jwp475:
I'm pretty sure I'm wrong and your right at this point. However, is it possible that super soft lead might melt from heat, or is it all scrubbing caused by soft lead being pealed off by the harder barrel?
One would think that the lead in a 300 Weatherby mag bullet would be rather hard, considering the velocity point, if for no other reason then it's going 4-5 times faster then most handgun bullets, and, it has to stay together hitting at those velocities.

Lead begins to melt at 621.43 °F, coupled with the short duration that the heat is applied to the bullets base (while the bullets is still in the barrel), which can be measured in thousandths of a second. That is not enough heat in the duration to cause lead to melt.

How long does it take to melt the cheese on a pizza, if you don't mind me asking?

http://yarchive.net/gun/barrel/barrel_leading.html

Some stuff that you may be interested in:

Bore leading stems from numerous, but usually related causes.
The principle cause I have discussed here before but is one that
is little known or understood by the vast majority of reloaders.
It is gas cutting. A bullet should not be more than .0005"
smaller in diameter than the throat (not the bore) of the gun.
This is true in rifle or pistol. Smaller diameter (lead) bullets
will allow hot gases to rush by and erode the base and sides of
the bullet. Some of the eroded metal plates onto the bore where
it is run over by the bullet.

The best cure to this source of bore leading is to fit the bullet
to that particular gun's throat. Since only a few reloaders have
the ability to do this (throats on recently made revolvers being
typically several thousands oversize) another approach is to try
a softer alloy. That is NOT a typo - a softer alloy will have
more tendency to obturate or "bump up" in the throat and is
often successful in reducing leading, especially in non-magnum
loads.

In MAGNUM loads where bullets already fit the throat and leading
is still excessive, sometimes a harder alloy is the answer -
sometimes. I find that most leading in this case is because of
the choice of powders. It is my experience, speaking of magnum
loads, that one should use the slowest powder that will give the
desired performance to make for successful cast or swaged lead
bullet shooting. My .44 magnums and .45 Colt boomer loads using
W-296 and H-110 give insignificant leading - and some of these are
much hotter than I would be willing to publish here. My bullet
alloy is moderately soft, measuring 12-13 BHN and gas checks are
rarely used.

'gas cutting' I gather is the process of the gas, through high pressure, removing lead from the bullet, much like you end up with cut top straps. So, I am wrong, in that it's NOT melting the bullet, but cutting, and, this cut material then is
pressured into the barrel, by either the bullet, or
gas forces, causing leading?

While I'm about 99% sure he's right about slower powders not leading as much, why?
GS

Some of you have brought up some points to consider. First, there is a VAST difference between a fast powder and a medium slow. A heavy boolit gets the powder started but powder is still burning in the short barrel, building pressure at the right rate plus the harder alloy is holding shape. Powder choice is very important. Look at a .38 special and pure lead wad cutters and a few gr of Bullseye! Shoot enough and the rifling goes away. Need a bulldozer to get the lead out.
Yes, an under size boolit can be bumped up to seal but don't try to shoot it fast or use a fast powder. Anyway they are not accurate. Cast careful, lube and size, inspect and weigh each boolit, then destroy it when you pull the trigger!
As far as melted bases on the .44 special, they were probably too small and gas cut the edges of the bases off as it tried to escape. Or too soft and skidded so gas still cut the edges off. There is no way lead will melt from powder heat with the short time the heat touches it.
Then the question of leading from the nose entering the barrel. No, that will not scrape off lead unless the barrel has sideways tool marks. A good lube and lube coating the barrel from previous shots helps protect that from happening too. Alox burns and leaves rough ash in the bore and is why I hate it. Notice the smoke? Smoke comes from fire and leaves ash.
In truth, the proper fitting boolit, hardness, lube and powder choice will leave NO lead in the bore for a gas check to scrape out.
In the old black powder days it was common to use a lead, tin alloy and it carried over into revolvers still shooting black. Then smokeless appeared and no one thought to make boolits harder. Even Elmer was using soft stuff. As powders improved all kinds of solutions came out to protect boolits, gas checks, zinc bases, half jackets, you name it. The first powders were fast and it was common to fill the inside and outside of a gun with lead. On top of that BP lube was still being used. Somewhere someone took the rust preventative, Alox and tried it. It worked at the low velocities but why nobody looked at all the smoke, I don't know. It has hung on to this day but where it actually works is just a narrow band. It is as out of date as the lead, tin mix, keep that for BP!
When Elmer raised pressures in the .44 special they thought he was nuts. Then came the .357 and .44 mags with those much higher pressures---WOW, 40,000 CUP, revolvers can't hold that, can they? Now we are at 60,000 PSI and guys are still trying to load the same stuff as Elmer did with the .44 special.

Well, to put this back on track a bit...if you remember I had trouble with the rear sight on the FA. The gun was shooting high and the rear sight was all the way down. I could not raise the rear sight either. I tried the other (432) front sight and it was way too low, so I switched to the red dot to sight it in and work up loads. When I removed the rear sight I noticed there was no spring under the sight so I thought that was the problem. Anyway a couple of phone calls to FA (plus some PMs with folks on this forum) later resulted in the following:
the rear sight on the FA does not have a spring under it (like a Ruger). Instead, the sight is made of spring steel and is built with a slight bevel so that it does not sit flat, but rather, with the front screw tight, is already sitting fully raised. The front screw holds the sight to the frame, the middle screw adjusts the height and the back screw holds the rear blade tight and must be loosened in order to adjust the windage, and then tightened again. The middle screw is the screw that lowers the sight towards the frame by engaging the thread in the frame. The natural contour of the sight will raise it as tension is decreased. Seems obvious now, but by no means so, just by looking at it, at least not to me! In any case, I removed the red dot, mounted the rear sight and was sighted in at 25 yards in 4 rounds. first shot 7 inches high, lowered the rear sight, 2 inches high, lowered it again, too low, next shot ON. Life should be this easy. I am one happy camper. Now, back to leading and boolits!
Peter.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Well, to put this back on track a bit...if you remember I had trouble with the rear sight on the FA. The gun was shooting high and the rear sight was all the way down. I could not raise the rear sight either. I tried the other (432) front sight and it was way too low, so I switched to the red dot to sight it in and work up loads. When I removed the rear sight I noticed there was no spring under the sight so I thought that was the problem. Anyway a couple of phone calls to FA (plus some PMs with folks on this forum) later resulted in the following:
the rear sight on the FA does not have a spring under it (like a Ruger). Instead, the sight is made of spring steel and is built with a slight bevel so that it does not sit flat, but rather, with the front screw tight, is already sitting fully raised. The front screw holds the sight to the frame, the middle screw adjusts the height and the back screw holds the rear blade tight and must be loosened in order to adjust the windage, and then tightened again. The middle screw is the screw that lowers the sight towards the frame by engaging the thread in the frame. The natural contour of the sight will raise it as tension is decreased. Seems obvious now, but by no means so, just by looking at it, at least not to me! In any case, I removed the red dot, mounted the rear sight and was sighted in at 25 yards in 4 rounds. first shot 7 inches high, lowered the rear sight, 2 inches high, lowered it again, too low, next shot ON. Life should be this easy. I am one happy camper. Now, back to leading and boolits!
Peter.

That's great to hear, Peter! Sounds like you will be ready for March!

Thanks Whitworth!The 475 is an interesting gun. It has significant flash, blast and recoil. While I do not flinch, I do find myself touching off the 4th and 5th rounds with a little bit of apprehension!!!
Peter.

MY .475 is one of my favorite guns. It's my pillow gun. When I first got it, it had the stock grips on it. I couldn't hit anything with it. Had to death grip it to shoot it, and, that combined with the stock trigger, around 5 pounds, made it difficult to shoot well.

A set of custom grips by Jack Huntington that fit my hands, and a trigger job, down to around 2 pounds, and it's a whole nother ball game.
Now it's my favorite gun...or at least tied for favorite.

Glad you mentioned the trigger! Mine seems a little heavy too! Who worked on yours? I noticed that yours is not a standard front sight either. I prefer the standard rather than the red insert type, but it certainly is handsome!
Peter

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Glad you mentioned the trigger! Mine seems a little heavy too! Who worked on yours? I noticed that yours is not a standard front sight either. I prefer the standard rather than the red insert type, but it certainly is handsome!
Peter

Jack Huntington according to the post. Jack has performed his magic on all of my Freedom revolvers. Freedom can't do as good as Jack does.

Correct. I got the best of both worlds. A FA 83, 454 converted to .475 by Jack Huntington. It's a tack driver, noteably with 420 grain LFNS over VV110, IIRC.