Originally Posted by
SuperMag
Reading through all these posts, I have to admit that my eyes glazed over about halfway through. While all the theories sound plausible on some level, no one really knows for sure, because a bullet speeding down the bore is not something we can stand there and watch in slow motion. When faced with an analytical problem where empirical evidence is nil, I tend to look for the simple explanation...
When you solder two pieces of metal together, say, an electronic component to a circuit board, you apply a substance known as "flux" to the components to aid in the bonding and adhesion of the metals. I think of bullet lube as the "anti-flux" to the bullet/bore bonding problem, because that's essentially what lead fouling is-- the bullet trying to bond to the bore.
When a bullet is forced down the bore with 20K psi of pressure behind it, the propellant gasses are trying to cut and rush past the bullet along the sides. When these gasses pass past the lube groove, they strip some lube away, and under that kind of heat and pressure, the lube being stripped away is most assuredly in a gaseous form. It's presence, co-mingled with the lead that's likewise being stripped from the side of the bullet, presents a fouling situation as far as the bullet is concerned, and keeps the lead from adhering to the metal of the bore. Hence the term "anti-flux."
I came to this conclusion a few years ago, and my epiphany resulted in a "what if" moment... If the protective quality of bullet lube is a result of its anti-fluxing properties, what would happen if I applied said lube to the bore of the weapon as well as the bullet? So I ran a wet patch of a mixture of mineral spirits and Lee Liquid Alox down the tube of a favorite .45 of mine when I cleaned it, and put it away, allowing the LLA to dry in the bore. What happened the next time I shot the .45 simply amazed me...
This particular .45, when shot with my most accurate load, would show appreciable amounts of lead fouling in about 100-150 rounds. With my "Bore Prime" applied (I've since come up with the ideal ration of 2 parts mineral spirits and one part LLA), fouling was non-existent until I'd run about 500 rounds down the pipe. And even then, whatever fouling that occured was easily stripped out with 2 or 3 passes of a tight fitting, dry bronze brush; the lead fouling came out in pronounced lead strips, as it had totally failed to bond to the bore in any meaningful way.
There is a "seasoning" process at work here as well. Any gun of mine that sees only lead bullets, and is cleaned thoroughly and treated with Bore Prime at clean-up, develops what I call a burnishing of the bore; the interval at which fouling occurs seems to get longer each time, requiring only a few passes of a dry brush to bring about a shiny clean bore until the point it rarely fouls at all. Sorta like that favorite .22 you never have to clean...
Is Bore Prime the magic elixir that ends lead fouling? Of course not. If you push a 240 gr. PB down the bore of a .44 Magnum with 26.0 grs of 296, you're going to have a mess regardless of what you do. And shooting jacketed bullets through a dedicated lead bullet gun makes for a real mess too, until you get all the copper out again. But Bore Prime does help quite a bit. Try it and see...