Slugging my barrels

[cdschoonie]

I’m looking to drive some lead into my barrels for size measurements. Everything I’ve read, says to get 50 cal black powder balls and drive into the throat and muzzle. I have tons of fishing egg sinkers, can I just use them vs. buying a full box of balls?

 

[HiredHand]

I’ve used lead sinkers for that purpose and it seemed to work just fine.

 

[swampratt]

You can test the egg sinkers and see if they are soft lead also.
Finger nail scratch test.
Some new egg sinkers are alloyed with a lot of zinc and are quite hard.
If you have the soft ones you can hammer it to more of a bore size than what it currently is.

When I do it I like to coat the bore with gun oil and lube the lead with case lube.

Here is something to notice if you are doing pistols.
Notice how hard or easy it is to push the lead at different points in the barrel.
It should be easy at the beginning and harder at the muzzle.

You can take the same lead slug you just passed through the barrel and pas it through again to feel for tight or loose spots.
Small tap on the lead will swell it just enough to fatten it back up for a second easier push through.

My Ruger Blackhawk 45Colt barrel was very tight at the frame and got easy once i was past the frame.

Barrel was pinched smaller where it attached to the frame.
Bad accuracy with that setup.

 

[Hangfire]

If anyone wants them to slug their barrels (or fire through their muzzle loaders) I've got a partial box of 81 Hornady # 6090 .490 lead balls free for the asking......just shoot me a PM and show up in Norman and they're yours.

 

[Calamity Jake]

DO NOT use a wood dowel to drive that slug it could split and jam in the barrel use a brass rod.