115 gr Berrys Plated

[liberalwithagun]

I will shortly be reloading 9mm in my Lee turret. After doing some research it seems that you load plated bullets between lead and jacketed bullets.

I will be using Hp-38 and it lists these two datas:

115 GR. LRN Hodgdon HP-38 .356" 1.100" 4.3 1079 28,400 CUP 4.8 1135 32,000 CUP

115 GR. SPR GDHP Hodgdon HP-38 .355" 1.125" 4.7 1075 25,300 CUP 5.1 1167 28,100 CUP



As I understand it the SPR GDHP is a speer gold dot hollow point. Is this a jacketed round? After a little bit of research I think it may be.

Wold it be safe to start at 4.5 grains of HP-38 and bumping up .1 grain at a time to about 4.8? Then taking those rounds to the range and testing for over pressure?

 

[k9kev88]

I have used 4.8 grains of HP-38 with these bullets and it performed at the expected velocities (1075 - 1130), as measured by a chronograph. The handgun was a S&W 9mm with a 4" barrel.

Just be sure not to crimp these with the Lee Factory Crimp Die - it cuts into the plating. Measure the case width after seating the bullet to get .376 and that is all you need. Otherwise the FCD starts cutting into the copper plating.

Also - you want to pay attention to the overall length of these - there is no clear data on this in the Hodgdon specs - I would recommend at least 1.12 to 1.14.

 

[mgmorden]

GDHP = Gold Dot Hollow Point, which is indeed jacketed.

Typically you want to reduce max load by 10% for a starting load. If I was to work up a load for this myself I'd average the two and take that as the max and drop by 10% for start (ie, 4.5gr max with a 4.0gr starting load).

 

[rcmodel]

GDHP = Speer Gold Dot, which is Indeed a Plated Bullet, not jacketed.

But it is much heavier plating then Berry or Ranier uses on the lower cost plated bullets they sell.

The OP should use the JHP starting load and work up, stopping at mid to medium high level JHP data.

rc

 

[liberalwithagun]

@rcmodel - Where would I look for JHP data? it only lists the lead and GDHP data.

Other sources?

 

[k9kev88]

@rcmodel - Where would I look for JHP data? it only lists the lead and GDHP data.

Other sources?

what else are you looking for? For HP-38, Hodgdon lists the LRN 115 data, which is what Berry's recommends using... like I said - I have used this exact load, and it worked as expected.

 

[liberalwithagun]

@K9 - The LRN 115 is a lead round. Wouldn't the starting round be a bit low? Simply start toward the max of the lead data?

 

[k9kev88]

@K9 - The LRN 115 is a lead round. Wouldn't the starting round be a bit low? Simply start toward the max of the lead data?

Like I posted above, I tested HP-38 with 4.8 grains with a chronograph, based on Berry's recommendations and got velocities averaging 1101.35 fps over 20 cartridges.

Berry's recommends starting with the Lead Round Nose (LRN) data, which I did, but found that 4.8 was a great load giving the desired velocity.

See above posting from me on the crimping. I am using the 4-hole turret Lee Classic press.

 

[liberalwithagun]

@k9 - Good info. thanks!