Bought a 629-3 5" Classic a few weeks ago, the gun was clean and showed good care and little use. The bore appeared to have some leading and I dismissed this as a minor conditional problem. Which I think still is.

Found some time over the weekend and ran a brush, some ISSO and a patch or two though the bore. I found some lead lingering in the bore just beyond the forcing cone, to be honest it more than lingers, it is giving way to the bore brush and Tetra bore cleaner very reluctantly. The remainder of the bore is bright shiny, with the lands and grooves sharp, square and clean.

my suspicion is the bbl is restricted in the frame. That comes next, what do you use to get the "lead out" of the bore. I don't have a Lewis Lead Remover. Is there a cleaner especially formulated for removing lead, and or different brushes?

Thanks for your help!

My recommendation would be to buy the Lewis Lead Remover. It is inexpensive and it is something you will use more than once after you see how well and efficient it works. If you intend to shoot lead bullets out of your .44 Magnum you are going to need it.

Other guys wrap bronze "scrubbies" around a bore brush, use a lead-A-Way cloth cut into patches and still others use JB compound, but IMHO nothing works as fast or as good as the LLR and it will do no harm if used properly.

Chief38

Get some choreboy (copper wool) at the grocery store.Wrap a piece around an old cleaning brush. Give the bore a good scrubbing.That lead will shred faster than it took me to type this.

You just described the Lewis Lead Remover.

Pecos

I bought one long ago.Tried choreboy about 10 years ago.No idea where that gadget ended up :-)

Letting the bore soak with Ed's Red (Kroil will work just as well) overnight before starting to remove the lead really helps. I have used the Lewis Lead remover but for barrel leading I find the Chore Boy actually works better. After the soak the lead comes out in large flakes. Two passes and all the lead is gone.

I prefer the Lewis Lead remover for lead in the cylinder and in the forcing cone. YMMV.

Chief 38 thanks for the tip on LLR I knew they made them for 38s but I didn't realize they had a model for 44s.

arjay: I'm going to try the Choreboy method as I have some pads in the kitchen. If that fails then I will add the lead away cloth. Hopefully these specks and tiny streaks of lead will be gone.

When the lead is gone then I will get the bore miced and see where we are on bullet diameter. If the bore is constricted I would imagine Smith would solve the problem. If not them then who or how?

Being an old lead shooter in BP cartridge and tons of rounds in old 29's and such I never, ever, used an abrasive to remove lead. In the years of gunsmithing as well I found the best way to remove lead is with either: Pure Gum Spirits of Turpentine or with Kroil. Use a pointed jag and not a sloted one, and coat your bore well with either liquid. Make several passes to insure the liquid is distributed well in the bore. Then go watch a movie on the tube, or go load some ammo, or something for an hour or so.

Then come back and run a tight clean patch and watch the lead come out in streaks and flecks. What you have just done is cause the liquid to go underneath the metal fouling and raise it from the metal in the bore slightly. No real effort on your part by scrubbing for sometime with abrasives and this method will raise even microscopic lead particles from the pores of the barrel metal. A cleaner bore to start with means a cleaner bore after shooting. If you don't have a good tight fitting pointed jag one can take a slightly undersized bronze brush and wrap a long patch around it and soak the entire patch with you choice of the above listed liquid. Either way the idea is to work the liquid into the metal and let it do it's work while you wait. I find this better than dragging kitchen scrubpads through my bore...If you still have grey streaks on your dry patch, you still have lead in there. You may have to soak the bore ovenight with the liquid, but the lead will come out.

We had several weapons in the PD that were lead plated inside from lack of proper cleaning by the officer, and this method always got his or her weapon clean and no complaints from the officer to the old sarge as I didn't yell at 'em, but taught 'em..LOL!!

Stay safe on the road!

Wade

Thanks, Wade. Somebody needed to say that.

NEVER, EVER use abrasives to clean lead from a barrel. EVER!!!

Outstanding advice.

I do have Kroil and a set of Tipton jags, this is the method I will employ. Wade what about having the bbl miced to see if it is constricted where mated to the frame.

I slugged the bore and it was uniform in resistance from muzzle to frame there it became very difficult to drive the lead slug through that area. How much of that was built up lead or constricted bore I don't know. Guess we will find out after I get the bore completely clean then test for accuracy and slug it again, after cleaning.

That area where the lead has settled usually indicates either an undersized bullet or one that is cast very hard and the lube failed. There are several casting companies that use very very hard mixture along with lube that resembles crayons! This practice is done to insure that the bullets can be simply placed in a bag and not loose their lube and bullets don't get dents and nicks during shipment. The down side to this practice is that one often gets lead in the leading portion of their bore.

After getting all the lead out of your bore, you may find that this restriction was after all, lead buildup. Remember this; once lead forms in the bore, it will attract more lead to itself. Left unchecked, lead buildup can really play havoc in your accuracy, increase pressure, and generally make you an unhappy shooter...

Often weapons, regardless of age, will more than likely require a bit of break in of the bore. This is most prevalent in rifles, but handguns do require some break in as well. A good method that has been used by many benchrest shooters, and myself, is to start with a clean, dry bore. Fire ONE round of jacketed ammo and then do a FULL cleaning of the bore. I mean a complete cleaning and start again with another jacketed round. After about 10 to 12 of these "shoot. clean. shoot" sessions, you will have effectively polished the bore to the point that it should be broken in. Some folks try to skip this by firing 10 or more Jacketed rounds then clean, but all they're doing is placing copper fouling atop copper fouling. This accomplishes nothing toward polishing the bore. I know this is a real pain if you go to a public range and there are folks waiting for your bench to shoot too, but if one has access to a more private location, it goes easier.

Case in point. Last month I bought a new 629 4". Nice weapon to say the least. But I didn't just load up and shoot a bunch of rounds when I got it to my range.I fired one round of JHP and then cleaned the bore fully removing all traces of the copper fouling. And so on until I had fired 15 rounds of JHP's with complete cleaning in between each shot. I can now drive lead cast bullets made up of alloy even 30:1 at modest speed without a trace of leading in the bore. Taking a 240 SWCGC round well into the 1300 plus range will show no leading at all. I'm quite sure that if I had not broke this bore in prior to shooting these cast rounds I'd be mining lead from my bore...

Due to the heavy constructin of the the barrel of the 29 type weapon, I doubt that the barrel had crushed to the point that it caused a restriction in your bore. It can happen, but is not that common really. I'm willing to bet that your bore is just plugged up a bit with lead in the leading end of the bore and will be fine after cleaning and a few of the break in sessions mentioned above. Time consuming? Sure. Worth the effort? You bet!

So get you a sloppy wet patch of Kroil and soak that bore for a day. Then get it shinny clean and slug that bore. If, in fact, the leading area of the bore is slightly tighter than the rest, we can discuss lapping the bore to even things out. But first get 'er all clean and all first ok?

Our Lt. that ran the range and armory use to give me all the basket case weapons as he did not have the patience to deal with them. So in addition to the time spent in training on weapons, I got to see my share of some real messed up pistols and shotguns! What joy huh? LOL! Oh well it was fun, I guess...

I look forward to your progress and your report on how it went.

Wade

Kleen-bore bronze spiral things and #9.