smithcrazy:
if that request is directed at *me* I tried your email and was bounced back as being some kind of spam-control issue.

My email is posted, perhaps that will work if you message me.

m657,
It wasn't aimed at you.

I wanted to have Dave email me. Thanks for checking though.

Dave,
I got your email and have replied.

Over time, my experience has shown me that even under the best of conditions, a soft lead bullet leaves residue.

Rough bores can as well, but typically a hard cast round properly sized works without leading, even at magnum levels.

quote:

a soft lead bullet leaves residue.

Snap,
Not to discredit your advice because I so respect your opinion, my experience is a little different. That is unless we have different criteria of what constitutes hard and soft.

I have never shot any swagged bullets. I understand they are the softest. As far as purchased cast bullets, I have had them lead like crazy at lower velocities. My own cast bullets are probably in the 10-15bhn area and will work fine up to 1800fps from a Handi-Rifle in 44Mag. They are plain base bullets too and that helps immensely.

FWIW

Thanks Smith

I suppose I'm referring to swaged soft stuff. Last time I bought them (pre electricty) the cheapo's I found were swaged. What a mess they left! I bought my moulds and furnace about then. Home cast should be just fine. I use straight wheel weights these days.

Nice to know great minds are still on the same frequency!

I've been able to shoot swaged in the 8-900fps range with zero leading after a dose of Alox. There are a whole lot of variations, though. I have some Leadhead 44/270's (20-22bhn) that lead like crazy under 900fps, but over 1000 leave none at all.

My 625-7 PC 5.25" had the forcing cone cut crooked. It leaded so bad, it looked like I was shooting silver crayons thru the barrel. 6" plus at 25 yards. I had the barrel recut and no more problems. Acuracy, Leading...all good now.

I was able to get to the chrono today and with the help of Smith Crazy was able to get my 625 shooting without excessive leading. Smith Crazy sent me some bullets to try. They were just slightly larger than the Missouris and Silver States I tried previously as his would not go through the throats without being pushed. I loaded some up over 4.0 gr of Clays and they worked perfectly.

I had some trace amounts of lead in the throats and barrel but it cleaned up effortlessly. 100% improvement over what I had before. The combination of a slightly larger projectile and an additional .1 grain cured my problem. I may go back and bump my Clays load up a couple tenths and see what that does with the Missouris and Silver States. If that works well great. If not then it was the larger bullet that did the trick.

My chrono results were High:801fps, Low:763, Extreme Spread:38, Standard Deviation:11, and Avg:783
All in all, I was very happy with the result and thanks again to Smith Crazy for helping my figure out the problem.

Take care,
Dave

Dave,
Glad I could be of help.
The bigger bullet wasn't the only thing that solved your leading problem. With the bullet design we used there are a lot of factors that helped. Don't get me wrong, going to .452" +/- was the biggest part, that's for sure. Inherent in the bullet's design is a deep square grease groove. Elmer Keith gets the credit for that! Another thing that helped too was the plain base. It being flat and not beveled allowed it to obturate easier. The other factor is the hardness of the bullet. Mine are a little softer than most. Pure wheel weights with a little stick on wheel weights and Linotype mixed in for good measure. I would imagine between 10 and 12 BHN. But all in all those loads are good ones. The SD and ES are real good numbers.
Glad to hear you got it fixed!
Glad I could help!

Leading in my 625-8 was so severe with all kinds of recipes and cast products that gave no trouble in other guns, just yesterday I sent it back to the factory for evaluation.

I've NEVER had such severe leading in anything I've shot over the last 4 decades.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: m657,

I'd like to get into this conversation.

Last Monday, I sent my 625-9 (45 colt) back to S&W. The charge hole taper in 5 out of 6 holes had severe tooling marks. It looked like the rheem (or whatever) was abruptly stopped while it was still cutting. This left a sererated finish to the taper. The 6th taper was nice and smooth.

I had taken a length of hard copper water pipe and formed a couple of different scapers to clean my charge holes and forcing come. This got real old and time consuming, so I made the call to S&W. They sent me a shipping label, and the gun is now in their hands. I guess we'll see when I get it back.

Update.

I just ran a match with Missouri Bullets XD4 200gr LRNFP bullets in my 625 over 4.2gr of Clays and the throats look great!!

The BHN for these bullets is 18, I think. This combination seemed to work very well for the entire match. I had resolved myself to running plated but have now had a change of heart and an order to Missouri for more.

I haven't ran this revo in quite some time while getting ready for a state match with one of my bottom feeders... Just ran it today and thought an update post would be in order.

Take care,
Dave

To update again:

I have decided to run this revo as my exclusive competition gun now that the Calif state match has come and gone. I'm still using the Missouri XD4 bullets over 4.2 gr of Clays. I have not cleaned my 625JM at all for the last 3 IDPA matches!! That result right there is amazing. I just run a pull-through down the barrel and through each chamber after the match and put it away until the next weeks match.

I'd almost swear the barrel is getting shinier and nicer as time goes by. Accuracy is far better than I and the price is right.

Take care,
Dave

I've run a 625 and a 625PC for some time now, with no leading issues in either. I started using Red Dot with hard-cast bullets and now use WST under polymer bullets. The latter produces less smoke and virtually no bore residue.

What is this "leading" you speak of?