Which bullets for my Glocks?

[Uncivil]

What is leading? How do you know if you got it and what are the detrimental effects? Why do you have to clean so thoroughly after shooting jacketed ammo before lead?

 

[alanwk]

What is leading? How do you know if you got it and what are the detrimental effects? Why do you have to clean so thoroughly after shooting jacketed ammo before lead?

Excellent question. Answers please.

 

[NikatKimber]

Leading is small amounts of lead from the bullet being left in the bore of the barrel. As mentioned in previous posts, amount of leading varies. If the bullet is soft going too fast in a dirty barrel, you can get enough lead in the barrel that it is visible, even enough that you can flake it off. I had this happen with some of my own cast bullets that were nearly pure lead before I knew that I needed to clean the barrel, the bore of one of my .38s looked like a smooth bore. All lead bullets will leave some lead behind, the goal is to minimize this. This is done by using harder bullets for faster velocities, different bullet lubes, and starting with a clean barrel

The reason to clean before switching from copper to lead and vice versa, is that no matter what kind of bullet used, there will be some small trace amount of it left in the bore. This is referred to as "fouling." This will be there even if you cannot "see" it. Copper fouling from jacketed bullets will cause lead bullets to lead the barrel faster, or lead fouling will increase the rate of copper fouling. This is the reason I have a couple guns I shoot only one or the other through.

 

[Fyrtwuck]

OK...Leading. Thats what shooters are calling lead buildup inside the barrel after lead bullets are shot through it.

Most commonly occurs when improperly sized lead bullets that are too soft are shot at velocities too high. If you look at your reloading manual you will sometimes find the same weight bullet listed with one being lead and the other jacketed. They will list different powder loading for each. You may also find * indicating special notes about using lead.

The idea of cleaning before shooting is to prevent the lead buildup.

There is a lot of controversy about lead removal. Some shooters say shoot lead and then shoot jacketed and it will clean the lead right out. Then clean as you normally would.

Other shooters say that if there is too much lead, it could cause excessive pressures like a barrel obstruction and blow your gun up.

In my early days of reloading and shooting. (late 70's) I used to shoot lead quite a bit. Didn't know a thing about sizing or the different loadings and lead mixtures. After about 100 rounds, you couldn't hardly see the rifiling in my barrel. I later found out two things. I was very lucky that I hadn't blown myself up and the S&W model 66 is a tuff gun.

Research and choose wisely Grasshopper.

 

[NikatKimber]

Ah, forgot about sizing the lead bullets.

 

[Old Fart]

, and starting with a clean barrel.

This one right here gets a lot of people.

I've gone to almost exclusively cast bullets with very little problems.
There's a couple of forums that deal with both casting and shooting cast bullets.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/index.php

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum/

If you can't the info you need in one of these then there isn't an answer for your problem.

 

[Jschatz]

Ah, forgot about sizing the lead bullets.

If you purchase hard cast bullets from somebody like JK do you still need to size and lube them.

 

[RustyZX9]

If you purchase hard cast bullets from somebody like JK do you still need to size and lube them.

Nope. Just load em' up and rock!

 

[Mitch H.]

If you purchase hard cast bullets from somebody like JK do you still need to size and lube them.

All of our bullets are sized, lubed and ready to load.

 

[NikatKimber]

Like said, not on purchased bullets. I was referring in general to lead bullets need to be sized. So either verify they are sized the way you need them, or if you are casting them yourself, you will need to size them.

Good question.