Was wondering if you guys do any sort of prep on your barrel for shooting cast bullets? Do any of you guys polish, or fire lap your barrels? Is leading much of a problem...never shot cast before if you couldn't tell.

Jim

What pistol are you considering and what is the condition and number of jacketed rounds fired already, if any. I just finished firelapping am 1894 44 mag. but own a SBH 44 that shoots cast fine but has a very prisatine barrel from many jacketed rounds and I think it was excellent to start with also. It leads some, mostly because of pushing hard cast too slow or pushing soft bullets too fast but it is a breeze to clean the lead out and it does not loose accracy before I am ready to call it quits for the day. It has not been firelapped.

Chief,
It is a Super Blackhawk Hunter in .45 Colt that I just got last week...

Jim

Jim, now that you've shot some jacketed through it to "clean out the burrs", I'd shoot the cast & not worry about it unless it becomes troublesome to clean.
leading usuallu occurs when we try & drive cheap swaged lead bullets too fast. They are great for low velocity plinking rounds, but I try & keep them under 1,000fps. Faster than that & I like the hardcast. For hunting, I use 320 hardcast with gas-checks. I push mine 1300 fps+ in my S&W .44 mag revolver with no leading problems. I've shot the same bullet in my .444 Marlin Contender @ over 2,000fps with no leading problems.
There will always be some lead residue, bit it usually cleans easily.

That's all my opinion based on my limited experience.

Thanks Vance! So those "swagged" bullets are softer??? Reason why I ask is that I bought one of those Do-All auto reset targets and it says to only use softnose bullets.

Jim