Alarming metal fragments in barrel of a Mark II

[Rostfrei]

I have a stainless Mark II pistol, target model with bull barrel, ca. 1990, which I have not fired for several years.

Recently I took it out and shot a mix of Remington Golden Bullet (brass plated hollow point) and some old Russian "Junior" LRN. The Russian ammo was extremely greasy. I shot maybe 150 of the Remington and 100 of the Russian ammo.

Toward the end of my session, I was having increasing failure-to-feed problems, and some of the Russian were not extracted by the extractor.

On returning home, I immediately cleaned the pistol, starting with a wire brush for the bore. I found it faced considerable resistance, at first, and finally it pushed loose a couple metal fragments. I attach a photo of one of them about 5mm long. The fragments are non-magnetic. After completing my cleaning, the barrel appears absolutely flawless when examined with good light from both ends.

Running from left to right in the photo is groove from the rifling, but what are the small up-down grooves? This piece is cylindrical in form, with the axis running left to right. In the second photo are shown two fragments, the bottom of which shows a sort of crumpling:

I have been shooting for 60 years, and I have never seen anything quite like this. Does anyone have an explanation?

 

[Cholo]

Your images aren't showing up for me. I'm pretty sure that they're lead deposits. I hadn't cleaned my Bearcat in thousands of rounds. The Remington Golden bullets wouldn't chamber without me pushing them in with a clothes pin. When I cleaned the barrel, a slab of lead, about 1", came out. I'm now good to go for another few thousand rounds

 

[coach]

I would think it's probably lead too. Or even some carbon mixed in. No experience with Russian ammo. The bullets might be extra soft that deposited a lot of lead that got pressed in the grooves.

 

[Rostfrei]

Can someone please tell me how to successfully post photos? Thanks. It would help with discussing this topic.

I think is lead, perhaps deposited as suggested by coach.

 

[rugerguy]

we used to see many 22 barrels ,various makes and models, folks thought they were all nice and clean and shiny.....run a Lewis Lead remover ( brass screen patch) down a "clean" bore and see what really may be left behind, and come rolling out the end of the barrel.........lots of very soft lead 22 bullets out there...all too common
another one was when some one shoots a LOT of 'Wildcat' 22 ammo, after a while you could almost see the lead "flow" out and around the muzzle when you get 'em hot........ 8)

 

[contender]

We had some Russian ammo donated to our WOT clinics several years ago. Totally crappy ammo & it left deposits, was hard to chamber & eject. After just ONE clinic,,, we removed the ammo from use & I got rid of the rest of it.

As for posting pics,,,, go to the "Gallery" section, & at the top is a "Sticky" about how to post pics.

 

[Mobuck]

W/o even looking, Id say it's lead slivers. Happens often with crappy ammo.

 

[blume357]

Couple of years ago I had to use a number of my guns for a group shooting event... guys were loading magazines for what they wanted to shoot. Another person had brought his AK47 with some Russian ammo and they ran probably 20 or 30 rounds of it through my mini-30. All my other rifles and guns we were shooting Georgia Arms ammo in... when I got home nothing really needed cleaning... except the mini 30... the barrel look like somebody had poured mud down through it.. I'm not kidding.

I'm pretty dern set on never shooting crappy commie ammo in any of my guns ever.....

 

[m657]

OP:
That Roosian 'Junior' ammo is the ONLY kind of ammo my much vaunted Mk II 10" bull actually choked up on, after less than 100 rounds.

I've never seen such a dirty residue, and had so many problems to solve after using it.

I had similar wad of what I believe was lead infused grease/powder debris, take a LONG time to clean out of all the nooks & crannies.

Great learning experience which I will never have to repeat.

On the other hand, I have a couple bricks of what *must* be a collector classic Russian 22 ammo...

I've given away a number of box fulls, with suitable warning. Strangely even during the acute shortage no one seemed to want a second box for free.

 

[mohavesam]

Garbage in, garbage out.
Hope you don't cheap-out on your centerfire rifle ammo. Someone could get hurt.

 

[DPris]

That's very definitely lead.

I had the same problem with heavy lead plating in the first SP 4.2 .22 I had here after less than 300 rounds.
Mix of at least half a dozen different loads.

Pulled out exactly the same stuff.
Bad forcing cone on that one.
Denis

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

And that's where the problem of barrel leading often lies, just in front of the chamber in the "leade". Ruger barrels are most often button rifled. What that entails is a carbide button being pushed through the barrel to displace the barrel steel, swaging the rifling into the bore. It's a very common practice when rifling a barrel. Ruger barrels, as most all .22 rimfire barrels, have a land to groove height of around 0.0020 to 0.0025. Now, that's "thousandths of an inch". If you have a caliper at hand, open the jaws to 0.0025 and see how much light you get through the jaws. That's how much the bullets bearing surface is engraved by the rifling. Where the issues of leading will often take place, and ALL .22 caliber lead bullets are soft so they can be swaged into shape easily, is when the chamber is reamed, or cut, into the barrel. There will often be "roll-over" burrs from the trailing edge of the reamers cutting action. Those burrs are sharp and they will have a tendency to shave lead off the bearing surface of a lead bullet that only has around 2% antimony involved for hardness.
My recommendation to all my customers who get ~NEW~ Ruger Mark pistols is to shoot several hundred CCI Mini-Mags through their pistols. The flame temperature of the burning powder will burn off those sharp edges. Don't ask for a specific amount of rounds needed because that will depend on how bad the burrs are. And that depends on how sharp, or dull, the reamer is, and effects how that reamer cuts.
The leade can also be "hand-lapped" using a mild abrasive, but consider, the lapping can always be over-done. I am NOT a fan of "fire-lapping". That process involves some .22 rimfire ammunition with bullets impregnated with graduating sizes of grit, and fired through the barrel. If that process is over-done, from my experience, I've measured the leade to get moved forward up ¼ of an inch by means of chamber and leade casting. That forward movement of the leade condition will require the bullet to jump further until it reaches engagement of the rifling. So then, if the chamber is not perfectly concentric to the bore and rifling, accuracy will suffer immensely.

 

[Snake45]

Had exactly the same thing with some cheap Argentine "Concorde" ammo about 25 years ago. 50 rounds of it would lead up ANY gun it was shot in.

Have never seen Rem GBs do that, so I'd have to say it's the Russian ammo.

 

[usmc6433-6437]

I had that issue with a Walther P22, and some ComBloc type .22 LR ammo once as well. It was weird because I was pushing out lead deposits, that came out like wire. Never shot that crap again, just disposed of it.

 

[Rostfrei]

Thanks to all you who responded, especially D. A. Wood. I learned a lot. I have a remaining problem: to whom can I give my remaining crap ammo? Fortunately I only have one box of 50.

 

[GunnyGene]

Interesting thread. I don't use unplated .22 with the sole exception of a few hundred rds of ELEY Sport in my old Savage 6A. The ELEY was a 500 rd brick - gift from a friend - still have about 200 rds left. But haven't noticed any leading, especially not as severe as talked about in this thread. I'm wondering if that's because of the rifle (made in 1939) or that ELEY is not as soft as other .22 lrn? Or am I just not looking close enough? The gun is very accurate and reliable.

 

[pruger45]

Technically lead is a metal! So, yes these were metal fragments in the barrel!