Prevent leading.

powder coat - Needs some paint and a toaster oven. Very effective.
gas checks - Can be purchased for a small amount. Need to be pressed on with sizer. Effective.
wax rings in/on base - somewhat effective and more work. Less smokey than below, but more than above.
lee liquid alox - somewhat effective and very easy, but smokey

If you've not tried them yet, just load 20 or so of them and give them a test drive. Unique is my favorite in the .38/.357, but any of those 3 should work. Barrel leading is a combination of a lot of things, not just bullet hardness and size.

Jack B. said:

I'm getting ready to load some 158 gr. LSWC bullets in 38 special. The bullets measure at .359 Do any of you have any suggestions as to what can be done to prevent leading. The source of the bullets is unknown and I believe they have a brinell hardness of around 12. I have what I have and can't really change anything. I don't have any pin gauges to measure the chamber throat so that is an unknown. The gun is a brand new Taurus Model 66 .357 magnum. I was going to load the bullets to about 700 fps loadings according to my Hornady manual. I am going to try some Bullseye ,Unique and Accurate No.2 and see how they do. Any advice is welcome.

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According to the maker of most of my cast handgun bullets, he kept the brinell under 13.5 so they would not lead. And that is pretty much true,with my 357 bullets, even at magnum velocities of 1200 fps, they do not lead. Except if I use Bluedot. I don't think Bluedot upsets the bullets and gas cutting occurs. At least this is my theory, but the fact of the matter is, my bullets lead with Bluedot at velocities where they don't lead with 2400, AA#9 and H110.

If you are really worried about leading, dip the end of the cartridge in light grease, like that lithium grease, in tubes, used for outboard motors. I have an original Trapdoor and it severely leads with commercial cast bullets. But, if I dip the things in grease



and fire them,



the leading went away. However, this is messy as heck. On the left is the rifle being loaded with the first greased cartridge, and the picture on the right shows the rifle after a bunch of rounds and you can see how much grease was squeezed back into the action. But, I can wipe that out easily, leading was much harder to remove than grease



I have shot literally thousands of oiled 45 ACP cartridges in Bullseye competition. I add a drop of oil to every other round, just on the intersection between case and bullet. My goal is to break the friction between case and chamber and improve function reliability on loads that just function the mechanism. This works in the main, but if the load is too weak, even low friction cases will stove pipe. But, I discovered an added bonus, leading in the barrel and throat went away. It was rather remarkable to push a patch down the barrel, after the match, and see a bright shiny barrel without leading.

I have been greasing bullets fired down one chrome plated 30-06 barrel. This barrel will jacket foul something awful, I paid a gunsmith to lap the barrel, and the fouling reduced, but did not go away. But last time at CMP, I dipped the bullets in grease, fired at least 50, and the barrel was bright and shiny after one patch pushed the fouling out.

I did oil some 44 Special rounds (or 45 Colt or 44 Magnum, I am starting to forget) and the bore remained bright with cast lead bullets, but it was real messy oily.

After these tests I am convinced that getting lubricant up the barrel, ( I don't what the cut off point was, this level creates a grease plume in the air, and this is probably over kill)



but getting lubricant up the barrel really does reduce leading, and jacket fouling.

I would slug the cylinder throats. Same method as slugging a barrel. "Drop through". "push through", "snug", etc. are not measurements and can/will vary depending on the user. I have sized my bullets to the same diameter as the throats for many years and have very little if any leading. Another thought; .359" bullets loaded in cases may not fit some cylinders, too fat to chamber. Make up 6 dummies and see if they will chamber (bullets a couple thousandths larger than the throat won't hurt anything, just some lead spray on the cylinder face and frame).

Jack B. said:

Do any of you have any suggestions as to what can be done to prevent leading.

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Yes. Check out Glen Fryxell's excellent ebook Chapter 7 on leading (definition, cause, prevention, removal) - http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chapter_7_Leading.htm

Slamfire said:

If you are really worried about leading, dip the end of the cartridge in light grease, like that lithium grease, in tubes. . .

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Have you ever tried that with a bit less grease? It seems like it would work fine with about 10% that much. . . instead of frosting the bullets like tiny cakes.

You might see if one of the bullets will pass through the cylinder throats. If so with a 12 BH it should be good if it clears the throats without being resized.

edwardware said:

Have you ever tried that with a bit less grease? It seems like it would work fine with about 10% that much. . . instead of frosting the bullets like tiny cakes.

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I have coated with less grease. For the Marlin 336 in 30-30, I rubbed hair gel from bullet to rim, and you can't see the grease layer in this picture. But the primary desire was to break the friction between case and chamber, so that on first firing, the case would fire form to the chamber without sidewall stretch.



This is how much a new case stretched, after firing in this chamber



These 300H&H cases are $2.00 a pop, so first firing, greased them up.








Shot well at 100 yards,



Shot well at 300 yards



This is how the Swiss greased their bullets. The grease ring has a similar consistency similar to toilet bowl wax ring, but it is a little drier.



You can search SwissRifles.com, this grease ring was thought to extend barrel life, and I believe it likely would. It should cool the powder gas, coat the throat reduce bullet engraving force, and provide a level of protection against gas erosion. But I don't have data to prove this. I could claim that it will lower your cholesterol. Hey, billions have been made on vitamins and supplements with even less data than I have for the health benefits of greased cartridges and bullets!

I wouldn't do anything radical until you know that you have unacceptable leading. You may have some light leading that will required a little extra elbow grease when cleaning but it usually isn't something to worry about. If you get leading where you can't see the grooves, then you should worry.

I have a Taurus 66 which I absolutely love. When new, it had a slight restriction in the barrel where it screws into the frame that caused some mild leading in that area. A little elbow grease with JB Bore Cleaner polished the bore and eased the restriction. That said, I have switched to plated or coated bullets because I also have an older Taurus Model 65 with oversized throats that I was never able to keep from leading and took the easy way out.

I have never done it myself, but I have read of others giving their commercially lubed lead bullets a coating of Lee Alox to reduce leading. May be worth a try.

I tried .359" sized bullets and found I had to emphasize the bell to seat them and they would not enter the top of the crimp sleeve of my Lee Factory Crimp Die (the ID of the sleeve was smaller than the bullets).

Leading is not the end of the world. Letting the possibility of barrel leading stop you from shooting cast bullets is silly. And unless the barrel of your revolver looks like the inside of an old sewer pipe after a cylinder full, you can "get the lead out" without too much trouble. Some of my cast loads shoot nearly as clean as jacketed bullets, some shoot fairly clean, needing a couple minutes extra scrubbing, and one load/bullet that needs soaking and scrubbing (9mm w/125 gr RNFP over W231). There are products and methods that make "de-leading" almost easy...

Fit is king. Boolit to barrel, all else follows!
Aside from that-
The reason they made Choreboy is to clean leading from barrels. A domestic alternate use is cleaning pots and pans
.359 boolits may or may not lead in your particular gun. This you will learn soon enough.
My BH needs .360 minimum to not lead. .361 is even better, but won’t chamber!
Jmhe (e=hands on experience)

What makes a leading problem? The information in Fryxell's Chapter 7 covers the topic like an umbrella. I have found aluminum screen wire to work as well as commercial pot scrubbers. It's easily cut with scissors and cheap.

For me, it's tough to figure all this out before actually shooting some of the bullets. To me some lead in the barrel is hard to avoid. In this case the answer is down range. The old target loads of Bullseye and 150gr. WC in 38 Special is, for me. the least likely to lead or give any problems. I do have several Ruger revolvers in 45 Colt. None of these revolvers respond exactly the same way using cast bullets.

Mowgli Terry said:

I have found aluminum screen wire to work as well as commercial pot scrubbers. It's easily cut with scissors and cheap.

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Good to know!

#1 Check to see if your bullets will pass through the cylinder throats, if they don't they will be risized as they pass from the cylinder to the forcing cone.
#2 Follow your loading manual specifications for loading LEAD bullets.
#3 Don't try to solve a problem (leading) that you don't have.
Lafitte

There are any number of solutions to leading, but after firing, there are Lewis Lead removers, Pipe screens, Copper Chore Boys. (Some are merely steel with a copper coating check with a magnet.) A product made of stainless steel by the name of "Big 45", or similar. Bronze wool should also do a good job. I have used "lead cleaning rounds" consisting of .357 brass,a light load of Unique, 10.5 gr Cream of Wheat, under a 158 gr cast SWC. It seems to work just fine.

With a .359" bullet I would not use a post sizing crimp die.

Posts # 18 and 19. If your bullets are larger than the cylinder throats, it will resize the bullets and strip off the lube. then due to low or no lube, your barrel will lead. If the bullet will fit the cylinder throat, at 700 fps you will most likely not lead.