.38 special bullets too hard?

[messer454]

Sir,

I asked this on another forum but I just discovered this here and would like your expert opinion.

 I have been relaoding for a long time but have not used many cast bullets in recent years. I bought 500 wadcutters and 500 SWC bullets from Vance's, a relatively local bullet caster that is always at my gun show. Now before you tell me I should have tried a few before buying that many, I will tell you you are right. All of the bullets are bevel based and lubed with a hard blue lube. They all seemed very hard. I tested them with my recently acquired Lee hardness tester and found that the wadcutters are 20 Br and the SWC are 16 Br. While that seemed too hard to me I figured at least they wouldn't lead.........how wrong I was. They leaded at the forcing cone like crazy. I tried two different guns and several loads and could not come up with one that did not have extreme leading after 25 shots(I cleaned the gun with each load tried with Lewis lead remover.) The leading did not go all the way to the muzzle, only at the forcing cone end. All loads were under 800 fps with W231 powder. I was trying to load some accurate lower recoil practice loads for some CMP matches and my wife.  Both bullets are sized .358.

Is there anything I am doing wrong? I deduce that the lead is simply too hard for .38 special bullets and the beveled base and hard lube are not helping. At this rate I am not sure that I can even use these bullets but maybe should melt them down with some pure lead or something when I get the chance and then relube with a soft lube. My only .38 mold is a gaschecked one and that is why I did not use it (even if I had the time.)Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need more info. Thanks

[Veral]

All is not lost, and the blue lube may not in fact be bullet lube,                by my standards.  I've been able to smear a trace of my LBT soft over such bullets and stop leading completely with every sample of commercial cast bullets I've tried.   With leading in the forcing cone only, inadaquate lubrication is my guess as to the problem.

The easiest fix is to put a bit of granulated shot buffer over the powder.  Enough to it compresses when you seat the bullets.  There will be no leading.  Did you notice I put a period at the end of that line?  That means no leading period.  The buffer will raise pressure and velocity some, but not seriously.  It also works for magnum handgun and rifle loads.  Always compress it so shaking the ammo doesn't get it mixed with the powder.  The buffer needs to be against the bullet so it can sweep melted lead off the bore soon as the bullet leaves it.

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