[Olive]

i must shot lead rounds at my local range. Last Sunday I fired 100 rounds (185 gr semi wad)... Gun performed 100%... no FTF/FTE... Happy me. This was a bullseye practice so they let me get on paper at 15' and the first 5 shots centered at 4".

I shot the next 80 rounds at 50' and its was humbling. Shooting bulleye relays was an struggle just to hold paper. I'm a new center fire shooter and so I took full responsibility.

End of relay I went back and tried the various mags again at 15' and the "grouping" had opened up to 12"! Did I get tired/lazy? Sight/trigger control were all good?

Cleaned the weapon when I returned home... Heavy lead fouling 1.5" into the barrel... Difficult to remove... Would accuracy deteriorate due to this?

 

[justashooter2a]

Leading can certainly affect accuracy, but I don't think it would affect it as much as you saw. I get a little leading from my 185gr LSWC loads but in a 100 round range session my first group is not noticeably smaller than my last. I suspect it is a combination of fatigue, frustration, and maybe a little of accuracy degradation due to leading.

I wish I could see how much leading you were talking about. (By the way, a great way to remove leading is to take a Chore Boy all-copper pot scrubber and wind one of the copper threads around a bore brush to get a tight fit in the bore and scrub back and forth a few times.)

I'd find a range that allows jacketed rounds and try that again with a couple boxes of FMJ target ammo and see how it goes.