Strange leding

[Boarderguy83]

Hello everyone,

I have been lurking for a little bit, and I have read several threads on leading in the 9mm. I have been casting for about a month now with the Lee 356-124 TC, and tumble lubing with LLA. My primary weapon is a Glock 19 with a lone wolf barrel. My alloy is comprised of old range pick up that I bought in ingots from someone else. Now this is not a standard leading question. I have been getting a pretty decent amount of leading in my bore and towards the muzzle, but I am working on fixing that after reading more on this site. My question is a little different. I run a light on my glock, and while shooting cast boolits, I get an incredible amount of lead build up on the top of my light. I know that it is lead because when I have tried to rub it off with some liquid and a soft towel, it just polished the deposit to a high shine, and I have been able to actually scrape some of it off the light. I was wondering if anyone else here runs a light on their pistol while shooting cast boolits, and if you tend to get any lead deposits on your light, or is this just a symptom of bad alloy or low powder charge. I know this is not a detrimental problem, but any help would be appreciated. I do not have any pictures to post at the moment, as I am at work.

Thank you,

John

[Thompsoncustom]

If I had to just take a guess I would say your alloy is to soft, but the lead on the light thing is interesting. Could be normal I don't know but you always here it's better to shoot lead outdoors instead at a indoor range probably so you don't breath to much of that lead dust.

[blikseme300]

Sounds like the boolits are too small and also running out of lube.

[Trey45]

Take the light off, problem solved.

[Ed_Shot]

What's the dia. of the boolits you are loading? Are they sized? What load are you using?

[Foto Joe]

Boolits too soft, boolits too small or too light of a charge to obturate the boolit and seal the bore.

Shooting cast boolits is an art form and I'm still using crayons it seems.

[Gtek]

The boolit is the gas seal, diameter and lube would be my first change. Leading near muzzle (usually) indicates lube issue. If the seal - diameter/lube fails, the gases are eating the boolit before it clears the pipe. I would suspect what you are seeing is the vaporized lead from a not there yet load. Gtek

[Echo]

Harry Pope wrote about tails on cast boolits, formed when the bullet was loaded from the breach. Stuffing from the front upset the lead in the opposite direction, which is why those boolits didn't have tails as they exited the muzzle. These tails are tiny, but blow off as the boolit leaves the muzzle. This is why muzzle brakes need to be cleaned occasionally - and possibly why you are getting liddle splatters on your light.
Or. Your boolits may be undersized as mentioned above, and the lead is vaporized from the gas cutting.

[mdi]

Are you talking about a light attached to the gun, and extending beyond the muzzle where it gets lead deposited on the top of the light?

[runfiverun]

put some tape on the light then peel the tape off when done.

[Boarderguy83]

Hello all, thank you for the many replies.

I am talking about a light that is forward of the muzzle, I run a Streamlight TLR1 weapon light on my primary pistol because I CCW it, and it is my main defense pistol. I don't want to remove the light. I have been putting black electrical tape on the end of light, and changing it when it gets covered with lead deposits. I am sorry that I forgot to explain the load that I have been shooting. I have been shooting 124 gr TC cast over top of 4.2gr of Unique. I have smashed a few of the rounds with a hammer to "test" about how hard they are compared to pure lead, and they are not too much harder than straight lead. I think that honestly could be a major problem both with the leading, and the deposits on the gun. I have been using LLA for my lube as well. I have a new mold coming in the mail soon, and am going to be changing from the tumble lube only boolits to one with a lube groove. I will try to get my hands on some Antimony to try to harden up the melt as well. Is there any way I can harden the boolits up until then?

Again thank you for all the input, I am still learning as I'm sure many of us are.

John

[runfiverun]

try water dropping them into some tap water right from the mold.
give them about 2 weeks to fully harden after casting, this might help.

you also didn't mention size, you could try .001 on either side of what you are using now.
or if you are using a lee fcd or over crimping them maybe.

[MtGun44]

Check out the sticky on "setting up a new 9mm for boolits"

Bill

[Boarderguy83]

Thank you Bill, I have read your write up about 3 times now, and I keep learning new things. I slugged my lone wolf barrel at .356 and I have been shooting the boolits as cast from the mold at .357-.358, there seems to be slight variations in size from cast to cast. The crimp was something that I had not thought of, I did not reset the crimp on my seater die after switching from plated to cast. I will have to check and see how much crimp I have been putting on the cast boolits. I did the dummy round test just a little bit ago to see if the seating of the bullet was resizing the boolit at all, and it appears that it is slightly resizing the base of them. I didn't want to get off on a barrel leading tangent, as I's sure some of the more seasoned casters are pretty tired of seeing all of them. I will up my powder charge and check my crimp as well to see if that will possibly help the boolit obturate and hopefully that will stop some of the deposits that are being left on my light........and in my barrel.

Thank you all again.

John

[tomme boy]

It is the high antimony in the alloy. And running out of lube by the end of the barrel.

[Boarderguy83]

The alloy that I'm using is made up of old range pick up, mostly old jacketed ammo.

[btroj]

Other than getting the light dirty is it hurting anything? If the bullets go where they are supposed to then I would ignore it.

[tomme boy]

Right, it is still high in antimony. You probably have a grey wash in the barrel too, don't you?

[runfiverun]

a good bit of it would be that base distortion.
try sorting out the brass brands and see if one or two work better.

[btroj]

Right, it is still high in antimony. You probably have a grey wash in the barrel too, don't you?

If it is mostly jacketed bullet cores it isn't very high in Sb.

I find my range scrap runs 1.5 percent Sb at most, usually closer to 1.25