Not a Glock but I have fired a few hundred cast boolits out of my CZ82 ((mm makarov w/polygonal barrel) and have had no leading to speak of.
I use liquid alox, and a hard cast 95gr bullet.
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Not a Glock but I have fired a few hundred cast boolits out of my CZ82 ((mm makarov w/polygonal barrel) and have had no leading to speak of.
I use liquid alox, and a hard cast 95gr bullet.
Also not a Glock, but my Kahr PM-45 uses the same rifling as a Glock. Kahr does NOT advise against using lead bullets.
I just finished the break-in of the gun as recommended in the manual. I fired 200 rounds, of which 150 were lead (WCWW) 225 RN from a SAECO mould of mine.
I fired all 200 rounds with out cleaning (after the initial cleaning). There is a small amount of leading in the barrel, but nothing to be alarmed about.
Twenty years ago I purchased a new Glock in .40 S&W. I ran 180 gr cast LTC's thru it for a good year. Never had any trouble. Having been a soldier all my adult life I cleaned my glock after every shooting session.
Then I read an article in one of the gun magazines about lead build-up in Glock barrels when firing cast lead bullets. This article mentioned a 10,000 round torture test without cleaning the barrel before they ran into pressure problems due to lead build up in the barrel.
My question at the time was, "Who does not clean their barrel/gun before putting it up?"
It had always been drilled into my head that you clean your weapon as soon as posible after shooting.
I worked in an indoor range for about 15 years and only saw one glock that had a problem. Someone was shooting reloaded ammo and had a jacketed bullet lodge in the barrel and fired another round on top of it. Left a ring and bulge in the barrel that trevented the slide from coming back far enough to pick up the next round in the mag.
I sold cases of lead .40 S&W ammo to Glock shooters during that time span and none of them ever had a problem with accuracy or functioning using lead bullets.
Absolutely right!!!! .....Never let the sun set on a dirty gun!!!!!!Quote:
My question at the time was, "Who does not clean their barrel/gun before putting it up?"
Kent
Hi cowboy. I hope you don't think I was chewing you out (but it looks like you do, since mine was the only post after yours...). All I said was watch out for the guy that runs the Gun Zone, and then went into answering your questions. I certainly don't mind you having an opinion, any more or less than anyone else (including me). As an objective investigator of this issue, I figured you, or others following along, should be aware of that website-author's bias. That's all.
My experiences do disagree with the anti-lead camp, but I'm open-minded and eager to listen and learn, if it's quality information that is scientific. The info at the Gun Zone is a lot like the Marshal and Sanow "study" of ballistics. A survey of events is actually just a series of anecdotes and without the scientific method sorting out things one variable at a time, it doesn't meet my criteria of proof. If someone can show me absolute proof that lead is bad in poly-rifling, I'd accept it and go with jacketed 100% of the time. Absent that, my personal experience (again not scientifically valid) is that lead is safe...
For the general discussion:
One of the interesting things about lead-bulleted ammo, is that the vast majority of it is handloaded. I know that a significant amount of catastrophic failures in pistols are connected to handloading mistakes or hot-rodding (vs. any issue about what material the bullet is made from). Wonder if there's a correlation here?
We all know that with conventionally-rifled barrels there is variations in quality of finish between rough and smooth barrels. I wonder if there is some variation of "rough-bore" vs. "smooth-bore" in the hammer-forging process of the Glock barrels? (With the rougher ones having serious problems with leading while the smooth ones do not?)
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i had a glock 17 and i have to say that except for my own ignorance in not paying attention to a squib load the factory barrel was just fine an actualy held up quite well until that squib bulged the barrel i cant say that about any of the replacement barrels execpt for the wilson combat.
one note is that it did seem to not group very well and hitting anything past 25 yards was iffy. but the wilson combat barrel shot much tighter. although i didn't play around with diffent powder or bullets
I own a Glock 30, I shoot cast for it all the time, no problems noted.
I might have shot 1000 all told through it, and very little leading, I use LLA, and shoot as cast from the Lee 200 TL mould.
I have now graduated up to a Ruger Alaskan, but SWMBO uses it now....
I am happy with cast in a Glock, a lot cheaper, and i get the home made feeling.....
I posted this on TFL, edited it to put here after a copy and paste. I'll follow this with another post with the results.
I'm sick and tired of HEARING the hogwash about no lead in factory glock barrels. Also as a kind of SHTF readiness, I just bought a 6 cav lee mold for a 175 grain lead boolit. It's the lee 175 TC. I cast 3-400 Sunday. they're "drying" the lee liquid allox right now. later today, I loaded some using WW 231. I'm going to keep a critical eye on lead build-up inside the barrel. My glock M-22 is at least 10 Y.O. and has thousands of jacketed and plated bullets through it.
I did a hardness test using the lee tester. 12.5 BHN! That's fine for this application. If they lead too much, I'll cast them from a harder alloy.
It's all about doing hard cast boolits for glocks. AND most importantly keeping an eye open for leading as it occurs, or doesn't occur. Then being darn careful with regular cleaning.
They will be shot unsized,(they're running .402-.403). IF they can be loaded that big and still pass my cartridge case gauge. Otherwise, I'll get a lee sizer for .400.
Just got home from the range! It was raining, windy and 36 degrees, so my shooting was INDOORS, BRRRR! My club has a 10 position 50 ft HEATED indoor range. I sat down, using a rest to shoot from.
Now for the results; First load was 4.8 WW-231. I thoroughly cleaned the barrel before leaving home. I shot 5, then took a look down the tube. Normal fouling. The group was only okay, nothing to crow about! Couldn't keep them all in the black of a 50 ft. NRA slow fire target. Next came the 17 I had left of the 4.8 charge, they went into a group of around 5". My glock will keep all shots inside the 3" bull with plated or jacketed ammo.
Then came the 5.0 load, it went into a 2.5 inch group,(5 shots). Fired shells showed no sign of pressure. Another look down the BBL. showed no signs of lead build up, EXCEPT a little just in front of the chamber.
Now for the 5.4 load, with 2 flyers THAT WERE KEYHOLED, over 7"! Now the leading had progressed half way down the barrel.
Next the top load of 5.7. Over 8" with two flyers were classic, complete, keyholes! Now the barrel is leaded all the way to the muzzle. Not heavily leaded, but a light smear all along the thrust side of the rifling band. Also, one empty shell showed a slight guppy belly just ahead of the extractor groove. I now have 5 shells to pull apart.
What did I learn? 1, the alloy I used is way too soft. A link on this thread was to another thread where someone said the BHN should be around 18 for lead in glocks. Okay I can do that! 2, ww-231 is too fast for this lead boolit. I want case life from my reloads, the top load showed high pressure, I would have to retire too many cases. 3, if I would have continued to shoot all but the first 2 loads, I would have enough lead build up to cause higher pressures. All of this can and will be solved with a harder,(18 BHN), alloy.
I have used three glocks with lead. A 21 that will shoot any amount of 452 boolits of most any hardness without leading. The two 22s I used leaded so badly using wcww at .401 that in less than one magazine full the boolits were hitting sideways at 10 yds. I don't know why and as the 22s weren't mine I didn't bother to find out.
I mixed up a harder alloy. I thought it would be hard enough. Uh-huh, add this one to the best laid plans of mice and men! The original alloy consists of lino 3# to 17# of nearly pure lead,(it contains perhaps 1% tin). The new mix was 14# lino to 4# of the nearly pure counterweight metal. Cast last night, this morning they test at 14.5 BHN.
I gave them a bath in LLA, then tried something new. I put them in the oven @ 170 degrees. An hour later they were dry! Well, as dry as LLA ever gets!:roll: I'll load some more at the same levels a the last test groups.
I'm going to try to water drop some of those to see if I can up the BHN some.?
I loaded some last night to try today at the 5.0 ww-231 level, and a few at 5.7. The 5.0 load grouped better than the first bunch. No leading at all! Then I shot the 5.7 loads, this time no keyholes but the group was 3x the 5.0 group. Also the hotter load shows some leading, same as before.
Okay, I have a decent load for plinking. Once the weather turns to spring, the range road opens up, I'll go do a torture test. I'm going to load 2 -3 hundred of these, shoot 50 at a time while checking the barrel for lead build up. Won't be for a couple of weeks, but I'll report back on this thread when it's done.
Oh, I water dropped some more I cast last night. Cold as the water comes from the tap. NO DIFFERENCE! Compared to air cooled, same alloy. Do I need to add some shot to get some arsenic in the alloy?
If you let those bullets age they'll get much much harder. You're shooting them too soon. I know how that is am I'm anxious to shoot right away too.
Joe
Your sarcasm is noted, since you didn't have a smiley to make me think you were saying that with humor. If you don't want/like a glock, then don't buy one!:mad:Quote:
If you cant use real bullets in a Glock, can you use it as a water pistol? Should work, all the water pistols I ever saw were plastic.
Joe, I know they will age harden. In fact I'm counting on it. Since it will be a couple weeks before I can torture test these,(muddy season closes the range road until it dries), they will have a chance to harden. I'll load a couple hundred, then do a box, then check the barrel.Quote:
If you let those bullets age they'll get much much harder. You're shooting them too soon. I know how that is am I'm anxious to shoot right away too.
I have generally not fired lead bullets in my Glocks. However, looks like we are in a survival mode so some some experiments were done. My G21 ran well on the 200 gr. lead SWC's-Lyman 452460. There was some leading. Glocks, HK's Sig's and a S&W were in this mini test. The S&W 4566 was to worst. The Glock 30 would not run with these loads-FTF. The HK's and Sig did best. The G21 cleaned up quickly and appears to be usable with lead bullets as a last resort. Accuracy was much better with jacket bullets in the G21. Basically, none of these guns were designed with lead bullets in mind. I have been told on good authority that shooting lead bullets in a Glock is risky business. The day may be coming when we may have no other option.
Maybe 5 had ayears ago glock 23 in 40 cal. back of case blow out . Blew the Mag out of the gun and to pieces. broke the extractor. Had powder burns on my hands Scared the living Hoo out of me... Very lucky I did not get hurt. :-o
I've had my Glock 20 for 20+ years and have put virtually thousands of rounds of lead through the stock barrel without a single problem, including leading. Same holds true for my Glock 22 which I've had for over 15 years and have shot virtually only lead through during that time. I clean after every 200 rounds or at the end of each session, whichever comes first, my boolits are cast with an alloy of my own making that is very close to Taracorp's Magnum Alloy (2/6/92) and tests at about 14 BHN, sized .401 and lubed with the NRA formula 50/50 which I get from White Label Lubes.
Having said this, I recently purchased Lone Wolf barrels for both of my Glocks, expecting that the tighter cut chambers and broach cut barrels would make a noticeable difference in accuracy. While these new barrels are definitely tighter in chamber dimensions and do a much better job of supporting the full cartridge case, I really haven't noticed any increased accuracy but that may just be due to my 71 y.o. eyesight causing the problem.
Anyway, my conclusion is that the problems that some Glock owners have had in using lead in their factory barrels may well be due to lack of a proper cleaning schedule and/or 'pushing the envelope' when it comes to loads. With extremely high pressure loads you will indeed 'Glock' your brass which will eventually weaken that portion of the case, especially if successive reloads continue to put undue stress on the 'Glocked' case areas. If this practice is continued long enough, it's only asking for a 'Kaboom' to happen!!
sleeper1428
[QUOTE=snuffy;530565]Your sarcasm is noted, since you didn't have a smiley to make me think you were saying that with humor. If you don't want/like a glock, then don't buy one!:mad:
Sound advise that ill surely take :)
At my gun club I have seen at least three Glocks blow up. TOTAL destroyed the guns! I was standing behind one shooter scoring him when his Glock blew up. Can it be done? Sure? SHOULD it be done? That is another question I can't answer for you.
3X, huh? Any injuries? Stout guns should help contain mishaps. I've seen a few oddities with 1911s, including one of my own, and no injuries.
I've seen a glock in .45 ACP blow up. Shooter was using a Dillon 550, was having trouble with it not operating correctly. Ended up with some heavily charged loads. Whether the glock or the dillon is the problem I can't be sure. I can say that they come apart in a heckuva hurry.
I had a Glock 17, but it got stolen. I do not remember it having polygonal rifling. I think it had the standard square rifling. I got a letter from Glock about a year after it was stolen stating that there was a safety problem with the trigger. Some police officers were shooting themselves in the foot while holstering their Glocks. [I hope the guy who stole my Glock shot himself in the foot.] I never shot lead out of it because jacketed bullets were only a few pennies more than lead and it wasn't worth it. I sized a .358 125 gr semi-jacketed hollowpoint down to fit in the Glock 17 and had no problems. I only shot lead bullets out of my 357 or 22LR.
I have a Jarvis barrel for my Glock 17 and a Storm Lake barrel for my Glock 26. I am a real Glock fan so I don't want to take a chance with leading. Never shot lead through any of my factory Glock barrels yet. Chamber support seems fine on factory Glock barrels in 9 mm. and .357 Sig, but my 40 S & W cases come out with a pronounced bulge near the case head, so I think that would be another reason not to use a factory barrel in .40 S & W. Just my 2 cents worth.
exile
'bout time I do a follow-up to my post #52.
I haven't had time to do a lot of shooting this year. But I did shoot a bunch of the a fore mentioned 5.0 231 loads with the 14.5 BHN boolits. I haven't tested the hardness again, but I'd bet the BHN has gone up since they were cast.
Any way, I've shot around 200 rounds using only the cast 175 TC lee boolit at targets on the 25 yard range. All manner of shooting, slow aimed off-hand at a steel swinger target of mine, paper targets, and clay birds on a MTM target stand. I even put up a silhouette, played rattle battle, or bill drills, where you shoot as fast as you can safely.
RESULTS? I'd shoot a box of 50, pull the barrel to take a look-see at the sky. Minimal leading! While I did have a cleaning kit along, I didn't bother to run a patch through the barrel. The leading/fouling DID NOT INCREASE, just stayed about the same. After the range session, I cleaned first with a solvent soaked patch. There was almost no metallic lead on that first patch, that after more than 200 lead boolits through it. The bore was then shiny and appeared to be clean. I'm wondering if what I thought was leading was just residual lube smeared on the bore.
I'm satisfied with this load, I have a thousand cast up, and 500 loaded. I'm still gonna keep an eye on the leading scenario, never can be to diligent.
i own the G32 .357sig and have shot a few hundred rounds of commerical cast from hunter's supply. I used 7.8gr of unique. the pistol handled well and functioned without any cause for alarm.
i have thought about getting another barrel for it just for shooting cast, and also another barrel for my g19. i love my glocks and want to take care of them the best i can and if i need substitute barrels then i'll just do it and keep on keeping on.
The rifling form in Martini BP rifles was that of Henry not Medford. Due to the temporary lack of j.......d bullets experiments were done with lead bullet using Lyman 452374 and Lyman 401043 molds. The latter included regular RN bullets and wonderfully converted HP mold by Erik. The .40’s were shot in a G27, SIG229 and HK USPc. No lead. The .45 bullets were fired in two HK's. No lead. These bullets were also fired in a G36, G30 and G21 with no lead. These bullets were from WW alloy using 50:50 Lube and Unique powder-still searching for loads. The accuracy, at the worst, was usable. It is still a work in progress. This experiment is in its early stages having only fired two hundred and fifty rounds in the past several weeks. Back in the day when problems were first attributed to cast bullets those guns were wrecked as if there was a double charge of a fast powder.
I own a Glock 35 I replaced the barrel with a Lone Wolf barrel, it shoots as well as the Glock barrel with cast boolits. I have put many hundreds of rounds trough both barrels. The reason I changed was the uncertainty every time I pulled the trigger. I’m not really as enamored with the Glock any more; I like my Springfield XDM .40 better and may trade the Glock in for a .45 of some type.
We have 2 Glocks, 1 is a highly modified G20 10mm with KKM barrel and 4 port comp, I do shoot lead bullets and read all the posts at other forums and decided when I wanted to make the G20 10mm into a deer hunting gun I would forgo any BS and order the KKM barrel and comp. Have had "0" issues with leading with this barrel. But as others have said here, the key to reduceing or eliminating leading in any fire arm is slugging your barrel and sizeing bullets accordingly. Along with makeing your aloy the right hardness as well. That is time consumeing though, but a very nessecary evil in order to make the correctly sized bullets shoot very well.
My Wife also has a G22 in 40 S&W with a Wolff barrel and she shoots my home cast bullets with "0" issues as well.
Thats my 2 bits on that subject.
Why would anyone even want a Glock???
It is quite possible that lead has nothing to do with KB's at all other than it is easier to push a lead bullet back in the case if proper crimping or sizing is not followed. If a Glock has a tendency to push the bullet back into the case while chambering and still going to battery and the load is hot, abnormal pressures will cause drastic problems especially since .40's are marginal anyway. A good half or more Kb's probably happen from double charges because people blow up all kinds of guns all of the time and it is never their fault plus people love to run with disaster stories.
Having re-Glocked myself recently with a 40 S&W caliber Model 23, I've run it a few times since bringing it home 9 days ago, and 2/3 of the 300 rounds I've fired have been castings, through a Storm Lake after-market barrel. The second sequence with castings left a bit of leading in the bore, this in the SL barrel. It is brand-new, so is largely unseasoned with oils/solvents and has yet to have any jacketed bullets run through it. I generally run 100-300 j-words through any barrel before trying castings, and should have done so. I'll correct that oversight before any more castings get run down that tube. A bit of Chore Boy on a played-out bore brush with Hoppe's removed all the deposits easily.
I may give the OEM barrel a try with the castings as well. I ran 100 j-words through it already, and it had some shooting with the redcoats prior to my purchase, based on the now-cleaned copper sheen inside the bore at time of purchase. Both barrels are VERY smoothly-finished internally, as-found.
Like I said earlier, I'm sure the Kbs have nothing to do with leading. We had a new gun at work Kb on the first mag. I think it has more to do with the 40+cals lack of support in the chamber area which results in swelling of fired cases at the base, which occasionally prevents the gun returning to battery and the Glocks ability to fire when slightlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out of battery. Thats what we found at work (when I was there, which I'm not now :D :D :D :D).
I've been considering a Glock, in the 10mm flavor for a while now. Just wish there were more of a selection in that arena.
Does this exhibit the same unsupported cartridge base area, as the 40 S&W?
Would like to shoot some cast from one as well if I go that route. I see Lone Wolf has the aftermarket barrel for that as well.
I cast Lee 120gr TC bullets for a friend who has a glock 17. Last year he put about 6000 rounds through it. It never fails. We shoot IPSC and 25 meter precision. He has shot lots of 49:s but not any 50:s yet. With his glock and my cast boolits he is the third best shooter at the club. Not bad considering that many of the others has sig neuhausen and similar precision pistols.
new user here but old hand with glocks, and I don't like them either, but now you're talking two different things.
will a cast work in a glock? yepper. never had a problem and no one i know has ever had a problem,
but shotman, now you're throwing in accuracy. well, for my life, I carry a glock 21. period, accuracy doesn't mean jack when the gun wont go bang, FTE, FTF, these things are unheard of in glocks, if the magazine is not full of wet clay, it will feed and fire everytime.
everytime.
Minute of bad guy accuracy . with cast boolits.
if you like carrying a gun and wearing something that makes folks say, oh, wow, can I see that. that's one thing, if your life depends on it, and that's a stretch for 99.9% fo the people in the USA, but if your life truly depends on it, you'll find those folks carrying a glock.
and , as I say I don't like them, not one bit but it goes bang every time. Every time.
Yep. All factory Glock barrels, including the ones in the guns "designed" for competition (G-34 & G-35) have chambers which are rather loose at the back end and tight at the front end. Glock does this because it makes the guns feed reliably (thanks to the generous-sized rear end) while still shooting accurately (the tight throat and front part of the chamber). The Glock was designed for police and military, who fire factory ammo almost exclusively, and where reliability is paramount. They apply this philosophy to all of their models.
If you want to maximize the 10mm in the Glock, you need to get a "fully-supported" (not really, but they're a LOT better than factory), aftermarket barrel, and considering those circumstances, you might as well get the traditional rifling, so cast boolits are not an issue.
For extensive information and research on using/loading 10mms, especially Glocks, go to the following two subforums at GlockTalk. (I'm one of the mods at the 10mm Reloading forum there.)
http://glocktalk.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=38
http://glocktalk.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=67
The more I think about it, the more logic tells me there's something else at work in the lead=bad in polygonal rifling. I've been thinking about my Glock factory barrels, and they polygonal rifling actually makes for a REALLY smooth interior surface of the barrel. Combine that with the Tennifer (Melonite) finish which surface hardens the steel to up to a milimeter or so in depth, and I can't help but imagine there's something else going on...