Any of you ever had to clean a lead fouled barrel? I did and it took me almost three hours to get the lead out! Since this revolver has polygonal rifling, can you run lead nosed ammo? I have the owners manual but it does not say anything about bullet type except weight for the 357 Magnum cartridge. Is hard cast bad? What a pain in the butt this was!!!

James

Are you sure that your R8 has a polygonal rifled barrel?

All the ones I have ever seen have EDM rifle barrels.

Either way, there is nothing wrong with shooting lead in any modern S&W barrel.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of polygonal rifling in general and it has always been safe with lead bullets. Glock is the company whose Polygonal rifling had serious issues and is the only company that I am aware of that specifically warns against lead bullets.

Well I looked up EDM rifling and I'm not sure what i have. I'm only going on what I found when I searched. What I can tell you it is not traditional rifling. Looks like the inside of a Snap-On 6 point socket is the best way I can describe the rifling.

JAmes

My early 5" 625 PC would lead up the barrel. An uneven forcing cone cut was the problem.

It's an ECM barrel. BTW Electro Chemical Machining is a variant of EDM machining.

The problem was caused by your choice of ammunition. ECM rifling can be used with lead bullets BUT the bullets have to be assembled with a quality lubricant. I don't know of any commercial ammunition that uses a lubricant on the bullets compatible with Smith & Wesson's ECM rifling, so you'll need to start hand loading if you want to shoot lead. I can also tell you to avoid any Blazer ammo featuring lead bullets because I've been there done that with my 620 and it took me 10-12 hours to get the barrel clean so consider yourself lucky.

I now only shoot with either plated or jacketed bullets. I also hand load to reduce the cost. By hand loading my cost for 38 special runs about 15 cents per round, which is less than half the cost of commercial 38 special. Costs for 357 Magnum is higher due to the need to use a premium bullet for Magnum velocities. My preferred bullet for Magnum loads are the Hornady XTP's in various weights with the 140 grain being a favorite because the POI is quite close to that for my 125 grain 38 special loads. These bullets run nearly 20 dollars per 100 at Midway so my 357 Magnums cost about 34 cents each to assemble. Not nearly as cheap as my 38 special but they are fun to shoot and very accurate.

Groo here
If you handload try SNS or Bayou bullets.
The coating works Veryyyyyy well.

Where is the leading? Is it down the barrel or at the forcing cone? If it's at the forcing cone aread, check your forcing cone. I just got a new 625-JM and I'm waiting for a shipping label from S&W, so I can send it back for them to (hopefully) redo the forcing cone. My 625 shoots great, but the lead deposits in the fc are horrendous. Check yours out. Mine looks VERY rough and even appears to have something like chatter marks near the rifling.

If you're leading goes down the barrel, you may have undersized bullets and gas is coming around the sides and liquifying the lead causing smears. Your cast bullets need to be .001 or .002 larger in diameter than the barrel diameter. You need to have your barrel slugged to find out the actual diameter. Hard cast may or may not be bad. If a bullet is too hard it doesn't expand enough to seal off the gases which in turn cause the melted lead and fouling. Most problems with barrel leading are bullet diameter and not hardness level, but it's all a factor.

Check your cylinder throats too. Mine were not undersized in my 625 and if theyre undersized it doesnt matter how oversized you go on bullets it will swage undersize once it leaves the cylinder.

Sent from behind enemy lines using TapaTalk

The leading was happening at the throat and not down the barrel. I guess I will stick to FMJ. I do not reload yet and I have a bunch of semi-wad 38 still which I can use in my other revolvers. You would think they would put something like this in the owners manual.

Another thing I noticed was when I run a brush down the barrel, it starts to get tighter towards the throat. Not a little tighter but a lot. I owned this gun for quite some time now and I really never payed much attention to detail when cleaning until I shined a light down there and noticed the leading. I need to start shining more lights down the barrel of my handguns more often. I was wondering why this was shooting high but I thought it was just me.

James

I am not selling the stuff and don't own stock; after using this CLP & seasoning my guns with FrogLube the upkeep needs far less effort. Other CLP's Seal 1 or TrackLube Plus are nearly identical.


Sent Using Tapatalk

James,
The easiest way I've found to clean lead from a barrel and throat is with a bore brush wrapped with a strip of a Chore Boy cleaning pad. They are pure copper and work great for de-leading. It works best on a dry barrel.

I have a lot of constriction where the barrel meets the frame on my Colt King Cobra. It leads like crazy too. I thought about having it fixed by a gunsmith, but the revolver has become something of a collector item, so I decided to just leave it alone and shoot plated bullets.

Great idea! Have a few under my sink. Ny other revolvers do not have this problem that I know of. So I would assume to stay away from lead nosed bullets in this revolver which is not an issue.

I'm just updating the thread in case other owners of the R8 have this problem. I traded the gun with a member here. He had the same problem I had. He eventually got rid of it and acquired another R8. With the same ammo the gun did not lead up. So I think this was a factory defect and the throats were on the tight side. Here are the pictures of the bore to show the rifling:

I have a 625 JM. Certain lead bullets have leaded up the barrel badly. THAT is a PAIN to get clean. (harder than other barrels) Back to feeding it plated bullets. Bob

Same problem and solution with my 625JM. I finally gave up on lead with that one.

Get a Lewis Lead Remover from Brownell's. It takes the frustration out of cleaning a badly leaded barrel.

Got one, but for some reason this 625 is still crazy tough to clean. Actually, the copper Chore Boy wrapped around a brush works better, but neither are worth the trouble on the 625.