When was the last time you had to remove lead from a barrel?

[Texas by God]

The only one that I recall was using Lee 124 TLTC 9mm as cast LLA in a Ruger P89. I literally cleaned slivers of lead from the barrel after 50 shots. As factory FMJ ammo was about $5/50 at the time, I just fed that gun that. I’ve not had a leading problem with LLA or PC in any other combo of gun/ bullet.

[farmbif]

I cleaned a couple barrels today after playing with new bore scope camera. no lead in any but the 357 wheelgun had come copper colored streaks on edge of rifling from a few rounds of jacketed bullets that easily cleaned up with some #9 hoppes and a few strokes of brass brush. I always oversize cast at .002-.003 or more
and have had 0 leading in many many years, I better knock on some wood

[Midohhntr]

Last year about this time...before I started PC'ing no lead in barrels since. And I've driven some loads fast, some .357's out of the Marlin cowboy over 1700 fps.

[lar45]

I haven't had to scrub lead in over 20 years

[ChristopherO]

When purchased new the Remington / Marlin 1895 CB had a gummy bore, before ever firing a shot from it. Among a full slicking up the action, dressing sharp edges, giving it a trigger job I also gave it a thorough scrubbing of the barrel. It was as if the lands were full of machining gunk, filthy. Then I used a tight patch with Clover Compound and much elbow grease to take off the rough edges that could be felt through the Dewy rod. A full lead lapping may have been called for, but I did not take it that far.

I've only shot my cast boolits from that rifle, many in fact. After shooting I'll take a gun cleaning oil with tight patches and push out a small amount of lead, which breaks free without much force at all. The extremely hard boolits are worse than the preferred softer cast slugs, but both will leave light lead particles. I've fired a few shots or up to 50 rounds at a session and the cleaning is basically the same. I can live with this as there isn't any scrubbing involved.

Once, on a rifled 12 gauge barrel and soft foster slugs....... Just Don't Do It!

[Forrest r]

Some would call it leading, others antimonial wash.
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

I'm of the antimonial wash camp, both sides of the lands have bright silver streaking starting on them. Typically, leading starts to buildup on the drive side (1 side) of the lands when leading occurs.

Several years ago, I was plinking with a k22 5-screw made in 1947. You would think it would of been broke in/slicked up by then. Didn't take long to miss the broad side of the barn at 10 paces. Never made it thru 1 box of ammo, ended punching these strips of lead out of the bbl with a jag and tight patch.
[IMG][/IMG]

I've cleaned a lot of lead out of the bbl's over the decades and fully expect to in the future. Nothing more than part of the testing process to me.

[megasupermagnum]

I've only been casting bullets for a few years, but in that time I have never had trouble with lead. I've purposefully shot pure lead bullets at high pressure, just to see what happens. Lead is easy to get out of a barrel. Even the worst of it comes out pretty quickly with a little chore boy. I can't recall ever spending more than 15 minutes on a barrel before.

By comparison, I have had MASSIVE problems with copper. I had a 6mm remington that would copper foul to no limit. Eventually accuracy would go out the window, and it would be time for a deep clean. It would take me days to clean that rifle. Even super strong ammonia cleaners like 7.62 sweets would only do so much at a time. It was almost like copper and powder fouling would layer on each other. Nothing will get copper out except cleaner. Maybe lapping compound would do it, but you would ruin a barrel quickly doing that. The saving grace of that rifle was I could go about 200 rounds before I needed to do this.

Today I am pulling my hair out on dads rifle. I was asked to make a good load for him for this years pronghorn hunting. What I found is that the rifle shoots adequately, not great, for about 10-15 rounds, and that's it. It is a Remington 770 from Remington's worst years. I couldn't see any steel in the bore at all, it was nothing but copper. I've been cleaning this rifle for about 2 weeks now, and only made marginal improvement. 7.62 sweets wasn't quite getting there, and I only had limited time to deal with it, and you do not want to let that stuff sit. I've gone to Hoppe's benchrest copper cleaner, which is more mild, but it won't pit your barrel either. Twice a day for 2 weeks I've been running a few patches through, bright blue, then following with some bore brush scrubbing, then another wet patch and letting it soak. It is now at the point where the lands still look like copper, but the grooves look acceptable. Today I ran a few with 7.62 sweets through, but not a ton of improvement. I finally got sick of this nonsense, and made a lapping plug. This bore is rougher than rough, I'm not sure it can be saved. I worked at it for a while with 320 grit compound, but running a patch through still feels really bad. At this point I'm probably just going to let it buck. I'll do the best I can with a load, clean it, and it's dad's problem.

Those are not isolated incidences. At the same time I also did a yearly deep clean of my Henry 308 Winchester, although I was able to get the copper out of that in only a couple hours. I was using Hoppe's benchrest copper cleaner. I did it twice, and cleaned other guns inbetween. The bore on that is silky smooth, but copper is copper. I probably could have got it out really fast with 7.62 sweets, but again, you have to be very careful with such a strong chemical like that. That same rifle with cast bullets I can have clean as a whistle with nothing but a couple wet patches of standard Hoppe's #9, and a couple dry patches.

Compared to copper, lead fouling is not even on the radar.

[ChuckJaxFL]

Years ago, I had a SWD M11/9. I preferred shooting the Lage slow fire upper, but shot the stock upper occasionally. I actually cast for that thing. I shot the RCBS 9mm 147 sized to 356. It was actually pretty accurate in the Lage upper, with an Eotech.

The stock upper... not so much. And it leaded exactly the way you'd think a full-auto sub gun with a big ol' barrel shooting undersized bullets would lead.

[Texas by God]

The last time I used some commercial .44 SWC bullets with blue lube. They shot great at first then didnt...
Luckily my 44-40 is easily cleaned from the breech, because it was leaded a bit. Never a problem with LLA or PC in that rifle.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[Thin Man]

About a year ago our shop took in several firearms from an estate. One in particular was a single shot bolt action .410 with the dirtiest bore I have ever seen. I'm talking about record setting layers of lead in the bore from vintage shotshells that did not have wad cups to separate the lead from the bore. My job was to scrub the bore until all of that lead was gone. It took me a few days and some muscle power but I got the job completely finished. As for the satisfaction factor the bore showed no rust or damage, guess the lead helped protect it from all other elements.

[Mal Paso]

This year I bought a used 44Mag Colt Revolver with .429" throats over a .430" groove. It looked like there were tooling marks in the bore. These barrels are EDM machined with bores like mirrors and the "tooling marks" was lead soldered to the bore textured with a cleaning brush. I lapped the throats .431" with a brass lap and Diamond Paste. I didn't want to buy a Lewis Lead Remover for a single use and the brass brush wasn't cutting it. I bought some pure copper Chore Boy (those pads have gotten really small) and wrapped 3 threads around my bore brush and was soon seeing that mirror surface bore. I am hoping the bore will season like my old 629 which was zero maintenance.

The 629 needs the top strap welded where 100,000 rounds have gas cut the strap from one side to the other. Barrel setback would be pointless unless I find the right cylinder for it. It still shoots well and has semi-mental value.

[405grain]

A S&W 629's a great pistol. I've owned one since the mid 80's. I used to get barrel leading in it, and my super blackhawk anytime I shot loads much above 900 fps. This was with plain based semi-wadcutters sized to .430". Using different lubes made no difference. Of all my firearms, only the 44 mags gave me a leading problem. Then when powder coating came along all trace of leading has disappeared. I can shoot either plain based or gas checked bullets at up to magnum velocities and with PC there's no leading at all.

[Mal Paso]

A S&W 629's a great pistol. I've owned one since the mid 80's. I used to get barrel leading in it, and my super blackhawk anytime I shot loads much above 900 fps. This was with plain based semi-wadcutters sized to .430". Using different lubes made no difference. Of all my firearms, only the 44 mags gave me a leading problem. Then when powder coating came along all trace of leading has disappeared. I can shoot either plain based or gas checked bullets at up to magnum velocities and with PC there's no leading at all.

My 629 had leading problems when I first got it. For a while S&W was machining tight throats to improve jacketed bullet performance. Mine were .428" with two that took the .4275 pilot. I bought a Manson Reamer with the pilot set and reamed mine .4313". I had my hands on a brand new 629 3 years ago and the new ones, the throats are over .430". I brought a .430" pin and it was lose in the throats. I've been up to 1,600 fps from a 6" Half Lug 629 with a warm batch of 2400 and a plane base 250g Keith with Elmer's load. Slight leading, drop to 1,500 fps and it goes away.