45.70 choke

[Steve fuller]

My rifle seems to have a choked bore.........  the groove diameter is .457 at the chamber and .455 at the muzzle. I have tried .457  .458  .459 .460 diameter bullets and I get leading with all . Should i be using .455  >   I have also tried .456 .  All of the bullets above were tried with pure lead to additional varying degrees of hardness  using wheel weights mxed with lead.   Thanks

[dodd3]

steve what lube are you using.my buff classic is .459 grove and .452 bore at the chamber and .457 grove and .450 bore at the muzzel i got a little leading until i started using rooster red black powder 7 lube its the best i have used.my gun likes the bullets sized at .457.you can get the lube from track of the wolf.
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/categories/partList.aspx?catID=18&subID=129&styleID=439 .hope this is some help.
bernie

[longcaribiner]

I have two guns with choked bores.  I can't say I have ever had a leading problem.  I use a very stiff wax lube on my bullets, which are nearly pure lead. 50:1    Actually Cheese wax and crisco 4:1 . like on Gouda cheese.  It is available in 5 lb blocks from a company in Wisc.  The lead is soft enough to compress through the choke easily with out pressure problems and the waxy lube is tough enough to stay on the bullet and protect the bore.        Even with my Trap door and it's slightly pitted bore, i have never had a leading problem. 

[Cottonwood]

longcaribiner

I have to question your choice of lube and its not to flame etc, but crisco is not a good source for lube simply because of its smoke point.  Using Cooking Oil Smoke Points a much better oil can be found and used, prefer the refined for better quality.  Wax is just that, I prefer to use a refined wax with my lube.  Wax is used to hold the oil in so that it is carried down the barrel to keep the fouling soft, and prefer to get a nice wet star at the end of your barrel.  In most if not all cases where a almost or pure lead bullet is used, you won't get any leading, because the bullet bumps up to fit the lands and grooves.  The harder the bullet the less bump up and there by allowing flame cutting that causes leading from the lead gasses created by the flame cutting.

One can also stop the flame cutting by using a card wad or veggie wad between the compressed powder and bullet.  Others also use a grease cookie as well for extra lubing.

Now if you don't want to have to worry about leading etc, get into paper patching your bullets or purchase them from Montana Bullet Works and if you got a question about using PPB's give Dave a call at 406-655-8163

YMMV

[longcaribiner]

I understand your point concerning the shortening.  But I am mixing it with 4 parts microcrystalline wax.  (cheese wax)   The (20%) crisco softens the wax just slightly making it easier to work with.    The other factor, is that some bores are chokeds only at near muzzle,   Many Martini-Henrys are choked both for a few inches at the breech and again near the muzzle.    Shooting a choked bore gun with very hard bullets can possibly lead to dangerous pressures because the the bore can act like it's own obstruction. (At least that is what I recall reading somehwere)  On the other hand squeezing a soft lead bullet through the choke, is little different than putting it through a sizer die.    (I picked up some really hard .430 bullets and tried to size them down to .427 for my 44-40.  I couldn't physically push them through the old Lyman hand sizer and had to use the bench mounted lubrisizer.   I can only imagine the difference in pressure in a choked bore.)