This shows the difference in blow-by around a 0.4505"D bullet (left) and a 0.4520"D bullet (right) propelled only by a primer:
Blow-By.JPG
These bullets barely made it all the way into the rifling and were pushed out by reversing their initial direction (pushed from the muzzle and out the chamber end) so some of those residues may be from the bullets retracing their paths. But this makes it easy to see where all that fire and brimstone comes from with jacketed and plated bullets.
Food for thought: From what I can see on the Hornady website, their 45 Cal lead bullets are not cast but swaged. Had bad leading with some Speer swaged lead bullets once upon a time and discovered that not only were they very, very soft they were so soft they were being swaged down by around 0.001" just from the seating process! So when loaded and fired, they were smaller than they started out being and with the increased blow-by they provided some spectacular lead deposits! One of those bullets is shown in Post #12.
Maybe your swaged Hornadys were also too soft, were made smaller during seating and resulted in serious leading for you? Shame you've got none left as I'd love to get my hands on a couple and test their hardness.
When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. [Lord Kelvin]
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