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Old June 26, 2010, 10:10 PM   #1
Sig_Dude
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lead-free primers available to the little people?

Are lead-free primers available to little people like us? (if you don't get the "little people" thing you haven't been following the BP debacle). I'd love to get away from leaded primers. Currently I use CCI, which are very reliable, have never had one failure...but I'm kinda a clean freak and hey let's admit that breathing in lead vapor can't be good for you.

I'm going to do an experiment where I'll remove the bullet from a lead-free primed Winchester Winclean .38 SPC round (or another caliber if I can't get .38 in Winclean). I will then reload the primed case with VV powder and press in an TMJ bullet (Winclean rounds are all TMJ by the way). Changing the powder to VV because it is by far the cleanest powder I have ever shot...hey if anybody knows of a cleaner powder let me know!

So I'll do this to a 50 round box. My 686P is currently clean, but I'll detail her up to spotless status. Through the tube will go my special box of loads just for fun I'll take pictures of the results in a post!

edit: WC ammo not available in .38 SPC. I really want to do this in a revolver so maybe I'll use another brand of lead-free ammo.
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Old June 27, 2010, 12:01 AM   #2
lll Otto lll
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Widener's sells lead free primers but as with most primers they're OOS.
You can have them notify you when they arrive.
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Old June 27, 2010, 09:16 AM   #3
Clark500
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Natchez sells Fiocchi lead-free primers, but as Otto says - OOS.
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Old June 27, 2010, 09:20 AM   #4
Sevens
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Sig Dude, is your motivation a handgun that is easier to clean after a range session or clear air for you to breathe? I believe the whole purpose behind these Commiefornia primers and ammo are for air quality. Though I really don't know -- I just can't imagine it will make any difference whatsoever in how dirty your handgun gets after a range session.

If you shoot a lot on an indoor range, I can see the utility. Of course... everyone else on the same range will do all the dirty primer polluting for you.

One thing that seems pretty relevant to me is that all the "NT" marked brass that I've found shows a larger than normal flash hole. That's got to be a function of a primer that burns differently -- my (uninformed) guess is that the "green" primers just don't have the same hair on their balls that we expect/demand from regular primers.

If that is the case then using those "clean" primers in regular brass may give you erratic ignition and performance which would pretty much ruin your ammo.

Unless there's a whole different angle to be considered that I have missed, I'm not sure I see the purpose of chasing more expensive and harder to find primers.
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Old June 27, 2010, 09:44 AM   #5
Jim243
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I can understand your wanting to be more lead free, but outside of the Bairnes rifle bullets, I was unaware of any made for handgun. I would be interested in knowing who makes a lead free pistol bullet.

Thanks
Jim
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Old June 27, 2010, 10:01 AM   #6
MO. Shootin
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That's kind of interesting I did not know they had lead free primers. I have a turret press and I get a lot of what I would guess is primer residue from decaping and resizing. So I do all my relaoding in my garage on concrete so it is easy to clean up. I don't want that crap in my house. Of course we may find out years from now that something in the lead free primers is worse than lead primers.

I shoot outdoors usually by my self or with one other person. I don't want to sound like a candy pants but I have asthma and am going to a total plated bullet to reduce the smoke that I get with lead bullets. It does not really bother me much but if you have a problem like that you tend to not want to breath in crap if you don't have to.

I can't imagine it being a problem for someone without a problem like mine other wise bob munden and mitchelak would have died a long time ago.

If you shoot in doors with other people I would say it would be a waste of time.
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Old June 27, 2010, 10:03 AM   #7
MO. Shootin
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ranier makes bullets that are totally plated even the bottom so they advertise them as lead free. I kind of thought it was lead inside and just plated. I could be wrong. I
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Old June 27, 2010, 12:02 PM   #8
Sig_Dude
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Prime a case with a standard "leaded" primer. Fire the case and note how filthy it is inside.

Gun "dirtyness" comes from 3 places:

1. leaded primers
2. dirty and/or incomplete burning powder
3. the butt-end of a lead-exposed bullet being vaporized


So, we can in theory have SUPER clean ammo if we use lead-free primers, use high quality VV powder, and use TMJ, that is total metal jacket as opposed to full metal jacket, ammo. There are several bullet makers putting out TMJ these days, I know for a fact that Speer does.

Thanks for the replies.

I, like many people on the forum, have some very high quality guns, some of which I feel like I have an attachment too...like your first car for example, and I like to be good to my stuff, take good care of it. Plus, always remember:

More time shootin' and less time cleanin'!!!
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Old June 27, 2010, 12:11 PM   #9
chris in va
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I consider the barrel of my guns to be a combustion chamber and don't worry how dirty they get.
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