Problem Child Tamed?

I have been working on a project similar to Swamprat’s latest post. Nothing is more frustrating to me than having a firearm that is less than useable. Most people run across one or two in the course of their hobby and either trade it off or stick it in the darkest corner of their closet. It is always satisfying to come up with a solution to whatever problem is present.

In my case the problem child is a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum that a friend gave me many years ago. When fired with cast bullets, this revolver has always been the worst leading firearm I have ever had. Jacketed bullets worked acceptably with fair accuracy but I have always preferred cast for economy, performance and reduced wear and tear. We all know that most, if not all, firearms will show varying degrees of leading over extended shooting periods, but none of the rest of mine do so as badly as this one. Unfortunately as few as a dozen shots with cast bullets from a large assortment of styles, suppliers and etc. would lead to the point that often the rifling was buried. Slugging the bore revealed that it was .432”. Obviously even .431” bullets weren’t bumping up enough to properly engage rifling and were causing leading. I figure that the only reason jacketed bullets worked is that they had softer cores, depending on the jackets to engage the rifling, and bumped up easier. As a result I seldom shot it, preferring to use other .44s instead. As it had been a gift, thoughts of trading it off were never considered.

In the course of re-building a Ruger Blackhawk .45 Colt I decided to try my hand at casting bullets. Rather than investing a lot of money in moulds, pots, sizer/lubricators and etc., I ordered a couple of Lee .452” 255-grain RNFP molds, .452” sizer kit and a Lee Production Pot. Though this mould design isn’t one of the “tumble-lube” designs, it turned out that Lee’s liquid lube worked splendidly on bullets pushed in the vicinity of 850-900 fps with excellent accuracy and virtually no leading other than a faint “wash” apparent after 40-50 rounds. A quick pass with a bronze bore brush followed by a tight bore mop erased nearly all of the traces and accuracy never fell off with buildup. Dropping from the mould at an average of 262 grains and having an extremely generous flat nose, this bullet is now my standard for the .45 Colt at velocities up to 1,100 fps.

Since things had worked so well for that .45, I began to wonder if a combination of bullet size and lube might make a difference in my problem with the .44. I was lucky enough to win the bid at a very good price on a gently used Lyman 429421 mould (one of those thought to be most closely of original Keith SWC design), ordered a Lee .430 sizing kit and started to work. Initial bullets dropped from this mold at 258 grains and averaged .4315” diameter. Bullets weren’t perfectly round, but considering the excessive bore diameter, I thought to try them unsized using fairly liberal amounts of Lee lube to coat them first.  Results were mixed but encouraging. Groups (using my normal full-house loads) were adequate, if not impressive, and leading after 24 rounds was negligible.

Encouraged, I decided to try sizing a few bullets to .430” and backing the load to around 1,150 to 1,200 fps (a load I commonly employ for general use in order to reduce stress on my firearms). After sizing and re-lubing, these bullets were loaded and taken out to my range. Success! Groups averaged 2” or less and only the faintest trace of lead could be found after 24 rounds. This was easily removed merely by running the bore mop through. My S&W 629 (which doesn’t know what leading is) was used to finish the rest of the box of 50 and resulted in groups running 1” to 1 1/2” (from the bench) with absolutely no sign of leading. Another batch prepared the same way but pushed to roughly 1,400 fps actually tightened the groups slightly from both revolvers with very slight leading in the Ruger and the 629 bore looking like a mirror.

Now that I was rolling, I decided to try those commercially cast bullets after tumble-lubing with the Lee lube. I lubed some of LeadHead’s excellent 270-grain LBT and 250-grain SWC bullets without removing the commercial lube in the grooves and allowed them to dry. Each weight was pushed by the hunting load I commonly use for these weights. The Ruger (which had previously leaded hideously with both styles) shot both weights well, but did show a little more leading than with the Lyman bullets. The 629 shot them the same as it does with just the commercial lube that LeadHead uses and again the bore was clean.

I have several other variables I still want to try, but it is nice to know that sometimes that light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a train!