d'Artagnan said:
My experience with 9mm lead bullets thru my Browning High Power was uniformly bad. First I tried Alberts swaged lead 125-gr bullets. Barrel leading was horrible. So bad I had to buy an Outer's Foul Out III system -- then just over $100 -- which usually takes half to two hours to remove the lead. It took 8 and a half hours. Then I was ill-advised enough to try another brand; Meister Bullets 125- and 147-gr bullets. More leading which took 2 and a half hours to remove, and the 147-gr bullets keyholed about half the time.
Wow!
I wonder if the leading problem was due to really softer swaged bullets ... but then you got leading with Meister bullets too ... with 147 gr bullets keyholing
We recently concluded a couple of threads with bad keyholing problem combined with leading attributed to oversized barrel. I wonder what the groove diameter of the Hi-Power was?
As to removing leading, I use old copper bore brush wrapped with copper scrubber strands (Chore Boy). Few strokes back and forth and presto, clean barrel.
liloldhobit said:
I think i will try the 125 swc. i need to look into barrel lapping any feeds i should read?
There's an excellent comprehensive and detailed resource online in the way of a free ebook from Glen Fryxell (bless his heart, instead of publishing the book, he gifted the book for us reloaders for free!). Chapter 7 covers all things from what is leading to cause, prevention and removal. If you shoot lead bullets, it is a must read -
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=615067
liloldhobit, I would first slug the barrel to determine the groove diameter. If the barrel is .355", .356" diameter bullets will work well (provided they will feed/chamber well in your XDM). If the barrel is oversized (.356"-.357"+), you may experience gas cutting/bullet base erosion/liquefied lube blown off the bullet surface out the barrel etc. that will all result in leading and may cause keyholing if the bullet can't grip the rifling and fails to rotate to stabilize in flight.
If your barrel is oversized as Striker Fired posted, you'll need larger sized bullets and/or higher powder charge.
BTW, Missouri Bullet offers
147 gr bullet in softer 15 BHN instead of 18 BHN used for rest of 9mm bullets.