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Thread: Levels of leading

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
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    Levels of leading

    It seems to me that there are different stages of leading. Thoughts? I would identify 4:

    1. "no" leading. This is a misnomer, as I feel that even the best lube will not work absolutely perfectly, and if you hold your muzzle to a strong light and look at the lands, you see a slight silvery color. If this wipes out in 1 or 2 patches and isn't plated to the bore, then I say all is working fine. Lube is good, bullet fit is good, velocity is good, etc.

    2. "wipe out-able" leading. This looks like number one above, but starts to effect accuracy. It still cleans out with a minimum of effort.

    3. Streak leading- when the leading starts to jump the lands/grooves, is visible in splotchy patches, etc., something bad is happening. Either you are pushing things too hard for your lube, the metal is too soft, etc. Probably due to too much friction or heat?

    4. Filling the grooves- this is when you actually start to see shards when cleaning, and cleaning takes forever. The bullet is starting to shed itself. I often have this with pitted milsurp bores, but that's another issue.

  2. #2
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    You can't say it any better! Small amounts of lead that do not stick to the bore and shoot out with the next boolit is something I don't consider leading. If a patch pushes out a small amount and the bore is good, the gun will not lose accuracy. There will be some of this but I have seen times when I get none at all out of the bore. The right boolit fit, hardness and lube will prevent leading. The bore has to be good too. Some of mine will not even pick up copper from those nasty bullets.
    Using a small, soft boolit and depending on the boolit expanding to fit gives me the most trouble so I no longer do it. I never get accuracy from any soft boolit either even if they fit because they deform too much. Alox gives me leading with long strips coming out and a lot of scrubbing needed. I call it solder flux. WW metal will leave some behind but if I harden it a little, it goes away. It is not the ideal alloy but is cheap for plinking loads. I can shoot my BPCR for a week with zero lead and dead soft boolits but a few WW boolits will lead the bore and I shoot very oversize boolits.
    Bad leading is something that has to be solved for your gun. If it leads you just have to fix something to stop it.
    I am VERY fussy about accuracy and if leading is found, something has to go.

  3. #3
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    is it true that if you have a leaded barrel (by only one or two shots and it falls under #2 above) that if you shoot a GC bullet that is NOT known for leading, or hasn't in the past, that the "good" bullet will 'clean' the leading out of the barrel?

  4. #4
    Boolit Master
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    Veral makes the claim that at least with his Blue Soft, you can shoot out lead, but only by using a non-leading load. I have actually done this many times, but the first time I did, I couldn't believe it. I usually got leading from pushing things too fast, and shooting a slower load would clean the bore in as few as a single cylinder full. I haven't tried this with other brands of lube, so I cannnot say if this is a "blanket" statement or not. I will have to try it with Lar's Carnuba Red.

  5. #5
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    Heres what i do. Its something not everyone agrees with but its worked for me for 25 years. When i load a few hundred rounds i load a cylinder full of jacketed bullets. I shot my super blackhawk over 500 rounds yesterday both plain based and gas checked bullets. It was shot hard and hot sometimes and even with gas checked bullets i had a tad bit of leading after about 3-400 rounds. Not enough to effect accuracy but enough that you could see it. A cylinder full of jacketed bullets and it was clean and shinny again. If you do this you just have to make sure you do it before the leading gets severe and do it with mild loads that arent going to get you into pressure problems. Alot of times you can get away with doing the same thing just shooting a few gas checked bullets though the gun but it doesnt do as well in my opinion as a jacketed bullet. Another thing i rarely do is clean a barrel. John linebaugh told me once that a barrel is like a cast iron skillet and needs to be seasoned with lube. He preaches that a gun doesnt even settle in and give its best accuracy till theres at least 50 cast bullet loads down the pipe on a clean barrel and in my testing I found he was on to something. So i wont even shoot the jacketed bullets through a gun unless the leading is very visable and its an extreamly rare day that a brass brush touches a handgun barrel in this house. Ive got guns with 5000 rounds through them that havent had a barrel cleaned. Look at the black powder cartrige guys they believe in the same thing. You wont see one of them going to a match with a clean barrel. A small ammount of leading in a barrel isnt going to hurt anything. Leave it alone unless your groups are opening up. Some guns will show a little lead fouling and then settle in and dont get worse. If you clean it it will just come back.

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Why Lloyd, do you mean to tell me that you have not been using the newest bore preparation product on the market called Bull Plate Mold Release and Bore Prep?

    When you get a lube that has to build up to work you can be leading until you reach the promised land. Bull Plate can get you passed that. Why you can paint it on sparingly with a Q-tip and be good to go with your lube. Why I even use the same Q-tip the next week and everything appears dry in my throats and it still gets things started down the right path.

    Sure is a lot cheaper than the 50 compounents your using now.

  7. #7
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    I don't know Lloyd, I can't really say. I clean my guns on occasion because I shoot Creedmore a lot. They get FILTHY from the blast off the shield, so while I have the cylinder out, I will go ahead and clean it all. I have gone down and just shot one downrange to foul and then shoot under and inch with the next 5 at 50 yd's. I have shot pop cans at 100 yd's from sandbags with a clean bore. The first shot is rarely off much at all.
    It was different with jacketed bullets when I shot silhouette, the first shot would miss and I never went to a shoot without shooting at least one shot through the bore at home to make sure there was no oil left. Drying the bore good never helped, it had to be shot. Same with a rifle and jacketed, I never hunted with a clean bore.
    Cast seems to be more forgiving.
    I watch the BPCR guys clean good between relays and smear wonder lube through the bore. I never clean for the whole match but I wipe between shots.

  8. #8
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    Should always have a few "chaser" rounds loaded. Best ones for me are the very low velocity stuff, say 700-850 fps. Try and make the chaser rounds fun to shoot as well just because your mood might change at the range for the power level required for the outing. Lever guns that need to be cleaned from the muzzle get this treatment most often before putting them away. Also, I typically stroke the gun once with CRC power lube, WD-40, when the barrel looks dry BEFORE shooting on a new day. This helps to soften the lube remaining in the barrel from several months of storage. ... felix
    felix

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    The idea that a BPC shooter would not go to a match with a clean barrel gives me the shakes. Black powder residue is very corrosive, and if it isn't cleaned out after every shooting, rust rust rust......

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by felix View Post
    Should always have a few "chaser" rounds loaded. Best ones for me are the very low velocity stuff, say 700-850 fps. Try and make the chaser rounds fun to shoot as well just because your mood might change at the range for the power level required for the outing. Lever guns that need to be cleaned from the muzzle get this treatment most often before putting them away. Also, I typically stroke the gun once with CRC power lube, WD-40, when the barrel looks dry BEFORE shooting on a new day. This helps to soften the lube remaining in the barrel from several months of storage. ... felix
    good advice about bore condition.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
    ― The Dalai Lama, Seattle Times, May 2001

  11. #11
    Boolit Grand Master popper's Avatar
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    I use 'chaser' lower fps GC cast to clean rifle barrels of 'gunk'. Gunk may be slight leading, PC, powder residue, lube residue. Look at the target, almost always a dirty 'ring' around the hole from 'gunk' in the barrel. Any bullet will cleanout some and leave some more. It's the build up that hurts accuracy. Gas cutting will leave a nice coating from mist of lead deposited. Next shot rolls that up till it accumulates in a sheet. Those lumps you can see.
    Whatever!

  12. #12
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    I always shoot a couple of smokeless chasers after shooting 45/70 with BP. I clean afterwards, but it makes the job a lot easier.

  13. #13
    Boolit Grand Master Harter66's Avatar
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    I believe #1 is more likely to be antimony wash .
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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check