The lead was made using a #1 center drill. Note that the left end of the drill busted off a while ago whilst making a lead in one of my holo-krome vent liners.









To make the lead in just the one vent liner, i kinda free handed it, instead of setting up a jig












It is kinda hard to get a precise measurement, but i believe the lead is over 1/8" long.











Taking into account the depth of the lead, the depth of the socket, and the length of the vent liner, it seems the length of the flash hole is less than 1/8". It could be one should make the lead with the end of the center drill that is busted off.

It doesn't seem to me, the carbon is 'EXTRA HARD' without the lead. Rather there is more of it when there is no lead. The following photo kinda show what i mean.













The first photo show the vent liner in place. The flash hole is now 0.030", after shooting 29 shots this morning. The second photo shows the hole through the carbon. It is significantly larger than the flash hole. Before the lead was formed, the hole through the carbon was the same as the flash hole, near the end of the vent liner. The carbon is easier to remove now, because the 'hard carbon' has a larger hole through it, and seemingly is less deep. Most of the flame channel is more open than the area adjacent to the end of the vent liner. The last photo shows the plug with an open flame channel after the 5/32" drill was motored through it.












The shooting this morning was done standing with the help of a bipod. The rifle was loaded at the truck, then a 25 yard hike away was taken to where the photo was taken. Between each shot the shooter walked 50 yard. Since the shooting was done down the trail, i figured to find several sabot. Only 3 were found. How the bottom of the sabot, rolled back on itself is a mystery to me.










Most of the shot are visible on the target, and were taken from 125 yard.











The load for most shots was 110g BH, 300g 44 caliber XTP, crush rib sabot, W209 primer. The rifle was the X7 sans qla. The hole in the bottom target was made first on a cold clean barrel at 200 yard in the cool of the morning using a 300g Deep Curl.

After a time shooting at paper became boring, so a box was set out at 150 yard, and filled with water.










The cool thing about smucking boxes filled with water in the wax paper, is they explode, but don't scatter. Most of this box was right there in one place, with a very few pieces near by.

This Busta' stainless vent now has 79 shots through, and the flash hole is 0.030".