Is this leading?

What are you shooting in it... lead or jacketed bullets?

I really wouldn’t call it leading. I consider leading to be a condition where lead builds up to the point where the rifling is effected by the lead. Just give it a good scrubbing with solvent and a bronze brush and your good. Barrel looks pretty normal.

How fast are you pushing the Bullets and are they gas checks? The wife's Marlin 357 starts to lead at 1000 fps with soft bullets and they strip in the rifling at 1200. Lots of lead then! With plain base hard cast can go to about 1400 without leading too much. Haven't tried gas checks. For deer hunting I use jacketed bullets.

It does look like leading. Cleaning with a bore snake will not remove it. You have to use a solvent. Most powder solvents will take minor leading out if you use a jag and brush. Before I get flamed for this statement I realize that the solvent does not dissolve the lead and will not remove heavy deposits. I think it just removes some powder fouling and penetrates a bit under LIGHT LEADING to free it up. Severe leading can be hard to remove and I do not have much experiance at it. Always cleaned often or discontinued using a load that seemed to have issues.

That's what that looks like to me. Cast lead is what I shoot the majority of the time so that is a common sight in my firearms. Most of that will come right out with a phosphor bronze brush and a good bore solvent. For really tough deposits I've had to increase the elbow grease and in really bad cases I've used lead wipe cloth wrapped around a suitably sized bore brush for a good snug fit.

Why don't you use a solvent? Solvents help clean out anything in your barrel that shouldn't be there.

For possible light leading like that I suggest Shooters Choice lead remover.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1014882435?pid=398676

Soak a patch, run it through the barrel and let it sit for 15-20 minutes then clean as usual. Any lead that might be in your barrel will wipe right out. I use that lead removed for the rare times I get ha little leading in my rifle barrels and it works very well.

From your description I'd say yes, it's leading. "Normally", fouling/leading at the muzzle end indicates the lube is failing. Not uncommon with commercial cast bullets as many casters use a lube that withstands shipping better than acting like a bullet lube. Check bullet diameter vs groove diameter, a good fit will help. If you are using commercial cast bullets you may improve the fouling by using some alox on top of the factory lube. Thin the alox with mineral spirits or warm it so it is fairly thin, then dip the bullet, base first in the alox and allow to dry. This has worked for many that have poorly lubed bullets...

Lead remover cloths work pretty well. Try to keep it away from blued finish. For really bad leading,which I don’t see in your picture a Lewis lead remover might be necessary.

Yup. Leading. Pick a smaller nylon brush, wrap a patch around it, and wrap a small piece of bronze scouring pad around that. Scrapes the leading out quite nicely. The bronze is softer than barrel steel, so it won't scratch the barrel.

The best lead removal technique I have found is to buy some chore boy copper pot scrubber pads, then pull out a few strips of it and wrap it around a loose fitting brush. The copper strips will no affect the barrel but they will strip the lead right out. If it is lead fouling and you do this the lead will come out in little pieces that look like glitter using this technique

A plain brush is pretty ineffective.

Joseph Dawson said:

Is this leading?

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Only if accuracy got worse. I suggest coating lubed lead bullets with Lee Alox as extra protection.
A good lube will condition the bore and need little cleaning. Some lubes will leave a "lube star" on the muzzle when working correctly.

Bronze bore brushes need to be measured. The diameter on some are overly large and may get stuck in the barrel.
After many years, a 243 brush started real hard. I put some extra muscle into it. Not a good idea. Could not pull it back out. Had to push forward to the muzzle. Bent my steel rod.

I now measure the diameter of every brush, new or used.

In 357, there are bore brushes and a larger chamber brush for revolver cylinders.

someguy2800 said:

The best lead removal technique I have found is to buy some chore boy copper pot scrubber pads, then pull out a few strips of it and wrap it around a loose fitting brush. The copper strips will no affect the barrel but they will strip the lead right out. If it is lead fouling and you do this the lead will come out in little pieces that look like glitter using this technique

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Chore Boy.... That's the one. I think they are bronze, which is just a little harder than copper. As stated, they very nicely clean the lead out. I unfold them, and cut about a 1" square to use for cleaning.

Makes sure it's the copper one and not the copper plated steel. Use a magnet to confirm.

first you need to know what size cast bullet your rifle needs. you need to slug your barrel to see. when you buy 357 mag cast lead bullets most come in 358 size. most marlin's 357 mags need a 359 bullet not to lead. well the several ones i got do. to clean the lead out you need a lewis lead remover. they only make them for pistol but it will work in your rifle. that is what i used. also copper chore boy works.

Chore Boy.... That's the one. I think they are bronze, which is just a little harder than copper....

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Sadly they discontinued the bronze material some time ago, but the copper remains. It still works fine though.

All bullets leave part of themselves in the bore, both jacketed and lead. A cast bullet of the correct diameter and hardness not pushed too fast will eventually leave a light wash of leading and this is easily removed with a brush and patches on a proper cleaning rod. Not sure why so many insist on using the wrong tool (bore snake) for the job.


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25-20 WCF said:

All bullets leave part of themselves in the bore, both jacketed and lead.

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Which is why I axed what he was shooting. Two different solutions to the 'same' problem, so to speak. I found it interesting he was cleaning his bore with no solvent.

I just ram a wad of copper chore boy down the breech with a dowel rod, coat it in cleaner or oil of choice if your feeling frisky. If you can't easily get a clear shot at the breech drop some para cord or a bootlace down the barrel, tie said wad of copper choreboy to it and drag it out the muzzle end. As others said, make sure its pure copper. As @mdi said, looks like bullets are running out of lube.

Yes it's leading, not bad but it's there.

You've been given excellent advice as usual. The big things are the chore-boy, more lube, solvent/cpl oil/something to not only aid in removing fouling from lead/carbon/lube. It will give you a clean slate to work with range trip after range trip.

I take my hat off to the op for casting their own bullets. It's an interesting part of reloading that allows the reloader to control not only the cost of reloading. They can customize their bullets to their firearms/uses.

I highly recommend you use a cheap/inexpensive inspection camera if you want to take your reloading/casting to the next level. I bought a 5.5mm camera like 1 of these for under $10. I'm not affiliated with the sell in any way nor do I know them. I'm merely using this link as an example of what I use/bought for under $10.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-7-8mm-6L...hash=item3af8d51da4:m:m4-VRd_DJneQuciC1w05NoA

On the inspection camera I bought the 90* mirror comes off and the actual head of the camera will fit in the bores of my 22lr's and 223rems. It's good to be able to take a look at the bore when shooting/testing lead bullets and their lubes. As others have stated a lube star on the end of the muzzle is always a good thing to look for. What the muzzle looked like after 15 rounds of traditionally cast/sized/lubed bullets on a 30" bbl'd 308w.


Most people will talk about leading and accuracy with cast/lubed bullets in the same sentence. In reality they should be lube and accuracy in the same sentence. You can have too much lube and accuracy falls off just as easily as you can have too little lube. Make no mistake about it you can have no leading in the bbl and not enough lube and accuracy will suffer. The simple lee tl 312-160-2r bullet is an excellent test bed for alloys/lubes/pc coatings/accuracy.


Checking that 308w bbl before a range session with that cheap $10 inspection camera.


I wasn't getting any accuracy at the higher velocities so I used the inspection camera and checked the bbl to see if I was getting any leading.


The whole length of the bbl looked good, no leading. This led me to start looking at the wrong alloy or the wrong lube or not enough/too much lube. When looking at the muzzle of the bbl there was only a faint lube star on the muzzle. That told me not enough lube was my accuracy problem.

In the post above there's a picture of 2 bullets. They were cast at the same time/same alloy/same push thru sizer after 1 was traditionally lubed and the other pc'd. Also in the post above there were pictures of the bore of that 308w bbl. I had no leading and accuracy fell of at the higher velocities with the traditionally cast/lubed/sized bullet. This is what the test target looed like, 10-shot groups @ 100yds.


This is what the pc'd bullet's target looked like.


That bullet is designed for tumble lube and there just wasn't enough lube in those shallow lube grooves. I like to use the lee tl lube that is mixed with paste wax and mineral spirits making a 45/45/10 (percentage) formula that works extremely well. So I used the same bullets in the test above and gave them 2 coats of 45/45/10 and re-tested. This was 1 of the re-test targets, it's not hand/cherry picked by any means. There were actually better targets shot with the relubed bullets. I simply took a picture of this target with a tape measure to show that the same load/bullet that blew out with 10"+ groups now can actually hold what I call a group by simply adding more lube.


Anyway having to little bullet lube can not only lead to leading. It will absolutely cause poor accuracy. Most reloaders don't give bullet lube a second thought when it comes to accuracy. And simply view bad groups as nothing more then the wrong alloy, wrong size, bad firearm/load combo.

When your shooting lead/lubed bullets out of a revolver/pistol @ 25yds or less with +/-1300fps loads. It's going to be hard to tell the difference in the accuracy lube makes. More often then not, too much lube on a lead bullet will show it's ability to destroy accuracy. With a rifle at longer distances and higher velocities, too little lube is worse than too much lube simply because the longer rifle bbl.'s use more lube than the 4"/5"/6"10"/etc pistol/revolver bbl.'s.

Don't worry about gunking up your bore snake. It can eventually be cleaned with mineral spirits and then dish detergent, Dawn or the like. I spray mine with Ballistol and rarely use anything else on my rifles. I think the conclusion that lube is failing near the muzzle makes sense.