Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Handloading lasercast in a 357mag GP100

Hi.
Will be loading the first non-jacketed bullets in my life, and want some advice.
Will be loading 125 grain lasercast truncated cone bullets in a 357 magnum, GP100, and keeping them between 900 and 1000 fps.
Should I expect some barrel leading at that velocity, or is it a non-issue?
By the way, the laser-cast line is all a "24" on the Brinell Harness scale, according to their literature.
What is your favorite method of scrubbing out leading, if it does occur?
Any words of wisdom for me?
Happy New Year.

Barrel leading is dependent on many things,...but I wouldn't expect barrel leading at that velocity from a hard cast bullet in a .357.

In fact, you have to work pretty hard to lead a bore with a hard cast bullet.

I've shot them regularly in excess of 1600 fps from rifles and Thompson Center Contenders.

Lately, I've been shooting plain based Laser Cast bullets through a Martini Cadet at 1650 with no leading.

Lead Away is great for cleaning up leaded bores.

A snug fit to the throat, moderately smooth, consistent barrel and lube will get you a lot farther than bullet hardness.

Leading removal is only needed if something is wrong, but if you get it, a brass tornado brush followed by a brass bristle.

Pay close attention to the forcing cone. Any layering there is a killer!

Hopefully they fit fine and you'll have no issues!

The Laser Cast bullets are .358 and if your throats are larger than that you could see some leading. Harder bullets don't obdurate as well as softer ones to fill larger throats. Ruger GP-100's generally have throats right around .357 to .358 so you should be okay.

A really quick way to clean leading is to just shoot a few jacketed bulles through the revolver and is my favorite way to clean out leading.

A less favorite way (much less favorite) is to get a brass scrubbing pad, cut several long strands off of it and wrap the strands around a standard .357 bore brush so it's a fairly tight fit in the bore. The brass strands won't hurt the bore but will cut the lead out efficiently - but not as efficiently as three or four jacketed bullets.

Great facts/data and advice... many thanks to all.

What is a laser cast? Just a fancy name for a bullet?

My dumb question for today:)

"laser cast" is just a brand name of a cast bullet made by The Oregon Trail Bullet Company.

While I respect Jim in Idaho a great deal, and his advice is usually stellar, I disagree with the old jacketed bullet to clean out leading idea. I can't help thinking that cramming an essentially non-compressible slug down a fouled barrel can't be a good thing. At least some of the lead in the grooves will certainly be firmly ironed in place by the ogive of the jacketed bullet.

I stopped using OT Laser-Cast bullets long ago when I found them to be not only way, WAY too hard to obturate at sane pressures, but tended to be smaller than advertised. The two faults together make for horrible leading and negligible accuracy. They might be fine if you happen to have cylinders throats and bores several thousandths under minimum and like to launch cast bullets at warp speed. But in my guns (ALL my guns) they are -- I'll be delicate -- fecal.

Thank you.

I realize it's apples to oranges, since a single shot rifle isn't a revolver,...but here's some shots fired at 100 yards through a Martini Cadet with Laser Cast bullets at 1650 fps. (170 grain .322 32-40 bullets cut down to 128 grains in a lathe)

There was a bit of fumbling around with the scope during the shooting, so it's not actually a representative group.

They'll always hold at least 2 MOA and often go into an inch.

I strongly suspect that the difference is *me*.

In any event, Laser Cast bullets seem to work as good as any and better than some.