the single six and the story of lead

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FullEffect1911

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Here is a new one for me.

I was shooting my father's ruger single six .22LR today. I decided that I needed to get it cleaned because accuracy was going.

So just now I'm sitting here cleaning and while push the rod down the barrel I get stopped. After pushing harder, several chucks of lead that was apparently stuck in the forcing cone come out with the bore brush. Neadless to say I am shocked. The ammo was the winchester 36 grain xpert lead hollow point cheap stuff. Is this normal leading or should the gun be seen by a gunsmith?

05-29-08_2254.jpg
 
??

Doesn't look normal to me. Have you noticed the gun "spitting" or "shaving"? Are you sure these are chunks from a single bullet? or lead that has built up over time, plating the bore, that just came out in chunks? Hard to tell from the pic. It is possible it could have been the remains of a squib (last round, last time the gun was shot?) which broke up as you pushed it out? Unlikely, but not impossible.

Clean the gun, then shoot it inside a cardboard box (paper/cardboard on both sides of the cylinder gap) and then look for lead shavings in the cardboard. If the gun is spitting lead, it should show.

You can have the gun checked out by a good 'smith, if he doesn't find anything all you are out is the time it takes and the money it costs. Better than an injury though.
 
It didn't look normal to me either. I do believe it is spitting a bit so I will have it checked out. I do not think they were from a single bullet. It was quite the shock when I punched out some big chunks of lead out of the barrel.

I don't belive it was squibed... but now could I really know or not. It did get about 200 or more rounds of lead ammo before it was cleaned, but this seems a bit much.

I think I will send it to a smith to have it looked over. I just wanted to share that because it seemed so crazy to me.
 
When was it cleaned last and how often is it cleaned. I've seen this build up on guns that have not been cleaned in years.

You might put a piece of note book paper about one foot from either side of the cylinder and fire a round and see how much splatter or holes show up on each. If the cylinder is misaligned one of the sheets of paper will have a good amount of perfrations compared to the other piece. Might even be shredded...
 
My dad's singel six looked like that also and had the same lead shavings. After questioning him, I found out he never cleaned it. It literally had thousands of rounds through it without a cleaning. I say it looks normal and to give it a good cleaning and go out and shoot it some more.
 
I'd seriously check the timing on that if I were you. Check the shake as well, I know it's a 22 but hey why not.

Don't have time to post a how to on the timing. I'm sure someone will chime in here for me.
 
I had it happen with some cheap "Westcoast" bullets 30 years ago with my Single Six. Pushed the cleaning rod in and it got stopped. Used a mallet to drive it through. There was a tube of lead that came out about 2" long. Gun worked fine after that and never had any recurrence of the problem using other ammo. I attributed the problem to a bad batch of ammo that appeared to not have any lubricant on the bullets.
 
I'd seriously check the timing on that if I were you. Check the shake as well, I know it's a 22 but hey why not.

Don't have time to post a how to on the timing. I'm sure someone will chime in here for me.
Click to expand...

I've checked the shake, it surprisingly doesn't have much at all. I should get in there with a flashlight and check for timing.

When was it cleaned last and how often is it cleaned.
Click to expand...

It was cleaned last by me, about last week and 200-250 rounds prior. I know you mean no disrespect but I will tell you that I take great pains to make sure my guns are clean (even my father's guns at that).

I'll try the notebook paper thing and see how that goes.

For the record I really do hate this ammo by the way. It won't even load nicely in my bolt action .22 because the rounds deform before entering the chamber.
 
No offense intended. Just giving ideas as I don't know the past history of that .22 revolver.

Forgot about that. What .22's are you shooting?
 
It's probably from the particular type of ammo you were using. My wife has a Bersa 22 that got so leaded up one time that it was keyholing bullets at seven yards. She got a cleaning rod jammed in it and we had to beat the rod/brush out with a hammer and big chunks of lead, bigger than what your picture shows came out. When we finally got it clean, we never used that ammo (Remington T-bolts) again and never had the problem again.

I also have an old Stevens 46 rifle that had big chunks of lead come out when I cleaned it, but I had never fired that particular gun before, and had no idea how much it had been shot, what ammo, or when it was last cleaned (it had been given to me). After I got it clean, it shot great.
 
thank you for the story cajunbass, I am not quite so worried about it as I was.

I've always been partial to the plated .22lr stuff, now I have a reason for that preference.
 
Try some copper plated bullets or insure that the lead bullets come well lubed. Try the paper trick too...I have never liked plain lead bullets in my .22's...

My Ruger 10/22 that I use around the place to keep the pests down doesn't get cleaned all that often, but never gets leaded up like that. Just dirty.
 
While you should, of course, check out the gun completely it has been my experience that once in a while things like this just happen. I was in the middle of a cowboy action shooting match and accuracy of one of my pistols went to heck. Got home and the barrel was so leaded up it looked like a smoothbore.

Never did find out what happened nor has it ever happened again but man did that ever throw me for a loop (thank God for the Lewis lead remover!)
 
I've had nothing but unhappiness with Xpert. For me, the stuff was absolutely filthy. I still have half a brick; I don't know anyone that I dislike enough to give it to.

Jeff
 
My Single Six and my Mark II both love Winchester cheapie Wildcats best of everything I have ever tried. My 77/22, another Ruger by the way, produced chunks of lead just like that after shooting Wildcats. I don't know what the barrel looked like because I didn't look before pushing the rod through.
I believe it may be dependent on the phase of the moon and the wind direction.
The 77/22 likes Mini-Mags better than the other two, but they don't lead up.
 
I believe it's just a lead build up, but to be sure, I'd get a .22 dow rod and slip it down the barrel on each chamber while the hammer is cocked. If the chambers don't line up perfectly, the cylinder will stop the rod and you'll know you have a problem. If it's lead, just one little soft slab can stick to the barrel and with each additional shot take a bit of the next bullet. It you get too much of an accumulation, it could eventually damage the barrel, but with a .22, there's not much chance of that happening.

The Single-Six is a great pistol. It's a pain to extract and load, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

RugerSingle-Six_2.gif
 
I had a bunch of firearms stolen about 15 years ago.

Only one ever recovered was an old model Single Six. Three years ago, I got a call that it had been found, and I could come to the Sheriffs office to get it.

The poor old revolver had looked like new when stolen, but looked like an Indian war relic when I got it back!

It had leaded up pretty severely, however a good cleaning with a Lewis Lead Remover and it worked as good as new.
 
I found that "Winchester Xpert" ammunition was dirty and fouled up my 22LR firearms faster than any other 22LR ammunition.

I like and use Federal 22LR ammunition the most. I buy it in bulk - 500 to 550 in a box. $11.97 was my cost for a 550 bulk box about 3 to 4 weeks ago @ my local Super Walmart. I do buy SOME ammunition from Walmart. We have never bought firearms from them. I like some other brands of rimfire and centerfire ammunition along with his 'reloading' for the bigger caliber firearms.

It sounds like that firearm was not cleaned in many, many years!

I hope that you get it all checked out and super clean so she serves you well. The Ruger Single Six is a GREAT firearm in my not so humble opinion!

Catherine
 
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