Marlin 1895 GS and a barrel full of lead

Hmmm, in my Springfield Trapdoor, as well as my Sharps 45-70 I use pure lead mixed with 10% tin and get right at 1300-1450FPS but I use real Black powder. My lands and grooves are both right at .459 on those two rifles, and I've never had any leading of any kind. Sounds to me like your using too hard of a bullet. You do want obturation as soon as the load is ignited so it will follow the lands and grooves, another thing is that smokeless powder is burning hot enough to get the necessary obturation of the projectile. You definitely want the bullet to follow the lands and grooves, and not be bouncing to and froe down your bore.

Whups, I just reread your post and your shooting a modern firearm, I do believe those newer Marlins are using the micro-groove rifling, and therefore do require jacketed bullets, You'll have to read your owners manual.

Is this your rifle?https://www.marlinfirearms.com/lever-action/model-1895-big-bore/model-1895gs
If so it does have the deep Ballard rifling for brought back specific lead boolits so somethings going on with them or pushing them too fast. Another thought is to look at the bore and see if it looks rough. Remlins have a hit or miss history on quality. Maybe you have a bad one.

You will have powder crunchies left over with AA5744, it's one of the only things I dislike about that powder.

I don't mind the powder kernels left by AA5744 but if it really bothers you, you can always switch to 4198.

Shak3s1977 said:

Crest117 I don't see anything in the bore. I do not have a bore scope but it is a brand new gun. I got it for Fathers Day this year.

Troy fairweather I included a pic of some of the loaded rounds. To me the crimp seems pretty heavy. I used Lee Dies with a Lee factory crimp die.

Im going to shoot some more probably tonight or tomorrow. I'll be sure to post some updates.

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I had a problem with my 9mm lead reloads. The bore required an oversized bullet to fire accurately. Lee's factory crimp die squishing down my 9mm lead bullets to a too small size, giving terrible accuracy and lots of leading.

Have you considered abandoning the factory crimp and seeing how you do? It sure fixed my problem.

Shak3s1977 said:

I have never slugged a barrel. Where can I get soft lead to do it? What size? Can most gunsmiths do it? Haven't a clue, because I haven't done it, nor do I know of anyone that has done it.

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I use various sizes of shot or lead round balls for muzzeloaders and ram them down the bore with a rod. Then take the calipers and measure

I shoot the same hi-tek 405s. How fast are you pushing them?

greyling22 said:

I had a problem with my 9mm lead reloads. The bore required an oversized bullet to fire accurately. Lee's factory crimp die squishing down my 9mm lead bullets to a too small size, giving terrible accuracy and lots of leading.

Have you considered abandoning the factory crimp and seeing how you do? It sure fixed my problem.

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+1^^^^^^^^^^
Ditch the lee fcd die & try some loads without using it. You should seat some bullets in your cases without crimping them or using the fcd. Then compare what the reload looks like to 1 of your crimped/fcd reloads. You want to look at the bullet itself. If you can clearly see the bullet seated in the case (wasp waist/bullet base showing/whole bullet showing) compared to nothing showing after using your fcd. That's telling you how much you're swaging that bullet down in the reloading process.

Most reloading die mfg's makes dies that are designed to reload the shorter & smaller in diameter jacketed bullets. The end result is that the lead bullet bases get some serous abuse when being stuffed into the over sized (too small in diameter) cases that are then under expanded with the short/small in diameter expander plugs. A lyman m-die expander plug.


A lyman m-die expander next to a factory lee expander. You can see a ring on the factory lee expander from the "high water mark" were the mouth of the cases end. The lyman m-die expands the case twice as deep and the lee factory expander die.


A lee factory 9mm expander next to a custom/home made expander. The lee expander is designed to expand the 9mm cases for the short jacketed .355" bullets. The home made expander is designed to go 60% deepr into the cases and expand them for a .358" bullet.


That custom expander is designed to protect the bases on the oversized .358" bullets being used in a nm 1911 chambered in 9mm. THe red bullet is a hollow based bullet designed in 1900 for the 38s&w. It a home cast 35870 that is 1/10" longer than a typical home cast 125gr bullet.


Protect the bullets base & don't swage them down!!! Those 35670 hb bullets are 8bhn/9bhn and take up a lot of room in those short 9mm cases. Typical 10-shot 50yd groups with that 35870hb bulllet/1911 combo.


50yd 10-shot groups shot from a 308w using .311" home cast/coated bullets using 8bhn/9bhn alloy with no gas check.

You do need a good crimp. I get mine with the roll crimp that is included with the seating die in my 357's.

Factory crimp die is great on Lee's rifle dies, and good with jacketed bullets, but it caused me nothing but problems on the 2 sets I used it with on lead bullets. (9&45. I guess 44spl too...)

Great info Forrest. I decided the Lyman m die was too expensive and just put an expander plug for a 38s&w long in my powder through die instead of a 9mm one.

@Shak3s1977
I don't know, I shoot a 405gr uncoated cast bullet that rates 18 BHN in both a Trapdoor and Marlin Carbine using AA5744 without a trace of leading. I get the same results with 4198 as with AA5744. I'm still confused as to why you are leading the barrel???

In any event, I'm glad you found an easy solution.

The bullet and coating aren't exposed to heat high enough to burn off the coating or melt the bullet in the short time they are travelling through the barrel. What is more likely is the AA5744 has a higher nitro content or something similar and is aggressively eating the coating. Bullseye is known to do this but it usually takes about a year or so.

That still doesn't explain the leading itself. But since the OP has a bullet/powder combo that works I guess it's a non-issue.

Here are some coated bullets that I fired versus unfired ones from the same batch. I have posted these many times before. They clearly show no damage to the base of the bullet (which is the only part that matters for the coating). The blackened area is actually just soot and wipes right off.

I'm running AA5744 in my guide gun under an Accurate 46-360m in the 1400-1500FPS neighborhood. I do experience some mild leading at 1500+ FPS, but it's nothing too bad; alloy is aircooled hardball. My rifle is a remlin and the bore is rough and even j-words will start to foul eventually. Powdercoated I get very minimal leading.

I will say that a little bit that doesn't get any worse is no big deal at all. Don't sweat the small stuff. What I can say is that with AA5744, I get much better accuracy than with other similar powders. The stuff just works.

Just be sure that what you're getting is actually leading, and not just crud build up from the powder. The more I shoot AA5744, the more I'm thinking it's a little dirtier than Western Powders likes to let on. Pretty obvious with all the unburned granules you get. The "leading" I think I'm getting usually cleans up in one pass with a wet patch and a brush. With standard deviations in the 4-5fps range and group sizes for 4 shots measuring .670-.750 I'm not about to complain though.

Shak3s1977 said:

Well a little while back I posted that I made my first 45-70 reloads with Accurate 5744 (23.4gr) and some 405gr Hitek coated lead bullets. While they shot pretty good and had nice light recoil, after 40 rounds I had a barrel full of lead fom the beginning, all the way to the muzzle. Supposedly they were 13 brinell.

Well I'm used to lead in the barrel( dang 357 Vaquero) so I got out my brush and some Chore Boy and cleaned it out. I've also read that it's roughly 1440 x brinell=psi needed for bullet obturation.

Is it possible I didn't have enough pressure to obturate the bullet? I don't have or know where to get a chunk of soft lead to slug my barrel. Anyone knows where I can go to get one, please let me know. If the bullet fit wasn't perfect, should the hitek coating prevented the leading?

With my Ruger 357 and lead bullets, I upped the charge, which raised the pressure and my leading problems went away. With any 38/357 coated bullet, I never had any leading problems no matter the pressure.

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i have shot 250 rounds of the oregon trail hard cast 350 grain .459 in my 22" barrel 45/70 and have zero leading issues to date i have 2 differnt loads 1 using 35 grains of imr3031 but my best shooting is with trailboss 14.5 grains
hold good group at 70 yards im shooting at burns clean and you can shoot all day with no shoulder pain

Shak3s1977 said:

Jwhit I literally just looked at your thread lol. It's a above mine right now lol. I have been thinking about trying those bullets and Trailboss for the 45-70. Heard that powder is good for light loads.

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i think you will like trail boss i am planning on trying some 405 grain bullets next to see how how these compare to the 350 i think i will stick with oregon trail bullets since i have had no signs of leading