severe leading on first cast boolits

[DonHowe]

I don't have much experience with tumble lube alone but in my experience the .45ACP is not that hard to please in that regard. If the barrel has "a few hundred rounds through it", may we presume those were jacketed bullet rounds? If so did you clean the copper jacket fouling from the barrel before firing the cast boolits? That could be a factor.
IF you have fired a few hundred jacketed rounds through that barrel, normally it should be slicked up by now. I suspect your barrel as I see nothing about your load to make me think the load is responsible for that much leading. After cleaning that mess out of the barrel,, if you do not have a lube-sizer try finger luring some bullets with a stick lube and load them just as before and fire them. You should have your answer. The fact that the barrel is new does not mean it is above suspicion.
FWIW, the last few years I shot the .45 my lube was 50/50 paraffin and Vaseline + a bit of STP. It performed as well in my application as did the the LBT Blue I used years ago.

[mehavey]

You missed the part "...Does not appear to be any leading ! ...." after using the Secret Sauce.

[guy_with_boolits]

Are you oven drying standing up, or just dumped from the baggie?

If standing up, just wipe off most of the excess w/ your thumb/forefinger
as you pick them up to put on the cookie sheet. You need (almost) nothing.

Did I say thin film ?






ps: as they come out the oven, the warm/hot ALOX will still be (thin) liquid. But all
the solvent is mostly gone. Dries to final/hard coating very efficiently after 24-hr rest.

pps: I (Lee push-through) size before ALOXing, and so shoot them as-is after drying.

ppps: I PC almost everything now. But when I say that sometimes ALOX cures-what-can't-be-cured... believe me.

pppps: I haven't tried it for COVID yet.

Dumped from baggie...although for this particular batch..I think I my process actually went:

dump from baggie (uncut ALOX'd SWC's) into a box with non-stick tinfoil

dry over night

then the next day I think I did 20 mins at 220F

and then they sat for a few days

some notes per your notes:

-I sized before ALOXing
-They are still a bit tacky but not gooey
-I would rank the ALOX messyness near or less than PC messyness...Im not sure what people are referring to as far as the gooey greasy nightmare or what have you. They are a bit tacky but they dont seem to be attracting dirt.

Do you really end up with zero tackiness?

If its not too much to ask, could you be excruciatingly precise about exactly how much ALOX you use? Seems this is always very quantitative, even on the LEE bottle, making it really hard to get right. (hence my difficulties)

[JWFilips]

Size .453" It will go away

[mehavey]

If its not too much to ask, could you be excruciatingly precise about exactly how much ALOX you use?

See This Note as probably the simplest explanation.
"Greasy Fingers" only

[guy_with_boolits]

update: shot about 40 ALOX'd SWC's and only had one FTF...

the barrel seemed to come clean after light brushing and swiping with a pad, although there was one tiny spot that would not come clean with the brush, and I had to poke it with the aluminum rod to scrape it off ... things in general were MUCH MUCH cleaner than at the beginning of this thread (not really even comparable actually..basically just normal I think now)

I'm not sure what caused the FTF...

But anyways this is a HUGE improvement over the very light alox I was using before. Note that you'd have to read the thread to see all the things I changed but I think it was clear the amount of alox I was originally using was far too little. The other major thing I changed was making sure the boolits passed the plunk test.

I did NOT change the lead alloy/hardness, its still very soft

[Cosmic_Charlie]

It surprises me people are still using alox with the ease of PC. I tumble lubed for years, went conventional lube sizing for about 6 months before trying PC. Now, 95% of my cast is PC. Easy, no wax or tacky goo, superb performance.

I resisted powder coating too but found finally that it works very well. All my pistol boolits get powder coated. I still use 45/45/10 on my gas checked .30 cal rifle boolits.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I probably shot 30K of hard cast commercial boolits through my .45. 200 gr. swc seated for an oal of 1.25" Would get an occasional failure to feed until I sent the gun off to Wilson for a reliability tune. I had to taper crimp these fairly hard so they would plunk in my match grade barrel. All those years of match shooting I don't recall having discussions about leading problems. If this supply weirdness ever gets better I intend to get another 1911 and cast for it. But I will powder coat from the git go.

[guy_with_boolits]

I probably shot 30K of hard cast commercial boolits through my .45. 200 gr. swc seated for an oal of 1.25" Would get an occasional failure to feed until I sent the gun off to Wilson for a reliability tune. I had to taper crimp these fairly hard so they would plunk in my match grade barrel. All those years of match shooting I don't recall having discussions about leading problems. If this supply weirdness ever gets better I intend to get another 1911 and cast for it. But I will powder coat from the git go.

When one taper crimps hard is it possible the case is no longer headspacing on the mouth?

[onelight]

When one taper crimps hard is it possible the case is no longer headspacing on the mouth?

Yes you could . But I have not had it happen , for autos I only crimp enough for them all to work. If you can feel the case the case mouth at the crimp it should headspace fine.