lead and jacketed

[taliv]

i remember hearing you're not supposed to shoot copper in your barrel after shooting lead without cleaning... or was it lead after shooting copper without cleaning. I can't remember.

I'm about to run off to the range to chrono about 20 lead and 20 copper rounds.

I should shoot the copper first, and then the lead, right? i think that makes sense.

thanks,

 

[TallPine]

I had a "gun nut" (afficianado) buddy who always shot a mag or cylinder full of jacketed bullets to "clean out" the lead from the barrel before leaving the range.

FWIW

This guy had dozens of guns, or maybe >100 ?

 

[JohnKSa]

Shooting a jacketed bullet through a leaded bore results in very high chamber pressures. Beretta warns against this practice in their manual, and I have seen pictures of at least one Glock 9mm blown up this way.

I know this was done a lot with revolvers, back in the day, and I suspect the venting action of the cylinder gap prevented a lot of mishaps.

 

[SNoB]

Ummm isnt non jacketed bullets a no-no with glocks? I think its actually a big no-no with all polygonal bores isnt it?

 

[P95Carry]

Lead and polygonal - yeah - not happy partners.

I have always worked on principle, as John mentions .... because I have seen with a bore light, the sometimes even quite small ''fillet'' of lead that builds on the ''cutting edge'' of rifling. It seems logical to me that this is a partial bore obstruction to a jacketed bullet. That lead is gonna be displaced. Result must be IMO a pressure increase.

In a sturdy gun - I daresay not a big problem but - consider a 9mm - high pressure round anyways - add some more pressure from residual lead and I reckon it is not the best thing to do.

I'll always ''transition'' from jacket to lead, but not other way - without a bore clean. I certainly would not shoot hot cast bullet loads thru .454 either - and then change to jackets - another case where (even if revo) the pressures are running pretty high anyways.

 

[JohnKSa]

Yes, it is true that lead in the polygonal bores is never a good idea. However, the 9mm Glocks (19 & 17) are considerably overbuilt. They have an operating pressure cushion of nearly 10,000psi (almost 25%) over standard pressure 9mm. Folks can often get away with using lead in them where the same abuse in one of the .40 cal glocks would immediately result in "spontaneous disassembly". The interesting thing was that this person was used to shooting lead in his 19--but all it took was one jacketed round down the bore to make things come apart.

Beretta pistols use standard rifling, so the warning in their manual is proof that this type of problem is not limited to polygonal rifling.

P95 is on the right track--this should be a common sense sort of thing. Trying to shoot something through a bore that you know is partially obstructed should automatically sound like a bad idea to any shooter.

 

[happy old sailor]

back when, i was told by a knowlegable old cast bullet competive rifle shooter that the bore had to be thorougly cleaned at the first sign of accuracy falling off and that if you shot jacketed bullets without doing this that the jacketed bullet would iron the lead into the rifling and only mercury could dislodge it. i shoot hard cast bullets near exclusively in my revolvers and shove them hard. when finished, i bore snake them a few times and examination may dictate some bronze brushing. so far, hard bullets and boresnakes have done the job.

i shoot 185 SWC lead in my 1911s and 230 FMJs too. i have not shot copper after lead without cleaning and would not consider it. this is just what i do, i have no real scientific evidence to contra my actions. why take the chance of messing up a good gun

 

[Rabid Rabbit]

I don't think I've every had any measurable amount of lead in any of my 1911 barrels. I used a outers electronic cleaner (think electro-plating) and after shooting 500 rounds of lead I had no measurable amount of lead on the electrode. I did however pull over 100gr of copper out of my mil surplus 6.5x55 with this device and decreased the recoil by a third. I only shot it a couple times before figuring I had a potential kaboom on my hands, the previous owner didn't realize he had a ticking time bomb on his hands. I highly recommend this method over using mecury.

 

[fecmech]

I don't want to hijack the thread but do have a comment on polygonal bores and my experience with them. I owned a Kahr K9 with a polygonal bore and pretty much shot cast thru it exclusively( in excess of 3k rds). IMO a knowledgeable cast bullet shooter can safely shoot lead in the "dreaded" polygonal bore. If one is using properly sized bullets with good lube and the right powder burn rate for the velocity desired there is next to no leading in the barrel. Using a 124 gr tcfp bullet cast of wheel weight metal I got excellent accuracy and very little leading using Bullseye at just under 1000fps and Blue Dot for speeds in the 1175 fps range. If I went much over 1000fps with Bullseye I started to get some throat leading, I could run to 1200fps using Blue dot with no throat lead. I would not shoot jacketed bullets in a badly leaded bore. Nick

 

[Majic]

If shooting for accuracy then the barrel should be free of copper fouling before shooting lead bullets. Also fire a few lead bullets after cleaning to season the bore before shooting for accuracy.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I had a "gun nut" (afficianado) buddy who always shot a mag or cylinder full of jacketed bullets to "clean out" the lead from the barrel before leaving the range.

I've been doing so for several decades now without encountering any problems.

 

[38SnubFan]

I usually shoot a cylinder of jacketed after shooting cast in my .38, and have yet to see any problems exist. In fact, the barrel looks to be in great shape!

As for the .45, I only use jacketed in that.

 

[Sam]

If you are a seasoned cast bullet shooter, you will have no problems with lead. It takes a bit of experience to perfect loads with lead. Once you gain that experience you won't have any lead build up even with the polygon stuff.

If you are experienceing leading, something is wrong and you need to change things, either hardness, sizing, lube, etc.etc.etc. .

Many times a bore that is working well with lead won't group "condomized" bullets as well and vise-versa, although it is much more noticable with rifles.

Sam