Lead bullets through a suppressor.

[dennishoddy]

I’ve included a pic of some jacketed and some uncoated lead bullets I’ve recovered at the range. I don’t see any evidence of thermal erosion on them.
The brake on my Steel Challenge .22 rf gets really trashed with gunk buildings up in the ports. It’s not lead. It’s extremely hard and requires a bead blaster or a Dremel tool to remove it.
I’ve suspected it’s powder residue.

 

[Shadowrider]

I copied this off of a thread on the Enos forum:

In the early days of pistol compensators (I'm going back to the early 1990s here), some of the first designs were machined the "easy" way; the outside, bore and threads of the compensator were machined on a lathe off a common axis, then the ports were milled from the top in a separate step. What we quickly founds was that the flat-bottomed ports that resulted tended to quickly accumulate lead buildup, and folks had to dig out the lead with bladed tools quite frequently. As gunsmiths experimented, we found that round-bottomed ports resisted lead buildup much better, being essentially self-cleaning because of the flow characteristics of the blast gasses, and this is how modern pistol compensators are made (the good ones, anyway). In the old days, those chambers were turned also on the lathe then opened with the mill, but likely nowadays many are made by EDM.

When I was setting up my PCC about 9 months ago, I bought a TACCOM compensator because I liked the compact dimensions and light aluminum construction. However, as soon as I received the device I became concerned because the bottom of the ports were flat. Nevertheless, it was inexpensive so I ran with it. Sure enough, after a few months it was filled up with lead and essentially unusable. I did contact TACCOM to explain my concern and suggest they try rounded ports, but basically got told my ammo was to blame. Oh well, that comp now resides in my junk drawer as a reminder that you get what you pay for.

Part of the problem may lie with ammo, but not all. I had been running a mixture of traditional open-base RN FMJ (jacketed, not plated) and coated (Blue) bullets. I would expect the open-base bullets to release lead vapors and therefore contribute to lead buildup, but the sealed Blue bullets should produce little to no leading. Closed-base hollow points should also produce minimal leading. You might think plated could work well too, but I have sworn off them after a friend bulged his barrel due to plated bullets severely leading up the muzzle end of his 16" barrel (presumably after the plating got stripped off when fired).

 

[beastep]

All that brings up the question if a lot of what people think is leading is actually just carbon build up. Interesting post about the muzzle devices.

 

[dennishoddy]

Here is a pic of the volquartson brake on my .22 rf.
Common knife blades, etc will not even scratch it. I can take a punch through the port and knock some off, but the rest has to be bead blasted or
Ground out.
The last time it was cleaned, I smeared some extreme hi temp bearing grease around thinking it might not “grip” the metal so hard and make cleaning easier. Haven’t attempted to clean it yet, waiting on more build up.

 

[beastep]

Thats pretty tough looking.

 

[Profreedomokie]

I wonder if tig welder anti splatter spray would work on comps ? I think most of these post are like Y2K . A bunch of worry about nothing. I've been shooting cast bullets in several suppressors for around 15 years without any problems. Yes ,centerfire and rimfire and have never cleaned any of them. Never a problem.

 

[beastep]

I wonder if tig welder anti splatter spray would work on comps ? I think most of these post are like Y2K . A bunch of worry about nothing. I've been shooting cast bullets in several suppressors for around 15 years without any problems. Yes ,centerfire and rimfire and have never cleaned any of them. Never a problem.

Thats kinda what i figured.

 

[dennishoddy]

I wonder if tig welder anti splatter spray would work on comps ? I think most of these post are like Y2K . A bunch of worry about nothing. I've been shooting cast bullets in several suppressors for around 15 years without any problems. Yes ,centerfire and rimfire and have never cleaned any of them. Never a problem.

Thanks for the tip on splatter spray! I'll try that if the grease thing doesn't work.
.22 brakes DO have issues. I do suspect the cans at least in the first row of baffles or two would have some issues like the brakes.

 

[MacFromOK]

Hmmm... I wonder if a high polish (mirror finish) would help? Works pretty good on engine valves & ports.

Just a thought.

 

[beastep]

Here is what a suppressor company had to say.