FS268 carried a very interesting article by Ed Harris on cast bullets in the 9mm Luger/Parabellum, and it reminded me of a question I should ask the experienced shooter on this site. What are the hazards (if any) of shooting some jacketed bullets through a barrel that has some degree of leading? Since a copper wash is easier to clean out of a barrel than leading, I have for years fired a magazine or cylinder of jacketed bullets through the barrel of my Colt .45 Ruger SA or my 1911 Springfield after a target session of shooting mainly cast bullets at the steel plate. I'm reasonably sure that the barrel is not heavily leaded by any means, but I admit that I don't check that out before shooting the jacketed loads. Now I'm pretty sure I know already what the manufacturers would say about this despicable practice, but I would like to hear practical advice from experienced shooters. Am I the only miscreant in the known universe who shoots some jacketed bullets to clean out light leading?
Jacketed to clean out lead?
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- Last Post 06 March 2024
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I do that. But accepted knowledge tells us only a dork gets leading in the first place....
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This old remedy of removing lead is not a sure fire way to remove lead, to pardon the pun. It may happen with certain guns, but is not the norm. After spending decades on the firing range teaching police officers to shoot I experienced this not happening more time than not. It is always best to do a proper cleaning to remove lead if necessary.
David Reiss - NRA Life Member & PSC Range Member Retired Police Firearms Instructor/Armorer
-Services: Wars Fought, Uprisings Quelled, Bars Emptied, Revolutions Started, Tigers Tamed, Assassinations Plotted, Women Seduced, Governments Run, Gun Appraisals, Lost Treasure Found.
- Also deal in: Land, Banjos, Nails, Firearms, Manure, Fly Swatters, Used Cars, Whisky, Racing Forms, Rare Antiquities, Lead, Used Keyboard Keys, Good Dogs, Pith Helmets & Zulu Headdresses. .
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FS 268? Is that a mis print? Man, I still don't have #267 yet!
Tom
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If you wrap a piece of a copper chore boy pad around an old bore brush it takes any lead out quite quickly and easily.
B.E.Brickey
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Tom
FS 268 is out, but I get my copies now online.
bob
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" I do that. But accepted knowledge tells us only a dork gets leading in the first place..."
Accepted knowledge is often pure baloney that has been repeated a lot.
If a non-dork loads enough cast bullets in enough guns at enough velocities he too will run into the dreaded leading. Don't feel inferior, just get some steel wool or Chore Boy and scrub.
John
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Try the "double tuff" brushes from Brownells; they work as well on minor leading as the Lewis lead remover and are much easier to work with than the Chore Boys. My results with jacketed bullets to remove leading have been inconclusive at best. It works to an extent, but not as well as good brushes. Heavy leading? Learn to avoid that.
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If you want to take the lead out the easiest way: Get some liquid mercury. Degrease the bore. Plug the bottom or chamber end and fill the barrel with the mercury. The next day all the lead will be gone. Pour your mercury back into its bottle until the next time. And don't worry about mercury poisoning,, that is only going to happen if you vaporize the stuff. If it really bothers you wear gloves.
B.E.Brickey
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It doesn't sound very nice and helpful to call someone asking for help a dork But don't dare post anything religious or political.
Mashburn
David a. Cogburn
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We will do the best we can to discourage name calling, implied name calling, and general uncivil discussion.
Allowing religious or political posts is the quickest way to make uncivil posts a lot more difficult to control -- been there, done that.
People wanting to get into religious or political discussions have a lot of other options.
John
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I don't see the post as calling anyone a name, it was just an expression of common thought.
David Reiss - NRA Life Member & PSC Range Member Retired Police Firearms Instructor/Armorer
-Services: Wars Fought, Uprisings Quelled, Bars Emptied, Revolutions Started, Tigers Tamed, Assassinations Plotted, Women Seduced, Governments Run, Gun Appraisals, Lost Treasure Found.
- Also deal in: Land, Banjos, Nails, Firearms, Manure, Fly Swatters, Used Cars, Whisky, Racing Forms, Rare Antiquities, Lead, Used Keyboard Keys, Good Dogs, Pith Helmets & Zulu Headdresses. .
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Back to the subject and question at hand. A Lewis Lead Remover, works very well even on barrels with extreme leading. You have a rubber bushing holding brass screens to drag through the barrel that is lubricated with cleaning solution. Takes some time, but it works.
The Lewis Lead Remover is the second non-standard reloading tool I recommend to each new reloader. The impact bullet puller is the first. I have one with .38, .44, and 45 setups and have not used it for myself in years. But it's in a cabinet shelf on the wall for instant usage.
Shooting Jacketed bullets through a barrel can "iron" the lead so flat it appears to be gone.
Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest
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I agree totally with Bud. It is very valuable tool to have on hand. We keep them at the PD range in every caliber available. They make quick work of cleaning the lead. Brownell's carries a good selection of the Lewis Lead Remover components.
I have also used mercury and am still using the same pint bottle of it i purchased 45 years ago. You have to be very, very careful in using it because if you spill any, it is a bugger to recover it.
David Reiss - NRA Life Member & PSC Range Member Retired Police Firearms Instructor/Armorer
-Services: Wars Fought, Uprisings Quelled, Bars Emptied, Revolutions Started, Tigers Tamed, Assassinations Plotted, Women Seduced, Governments Run, Gun Appraisals, Lost Treasure Found.
- Also deal in: Land, Banjos, Nails, Firearms, Manure, Fly Swatters, Used Cars, Whisky, Racing Forms, Rare Antiquities, Lead, Used Keyboard Keys, Good Dogs, Pith Helmets & Zulu Headdresses. .
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I have had great results using the chore boy method. My dads S&W had bad leading from early made factory .357 lead rounds. It came out nice and clean with a little elbow grease.
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Sorry if I offended anyone.
I was calling myself a dork because I said, "I do that" meaning I shoot jacketed bullets out of my guns in order to remove leading.
We must learn to laugh at ourselves.
Seriously, I use chore boy on a brush with CLP. I built a wooden gun vice to hold the gun upside down when doing things like this. Keeps solvent from running into the action.
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I found that shooting a cylinder full of jacketed bullets, after a day at the range of shooting cast bullets, works fine at cleaning any fouling or leading out. I don't do this that often, and I am not recommending this as a policy, but when done, it does work, as a matter of convenience. If the leading is more severe, than just at the leade, a Lewis lead remover, or some bronze wool wrapped around an old cleaning brush works quite well, and is more desirable. Heavy leading should not be shot out, as pressures can increase dramatically.
If you get severe leading, you are doing something wrong with your bullets, and a remedy should be sought.
There is the old argument, that jacketed bullets will iron any leading into the steel barrel. I don't see how this is possible, as the gilding copper bullet jacket is much softer than the barrel steel, and if there is any ironing to be done, it will be into the bullet jacket. But others insist that it will. This is an ongoing debate.
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Thanks to all those who responded to my question about shooting jacketed after cast to clean out light leading! I'll probably continue the practice, at least with light leading. I've found some Chore Boy copper scrubbing pads, and I'll try that out--but I don't know where I'd be able to find any mercury to experiment with that method. Useful thoughts and good ideas, guys. . . .
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I guess I shouldn't even ask if powder coated bullets remove lead.
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Since it is the hot, high pressure gas that melts and blows out the leading, not the jacketed bullet itself, a high velocity (high pressure) load with PC bullets should do the same. No reason to think that a PC load at moderate CB typical pressures would do the trick, but who knows.
Has anybody actually tried it? Enlighten us please.
John
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At least in my .44 mag guns, if I get minor leading, I remove it easily with 5/ea gas checked 429215's and 19.7g of WC820. My theory is the gas check edge removes the lead as it passes through it. If this theory is incorrect, I don't care, because it works!
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I have found the same thing. With some light leading in 30 cal., a few gas checked bullets at moderate velocity removed the leading nicely.
I leaded a 9mm Luger with under size bullets and a magazine of jacketed removed most of it and made the clean-up much easier.
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Since it is the hot, high pressure gas that melts and blows out the leading, not the jacketed bullet itself, a high velocity (high pressure) load with PC bullets should do the same. No reason to think that a PC load at moderate CB typical pressures would do the trick, but who knows.
Has anybody actually tried it? Enlighten us please.
John
Have to wonder about this because the hot gas is blocked by the jacketed bullet and held behind the bullet. Are we starting that "melted bullet base" tale again?
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Nope, "windage" from the tailing edge of the land and the angled jacket allow gas to escape. Base doesn't melt.
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Duane,
Don't know how you got melted bullet base out of my post?
Yes, the gas is blocked by the JB but the JB is moving fast just like the gas behind it. JB are known to remove leading. They probably don't do it by scraping because there it no edge. My guess is that it is melted and blown out with the gas because I can't imagine that pushing a JB through a leaded bore would remove leading instead of ironing it flatter. All this is just a theory. What is your guess/theory?
Gas checks may scrape out leading. The posts above indicated that they will remove it with the right load But leading with gas checked CBs is also common. Following, that kind of leading with low pressure, gas checked, CBs sure as heck doesn't scrap it out, for me. Instead they make it worse.
Maybe Eutectic's moderate loads are hotter than mine or gas checks are different. I don't know anything about WC820 but Shuz's gas checked 44 mag loads sound like they might be warm, so maybe the melting theory may be working there or maybe not.. Trying it with 800 fps gas checked bullets to see if the gas checks still scrape out the leading would be an easy way to find out.
A pity that we don't have a book we could go to to answer all these things? Actually we do have such books but they are just full of theory/guesses, most of them wrong, just like ours. Some have been repeated forever but that doesn't make them true. Sigh.
Too bad we would rather make up and repeat theories than do the experimenting to find out.
John
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Sharp Edges thoughts:
At the Marston Ballistics Laboratory, Ed Doonan built a bullet recovery box. Eight foot long, two foot square and filled with oiled sawdust. We recovered many bullets for examination trying to determine how the bullet entered the leade. We noticed a significant lead buildup in the gap between the gas check and the bullet at the base for certain loads. This buildup was not even, sometimes filling the gap on one side and no lead on the opposite side. Conclusion: The sharp edge of the gas check was cleaning the bore and leaving the same bore condition from shot to shot.
As a side note on leading, I once owned a Charter Arm Bulldog .44 Special. This revolver shot well, the double action was smooth and it was handy to carry. I carried it when picking blackberries and mushrooms after rattlesnakes came back to Western Illinois. It leaded slightly, there was trace leading in the barrel after each shooting session. I loaded some Speer Shot capsules with #9 shot for the buzztails. Testing the shot pattern, I noticed the shards of plastic laying in the grass with leading stuck on the outside. The leading edge of the plastic was a sharp corner with significant lead built up.
Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest
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... there has been some discussion in the past of minimizing leading by shooting loads with corn meal ... or creme of wheat ...fillers. quite a bit by " Molly " ...
i have no input ... the cba told me back in 1980 to make sure my bullets were fat in the throat ... so i would have to work on it to get leading to remove.
speaking of fillers, i recently played with a plinker 230 gr with 30 gr of goex 4f in my 45-70 ... with rest of the case full of compressed ground corncob ... i was impressed by how little crud was in the barrel after 10 shots without cleaning ... no more than smokeless would have done ...
ken
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I have put shot shell buffer between the bullet and powder in my 44 Mag hunting loads and have never seen any leading in my 10" Contender barrel.
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Revolvers have long been known to lead on the face of cylinder and gap area when shooting gas checked and plain base lead bullets. Powder coating will prevent such leading they say. Dorks...just kidding.
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It depends on who you are. I could never get away with calling someone a dork...could i ?
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Sorry to drop in at the end of things: I have a passing memory of a controversy called lead damming meaning that the practice of clearing lead by shooting jacketed bullets could result in local excess pressure resulting in a barrel bulge or burst. The theory was that as lead was stripped it rolled up ahead of the projectile causing resistance with a coresponding rise in pressure that could reach catastrophic levels. The theory was commonly held back in the 70's and was used to explain barrel failures on police service revolvers due to police practice with 38 special wadcutters followed by carry +P jacketed SWC service loads. I do not remember the theory being debunked , so I offer the comment as an interesting tie-bit.
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Interesting Fritz. My experience was also with leading as a LEO, but I think the term was slightly different. It was "damX leading" and resulted in my becoming a reloader and bullet caster.
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And scrub it while the barrels still warm. Comes out much easier.
For stubborn bits, squirt a little Kroil & let it sit.
Jerry Kuhnhausen’s shop notes on the Ruger Six Series revolvers states specifically NOT to fire jacketed bullets to clean lead. It didn’t state why, but since he quite literally wrote the book on gunsmithing them, I heed the advice.
It does recommend the Lewis lead remover, but I find Chore Boy works just fine.
I keep a couple of copper wrapped brushes in my range kit to scrub out any leading while it’s warm.
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Bronze wool is available at Amazon, Home Depot, woodworking specialty stores, plus many other places.
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