Part 2 - My Testing
Geeze guys, I'm sorry for any angst I caused some of you for waiting a day to post the second part, but I had better things to do with my family on Sunday afternoon! I am also not real happy with some of the pictures I took and hoped to find some time to re-do them with a shorter barrel (didn't happen).
Anyway, here are some more specifics about my guns and the testing I did, including why I chose what I did.
First the guns - although I have 8 handguns in three different calibers and have tested some with all of them, as I said in the OP, this data will focus just on the two .44 Mag revolvers for simplicity.
Gun #1: Ruger .44Mag Super Blackhawk with 7 1/2" barrel - bought used in the 80s, and it has seen a lot of use (but no signs of abuse except an amateurish modification to the front sight). Cylinder throats on this gun measure .433" with a micrometer (not calipers), and the groove diameter is .430.
Gun #2: Smith & Wesson 29-3 with 10 5/8" barrel - bought new in the early 80s and lightly used. Cylinder throats in this gun also measure .433" with micrometer, but I have not slugged the barrel.
As further evidence that the throats on both guns are not undersized and contributing anything to the leading, a .430 Honady jacketed bullet drops clean through all throats in both guns.
When I started down this path looking for a good cast bullet load, I naively assumed it would be fairly easy.
Why the naivete? Well, it started with the fact that I had shot several thousand soft lead wad cutters over the years without thinking I had any leading (
I was wrong - I have gone back and carefully tested those and do see minor leading now). In addition to the swaged lead bullets, I had loaded the occasional 500 or 1,000 'gun show' cast bullets (meaning cheap and unknown lead), and also thought I was not experiencing leading issues (
also wrong, and determined with more careful recent testing of some of those old bullets).
Contributing to that original naivete were the number of people who post in on-line forums with smug simplistic statements such as leading is very rarely an issue, and that is proved by the fact that so many cast bullets are sold! Since I did not think I had seen any leading problems, I was dumb enough to swallow that BS.
But I guess the real question is
"Why was I fooled for so long into thinking that I did not get leading from my revolvers when shooting swaged or cast bullets?" The definitive answer to that lies in the fact that I shot a lot more jacketed stuff than I did lead. And on the days I went out shooting a bunch of slow lead rounds just for cheap fun, I invariably ended up shooting a bunch of magnum jacketed stuff for big bang fun. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that shooting two cylinders of jacketed magnums will TOTALLY clean a moderately leaded barrel! How can I be so certain? Well, that was the last test I performed just two days ago. So I am convinced that my regular practice to end my shooting sessions with magnum loads resulted in never having lead fouling to find when I was cleaning my guns. And because I never thought I had a problem, I also rarely looked that close!
Now I know that there are a lot of folks who will jump in and scream about how dangerous it is to fire jacketed bullets in a leaded barrel, and I will not debate that with them at all.
And I am NOT suggesting that anyone do this - you will have to make up your own mind about the safety or intelligence of that decision. I am simply telling you that it is a FACT that doing so cleaned ALL lead deposits out of my fouled guns. I will readily admit that there is a certain logic that sounds like it should be dangerous to fire any bullet into a barrel already fouled with another metal. On the other hand, at least one current gun manufacturer specifically advises their buyers that the best and proper way to clean lead fouling in one of their guns is to fire a few jacketed rounds through it after shooting the lead!!! (Hi-Point Firearms, as published sometime in the past several months in
American Rifleman).
So back to my testing - I felt that I had a broad enough range of guns that even if a few of them had specific problems that caused leading, I probably would find at least one that was fairly easy to dial in with a good load (didn't happen). And I chose MBC because I thought it made the most sense to start with an established and generally available manufacturer. They seem highly respected on these forums, they have excellent prices, they are specific about the exact Brinell Hardness of their bullets, and they sell both BH12 and BH18 bullets, along with new hi-tek coated bullets. Most importantly, they openly discuss the leading issue on their web site and give a specific formula to use to know for a fact if the pressure of your reload is appropriate to use with their specific bullets - I mean, how much better could it get, right? If the bullet makers cannot get it right, who can? I didn't like that all their bullets seem to be bevel base types, but guess I can't have everything. (At this point, let me also note that Grant Cunningham has also published very specific formulas to calculate both the Ideal and Maximum BHN for any specific pressure, and his formulas call for much HIGHER pressure loads for the same hardness than the MBC formula!)
So I ordered a bunch in three different calibers with full confidence that I would soon be shooting cheap and clean. But everything I tried was coming up leaded. Just for general info, I will list all the various loads I tried below, along with the estimated speed and chamber pressure of each round based on the data. I must stress that only a few of the test loads are exactly from published data. Since some of my powders are old and discontinued, I had to use old manuals, and even most newer manuals do not include specific loads for the MBC cast and coated bullets. In most cases I had to extrapolate from similar loads with same bullet weights to develop my test loads and estimate the expected speed and pressure. In many cases I also chronographed those test loads, and I will include the actual speeds at 10 feet for comparison - you will see that the actual velocities are all fairly consistent with the expected speeds from the data.
Based on my experience and best judgement, I believe all of these test loads are within SAMMI specs for .44 Spl and .44 Mag, but I cannot prove that; therefore,
I do not advise anyone to use my data. I include it only to show you what range of speeds and pressure I tested with these bullets. As I stated in the original post, every single one of these test loads left lead deposits in my barrels after just 20 rounds. Some were relatively mild just past the forcing cone, and others were heavier and/or full length deposits. I am not here to debate which loads might have been best - I am simply stating that ALL loads left lead deposits. To that end, I will not further detail the type of leading from any particular load.
Load data that I referenced as a starting point include Hornady #2, Dupont/IMR 1983, Hodgdon #23 and Western Powders #5.
The following loads used 700x powder in .44 Spl cases (a few in magnum cases are noted), all using the MBC 180 gr RNFP Cowboy #7 BH12:
- 5.1 gr, Estimated 950fps@12,000 CUP
- 5.3 gr, Estimated 1,000fps@13,000 CUP; actual 941 fps
- 5.5 gr, Estimated 1,020fps@13,500 CUP; actual 984 fps
- 6.3 gr, Estimated 1,100fps@14,000 CUP
- 9.0 gr (Magnum), Estimated 1,300fps@35,000 CUP
The following load used 700x powder in .44 Spl cases with the MBC 200 gr RNFP coated Cowboy #5 BH12:
- 5.3 gr, Estimated 1,020fps@13,000 CUP; actual 920 fps
The following load used 700x powder in .44 Mag cases with the MBC 240 gr SWC Keith BH18:
- 9.0 gr, Estimated 1,000fps@38,000 CUP
The following loads used WW452/Trap 100 powder in .44 Spl cases (a few in magnum cases are noted), all using the MBC 180 gr RNFP Cowboy #7 BH12:
- 5.2 gr, Estimated 800fps@10,000 CUP
- 5.7 gr, Estimated 900fps@10,500 CUP; actual 921 fps
- 6.3 gr, Estimated 950fps@13,5000 CUP
- 7.1 gr, Estimated 1,100fps@14,500 CUP; actual 1,096 fps
- 9.0 gr (Magnum), Estimated 1,250fps@20,000 CUP; actual 1,218
- 10.1 gr (Magnum), Estimated 1,300fps@23,000 CUP
The following load used WW452/Trap 100 powder in .44 Sp cases with the MBC 240 gr SWC Keith BH18:
- 7.5 gr, Estimated 1,000fps@22,900 CUP (intentional overload for Spl case to generate higher pressure)
The following load used WW296/H110 powder in .44 Sp cases with the MBC 180 gr RNFP Cowboy #7 BH12:
- 17.5 gr, Estimated 1,400fps@15,900 CUP; actual 1,312
The following loads used WW296/H110 powder in .44 Spl cases, all using the MBC 240 gr RNFP Keith BH18:
- 14.5 gr, Estimated 1,192fps@14,600 CUP; actual 1,105 fps NOTE: This load had wide speed variations - although it comes directly from older Hodgdon published data, it is too low for this powder/bullet combination in my guns.
- 15.1 gr, Estimated 1,200fps@15,000 CUP; actual 1,156 fps
The following load used Accurate #5 powder in .44 Sp cases with the MBC 180 gr RNFP Cowboy #7 BH12:
- 8.5 gr, Estimated 1,000fps@15,000 CUP; actual 1,021 fps
The following load used Accurate #5 powder in .44 Spl cases with the MBC 200 gr RNFP coated Cowboy #5 BH12:
- 8.5 gr, Estimated 1,000fps@15,000 CUP; actual 992 fps
The following load used HS-6 powder in .44 Sp cases with the MBC 180 gr RNFP Cowboy #7 BH12:
- 11.5 gr, Estimated 1,300fps@15,000 CUP; actual 1,274 fps
So there you have it - speeds ranging from 800 fps to 1,300 fps, and pressures ranging from 10,000 CUP t0 38,000 CUP, and everything left lead deposits in both of my .44 Mag revolvers. EVEN the coated bullets that many claim totally prevent leading. They did not. But I will say that in the only two loads I tested with the coated bullets so far, they were the most accurate and left less leading than any of the cast bullets.
Am I claiming that all guns with all cast bullets will cause leading? NO, I AM NOT. I am simply showing evidence to support my belief that it is a lot more common than SOME people keep saying on these forums.
I think it is better for someone new to lead bullets to keep their eyes open and expect it rather than naively think it will not happen.
In Part 3 I will talk about cleaning the lead deposits and show the pictures. I will be specific on why I personally think that many who blithely claim they have no leading at all just haven't looked at it correctly.