Leading

[Thai Fighter]

Wow!  I've been shooting competitively for 27 years now (NRA Junior, College Rifle-Pistol, IDPA, etc.) and cleaned my fair shair of firearms and put more than the average man's share of lead through barrels... but I've never seen barrels as blocked up and leaded as these the two on my RM Type IIs!!  Including years of shooting my 1851 clones!    This is just a little of what came through the barrel when cleaning, normal?!?



Details:  .44 spl, and 50 rnds each of Winchester Cowboy factory over the course of 50 mins (breaking them in).

[Deadeye Dick]

TF,
I'm not sure about Winchester factory ammo, but I put a couple of boxes of factory Black Hills 44 Colt through mine and spent an entire afternoon trying to get the lead out of the barrel. Didn't have that problem shooting Big Lube 44 Mav's. Not sure why the factory ammo leaded the barrel so bad, but I'm looking to dump the rest of the factory ammo I have. Also, I now shoot only the Holy Black and that along with the Big Lube bullets may have something to do with it shooting much, much cleaner.
Deadeye Dick

[Fox Creek Kid]

...Not sure why the factory ammo leaded the barrel so bad, but I'm looking to dump the rest of the factory ammo I have...

The reason why is because the factory ammo is loaded to "mouse fart" levels and the bullet does not obturate. Gas gets by the side of the bullet causing "torching" which leads the barrel, forcing cones, breech face & sometimes even the cylinder face. This will not happen with "warthog" BP loads. The "gamers" in CAS almost all have this problem with their "mouse fart" loads.

[Thai Fighter]

Yep!  My cylinders faces are totally torched!  Didn't take a pic, but they're all cloverleafed where the bluing is all gone.  Just after 50 rnds a piece...

[1860]

Foxcreek nailed it, to light a load, too small a bullet, and probably too hard as well.

Just shoot BP and get the bullets from Springfieldslim.  I ran 75 through my 72 the other day and cleanup was a couple wet patches with no leading.  Did I mention that there was lots of that authentic smoke hanging in the air, and a few real nice smoke rings....LOL...Not to mention a bunch of dead desperado soup cans...

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