bwarner
Member
Is LRN ammo worth buying for plinking? Are there any additional issues as far as cleaning your revolver?
Lead Ammo
- Thread starter bwarner
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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.
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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If you are talking about factory ammo it is usually a little bit less in cost over jacketed ammo. I just put 80 rounds of 158LRN through my Mdl 14 this morning,Federal and Remington UMC. The UMC was a bit sooty but both shot great.
As far as cleaning I had no leading at all and cleanup was simple.
I have found that since I have scrubbed the barrel out really well with an abrasive brush (almost a smooth bore now) I don't have any problems.
Just kidding, I mostly shoot lead waddcutters out of my model 27 and it's a little more work to clean but not that big a deal. For poking holes at the range shoot whats cheep.
Have fun.
Just kidding, I mostly shoot lead waddcutters out of my model 27 and it's a little more work to clean but not that big a deal. For poking holes at the range shoot whats cheep.Have fun.
Cops bet their lives on the 158 gr RNL load for the first 2/3 of the 20th century. I would think it would serve as a target load. Joe
