lead strands

[fraungie]

Gentleman:
I have been shooting muzzleloading shotguns for about 30 years. I have recently noticed I am getting some lead strands or strings in my bucket. I wash out the barrels with hot soapy water. Then I clean them with patches soaked in the Murphy's oil soap, alcohol,& hydrogen peroxide mix.I Then dry and oil with a patch. The first time I noticed it I was using shot made in Peru. Then I bought some Magnum chilled shot which is supposed to be harder.It did the same thing. I do not use a shot cup it limits the amount of shot I can use. I load powder,the overpowder hard wad, the thick wad, shot & a thin over shot wad. I worked up a great load. I shoot 75 grains volume of powder with 100 grains volume of shot. I think it's about 1 1/4 oz of shot .It is a potent load. I killed a hen turkey flying about 20 yards out.I was hunting rabbits.She jumped up in front of me and flew straight out. When I touched the trigger. She dropped like a stone. This string or strand occurence is a rescent happening. I am sure it is the lead shot extruding against the walls, but this has never happened before. I am worried that I may be leaving lead traces in the barrel for the wads to snag on. Has anyone else had this issue?

 

[Sherlock]

There appears to be something different in the shot alloy to leave that streaking. What was your old shot? W

 

[fraungie]

Not sure what the old shot was. My concern is the wads snagging on the lead and perhaps raising the pressure.

 

[bingo1952]

Unprotected shot loads will eventually leave lead behind even in modern shotgun barrels. It has to be removed periodically and there are a couple of ways to approach this. One is the traditional way with a good scrubbing with a bristle brush and lots of elbow grease or you can use one of the electronic scrubbers than removes it via electrolysis. There are several of these on the market but I am hesitant to post a link. Google "shotgun" and then "lead removal". HTH

 

[roundball]

If 8000+ PSI behind a wad of any sort is pitted against a mere 2-3 thousandth's of a trace of lead, there is no contest and no problem.

I recently bought a few 30-40 year old bags of pure soft shot w/o any alloy at all...and when cleaning after shooting a couple dozen shots my patches come out with a faint gray on them but even like a film, not streaks.

So last weekend after pattern testing a .54cal smoothbore, I tried firing a couple tight fitting patch balls in hopes they'd scrub the lead film off the walls and it worked perfectly...rechecked the bore 24 hours later and still clean as a whistle.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

You don't mention the type of gun nor how old it may be so I would consider that perhaps your bore has some slight pitting. If the bore is not highly polished, mirror bright, even the slightest roughness will cause leading. The only time I've had "strings of lead" come out on the bore brush was with an old Belgian made percussion double. It's bores were very good for such a gun but with the usual slight roughness. I tried plastic shotcups to protect the pellets and then I got long strings of plastic on my bore brush but that came out more easily than the lead. I would suggest you pick up one of the tiny LED lights which will drop down the bore and take a really good look at it. Brownells offers a bore polishing hone which looks like a very coarse bore brush with little balls of fine abrasive on the tips of each bristle and you'll also need their special honing oil. That plus an electric hand drill will polish a bore very nicely.

 

[mazo kid]

Are you using lubed cushion wads?

 

[paulvallandigham]

I still think the easier way to deal with leading is to grease the barrel After seating the OS cards, so that the lead slides over the bore, and doesn't deposit lead at all!

Hoppes #9 lead and bore solvent is still good enough to get the lead out of any shotgun. If you shoot anything that is plastic, you will need something like Shooter's Choice to dissolve the plastic to take it out. I put the solvent on a large, 3 inch square cleaning patch, which i push down with a bore brush on my RR. I let the bristles help dislodge the big stuff, while I coat the entire bore with the solvent on the patch. I leave the barrel sit for 15-30 minutes, and then run a couple of clean patches down to pull out all the lead that is here. In most cases, the barrel comes out totally clean and bright. I lube my shotgun tubes with Wonderlube, but may be switching to Ballistol, after my test of that product is completed. All guns are cleaned with alcohol swaps before they go out into the field, or range. All screws are checked, locks checked, to be sure there are no problems with the mechanical function of the guns. Then I continue to check all the rest of my gear that goes with the guns, depending on what and where I am going.

 

[roundball]

Are you using lubed cushion wads?

Don't know who this question is directed at but I always use some sort of lubed wad over powder, either an Oxyoke wonderwad or a Circel Fly lubed cushion wad.

 

[mazo kid]

Roundball, the question was directed to "fraungie" as he listed his shot column and didn't mention any lube at all. When preparing to shoot shot in my Trade Gun, I melt lube in a dish ( microwave works good for this), put several felt wads in and let them soak. Then while still warm, I'll squeeze out excess lube. This way the wads still seems to have enough lube to keep everything working good.

 

[roundball]

:thumbsup:

 

[fraungie]

The gun is a Pedersolli 20Ga Double that I bought from Cabela's. It is only a few years old. The barrels are chrome plated. I looked down the barrels using a bore light and they look OK to me. I do not use a lube on the wads nor do I always use the thick wad. I read an article written by a man named Starr about illiminating the thick wad. I patterned it with & without the thick wad. The gun seems to shoot the same with or without the heavy wad.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Well, Pedersoli's bores are about as slick as it gets and chrome probably isn't pitted so I don't know. You might try the suggested lubrication methods, can't hurt.
One other thing which can cause leading is overpowder wads which fail to seal the bore and allow powder gas to cut through the shot column. You said this is a new problem you never had before, so have you maybe changed your wads or loading technique?
I too seldom bother with a filler wad, just two 1/8" hard cards over powder. I do use 1/2 a lubricated filler wad if trap shooting since the lubrication makes it easier to load 25 shots on a hot dry day. Sometimes, such as when dove hunting and doing a lot of shooting, I just spit down the muzzle after seating the cards but that upsets the range officers on the trap range, so running a spit patch down bore is the preferred method in that case. :grin:

 

[fraungie]

My loads and procedures are the same. I think it's in the lead. It may be too soft. I am going to lube the thick wads and use them[url] more.In[/url] loading and shooting skeet or trap. I use a 1/2" dia dowel rod I bought from the hardware store. I glued an old bed knob that I salvaged from rubbish pickup on the end.I Sanded it down and polyurethaned it. I put the rod in the barrel and scracthed a ring around the rod at the muzzle. I did it with the barrel empty, with just a powder charge, & with a full load.By looking at the lines I can tell where everything is or is not in the barrel. Sometimes people will distract you. The big knob is easy to grab and gives you a lot of leverage. I can shoot a round of skeet and never clean between shots.I probably have less than 2 bucks invested in it. Thanks for the help we have a fantastic network here,

 

[paulvallandigham]

I recommend that you pin that knob to the rod, and that you buy a properly sized ferrule and a cleaning /loading jag, and install them on the other end. The wads seal much better when they are seated with a jag that is pushing much nearing their edges. It also helps in cleaning the gun out of lead and crud.

Find a jag that is .040" small in diameter than our bore. you may not be able to buy it off the rack, but you can chuck it in a drill or press, and use a file to turn it down to the correct size. The " ring " at the top of the jag, where the face of the jag will be pushing down the wads, should be closer to bore diameter- say .030". The remaining rings should be smaller, because you want the cloth of your cleaning patches to accordian, and blouse to grab the residue on the back stroke and pull it out of the barrel.