Depends on your attitude and your gun.
If a little smoke and soot from the bullet lube sends you into panic, lead is not for you. The combination of low powder pressure and bullet lube guarantees some easily cleaned soot.
Similarly, if you aren't a reloader, there's not a huge savings with lead, and you are at the mercy of the company to find a cartridge that suits your purpose and your gun.
I've been casting and loading lead for decades, and prefer it for many revolver loads. Not so much for full-house pistols loads like 9mm and .40 S&W, although some load it.
As to cleaning, it depends a lot on how clean the bore is to start with, and the match of load to gun. Shooting too-soft lead in a copper-fouled barrel makes a horrible mess, enough to cause some people to swear off lead. A major consideration is the diameter of the bullet relative to the barrel: undersize bullets lead more. Undersize chamber throats cause leading problems.
On the other hand, a proper lead load shot through a conditioned barrel hardly leaves any lead at all.
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Last edited by OKFC05; 07-17-2011 at 06:35 PM.
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