was just like you describe ~ long streamers that would strip out (usually) on a tight patch with brass jag.

Turns out the boolit was undersize or, at least marginally. Going to a fat boolit of 0.002" over groove diameter fixed it.

I would slug the barrel to determine groove diameter then make sure you are using a boolit of at least groove diameter or preferably 0.001" larger.

I have also read that many revolvers are tight at the barrel threads so squeeze the boolit slightly undersize as it enters. If yours is like that then it could be that your softer boolits obturated to reseal after the tight spot while the harder ones did not.

FWIW

Longbow

[44man]

I will weigh in here with my Marlin experience.

I used to get considerable leading using top end loads. The leading I tended to get was just like you describe ~ long streamers that would strip out (usually) on a tight patch with brass jag.

Turns out the boolit was undersize or, at least marginally. Going to a fat boolit of 0.002" over groove diameter fixed it.

I would slug the barrel to determine groove diameter then make sure you are using a boolit of at least groove diameter or preferably 0.001" larger.

I have also read that many revolvers are tight at the barrel threads so squeeze the boolit slightly undersize as it enters. If yours is like that then it could be that your softer boolits obturated to reseal after the tight spot while the harder ones did not.

FWIW

Longbow
It is true that a soft boolit can expand to obturate after the tight spot, but accuracy is fleeting, the boolit is ruined by then.

[243winxb]

2.5% tin is not wanted for oven heat treating and water dropping. 2% to 6% antimony is all thats needed with .5% tin. But you still may get the lead shavings. My 45acp loads with 5.0gr 700X had the shavings when heat treated, none with air cooled, same alloy & lube.

[DLCTEX]

44 Man: He said in the first post that the BHN was 18 after heat treating. In #5 he was responding to the question of what was the BHN before heat treating.