LiveLife
Member
It's been my experience that if lead bullets are shot through a barrel, it will coat the inside of the barrel with a thin layer of lead.Chore Boy scrap wrapped around a bristle brush. No solvent, used dry. 10 back and forth passes, about 1 minute total time. Shiny barrel.
So, even though you don't see the obvious streaks of lead or lead smears on the lands/grooves and your barrel looks clean and shiny, you may have a nicely "lead plated" barrel. Physical/mechanical methods (i.e. Chore boy) will remove the larger lead smears and streaks, but may not remove the thin lead plating (lead coated barrel will look shiny so you can't always tell). I have demonstrated this on clean looking barrels by scraping lead off the rifling.
That's why I always use lead bore cleaner when I clean my barrels. On this occasion, all I had was WD40 and it worked surprisingly well. Physical/mechanical methods work and will work better if used in conjunction with chemical lead bore cleaner.
Now, can you keep shooting lead bullets even though you have a thinly lead plated barrel? Probably. I am sure I have done so plenty of times without realizing. But I wonder if that thin layer of lead plating will decrease the inside diameter of barrel enough to be of a concern. It will surely provide better bullet to barrel fit.