RacerX
Professional Knucklehead; aka Jeffncs / RacerX
2A Bourbon Hound OG
Charter Member
Supporting Member
I know you're not supposed to run lead through the factory Glock barrel. What do you think of polymer coated lead?
Polymer coated in a Glock barrel?
- Thread starter RacerX
- Start date
- Replies 14
- Views 1,138
20,000 maybe more? only issues when I first dabbing in PC, no issues with commercial.
Ran something like 2k Blues, and 1k L13s without cleaning as a test, then I cleaned because I couldn't take it, not because anything accumulated in the bore.
They're very common in competition circles.
Truth be told properly sized lubed lead is fine, polygonal rifling was around before jacketed bullets were common.
Ran something like 2k Blues, and 1k L13s without cleaning as a test, then I cleaned because I couldn't take it, not because anything accumulated in the bore.
They're very common in competition circles.
Truth be told properly sized lubed lead is fine, polygonal rifling was around before jacketed bullets were common.
OP
RacerX
Professional Knucklehead; aka Jeffncs / RacerX
2A Bourbon Hound OG
Charter Member
Supporting Member
Thanks...
Poly coated bullets seem to really love Glock barrels. I've personally ran almost 100,000 of them through 9 different Glocks I've owned in the last 4 years. That's 9mm and 45acp.
As I discovered by trial and error the real reason Glocks don’t like lead bullets has more to do with schmutz than leading. I ran about 5k lubed lead 9mm through my G19 and never had a hint of leading in the barrel, but the extractor would gum up so bad I had to strip the slide and clean it every 200 rounds or so. I’d start getting fail-to-eject malfunctions that would disappear after cleaning. I can go 750-1000 rounds with poly bullets before the same thing starts happening.
I run Blue Bullets in my Glock 34. I shoot 500 to 750 rounds a month, at the end of a session I run a bore snake through the barrel, use a brush on the breach face, and then the 3 drops of oil. I only detail strip and clean once a year.
Geezer
Mama Tried
Staff member
2A Bourbon Hound 2024
2A Bourbon Hound OG
Charter Life Member
Benefactor
Supporting Member
Multi-Factor Enabled
I ran some of the green coated Lucky 13 bullets in .45 ACP through a Glock and the barrel was leaded after the first magazine. Same ammo through a Colt showed no leading.
A gun barrel can run 10 times the lead bullets it can than copper jacketed; probably even more than that. The softness of the lead keeps it from wearing the barrel.
That being said, if you shoot a leaded barrel, you will increase the pressure. A polygonal barrel exasperates this, and the look of it masks it in a way. So shooting leaded polygonal barrels is a kaboom waiting to happen. Thus the purpose of coating them.
Shooting coated lead in Glocks is perfectly safe, provided that the coating is cured properly, the diameter is matched to your barrel, and you're not swaging the base of the bullet while loading it.
Would bet your average semi-auto pistol not using a fixed barrel is gonna crack something before the bore wears appreciably either way.
Gas, improper cleaning, and rust are more prone to killing bores than projectiles.
