Leading from plated bullets

A friend I am encouraging to get into reloading bought 500 cheap commercial reloads with plated bullets (.38 Special, mainly to generate brass). These have turned out to be EXTREMELY CHEAP reloads, inasmuch as they lead the barrel to the point of keyholing at 25ft after 75 rounds. I believe the problem is a combination of thin plating with an overly agressive crimp, but we are wondering if there is a better way than shooting up the remaining 300 rounds to move forward from this problem. I have given him some Alox as a potential short term solution but we have not tested this approach yet. Thoughts?

If he is shooting 38's in a 357 magnum revolver he could buy some regular 38 special jacketed ammo and alternate cylinder-fulls to clean out the barrel as he goes. I have done this with lead bullets that left leading in my gun. You have to be careful though not to let the lead build up before shooting jacketed ammo and especially not full power magnum ammo afterwards as pressures might spike up. After a couple of cylinders, take a good look down the barrel and see how it is going. It worked very well for me.

btw, I shoot a lot of plated bullets and have never gotten leading in the barrel. Must be some really bad ammo.

We may try that with powder coated bullets since we know they don't cause leading in his gun.
It is really bad ammo. Touching the bullet with a collet puller cut the plating, and pulling the bullet left streaks down its side. The smoke from the plated rounds was comparable to regular cast bullets.

NikA said:

We may try that with powder coated bullets since we know they don't cause leading in his gun.
It is really bad ammo. Touching the bullet with a collet puller cut the plating, and pulling the bullet left streaks down its side. The smoke from the plated rounds was comparable to regular cast bullets.

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You should share the manufacturer's name so others won't buy this same crap.

It's apparently FedArm remanufactured 158gr .38 Special. Like I said, the crimps on this are quite overdone, to the point that some rounds will not fit in a .38 Special chamber (we've been firing these in a .357M). It doesn't seem like the bullet I pulled is consistent with the plated component bullets they sell, as there was no cannelure and the plating was extremely thin.

I've shot quite a few plated 9mm bullets at the 900-1000 fps level and found no problems with bore leading. I've also fired some 38SP factory loaded w/plated bullets and even pulled/reseated some of those after finding some bad primers in the case lot of ammo I have w/o noticing such problems.
I'd suggest attempting to "catch" some of the bullets after firing in some sort of non-destructive media to see what's going on with them. It sounds like the "plating" is too thin to protect the lead or the crimp is causing the plating to peel off. Good plated bullets will "washer" on steel plates while retaining the plating mostly intact.

Perhaps they aren't plated, but merely "washed" to give the color.
gramps

gramps said:

Perhaps they aren't plated, but merely "washed" to give the color.
gramps

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aaaaaah hah, I think you might have something there Gramps.

Also, have you measured the diameter of those bullets? Are you sure they are even .357/38 caliber?

I've only pulled one to check if the crimp cuts the plating, and it definitely does. Unfortunately I melted that one in the last round of casting (no sign of the plating in the pot) and I'm disinclined to pull more because they aren't mine and are a pain to pull. I would say they are close enough to .357/8 that if they were truly plated and not copper washed, it would not be an issue. I know why they are leading; I'm looking for a solution to cut it down so we can shoot them up that doesn't involve pulling them and replacing the bullets because that is beyond the level of frustration I am willing to deal with.

Reloads this bad are enough to discourage a new shooter from shooting again. They don't fit in the gun they're intended to, they make terrible smoke despite being plated, and accuracy degrades to keyholing at 20ft in 75 rounds? Luckily there are "only" 300 left, but we have to take 4 hours to clean the lead out each time they are shot.

There are a lot of ways to remove leading, my favorite (and fastest) way is to slug the bore. Use a plain, preferably soft, lead bullet. Oil the bore and bullet and drive it through the barrel with a brass rod. The slug will push all the leading out along with the slug.

You can do the same thing with a very lightly loaded round, but that may not be possible in a shop setting.