I did not know this. Thank you.The plating on Speer Gold Dots is about twice the thickness of Berry's, Ranier, etc., so they can be driven faster.
As for testing the limits of Berry's plated bullets, yes I have. When the Berry's 124 grain FP bullet is driven over 1,450 fps in a 357 Sig, they will tumble badly. And if you're not careful, they will hit the shade support rod on the left side of your chronograph...........
Hope this helps.
Fred
A quick search shows that GDHP's have about 0.035" of plating versus 0.080 to 0.010 for Berry's. Interesting. So yeah, you've found 1400 FPS is clearly too much. Was that the point that the round went unstable for you? Or were you seeing signs instability below that?
My understanding is for .45, you can drive the slugs at full power, as the speeds aren't enough to wreck the plating. For me, I was wondering if they could survive in the 1100 to 1200 range in a glock.
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I guess I could have searched:
So technically, I could also probably go full loads for 115 gr 9mm if I so desired. For whatever it's worth.The reason we ask everyone to start with a mid-range jacketed or lead load data is:
Hard Cast Data - Plated bullets have the same pressure curve as typical linotype hard cast bullet. The same powder charge with a hardcast or plated vs. a jacketed will result in lower velocities for the jacketed. This is because the jacket is a work hardened surface that has a greater resistance in the barrel.
Jacketed Midrange Data - Is a good starting point to work up data for since most of the shooters already have data for jacketed.
We also make a statement to keep the bullets loaded to no more than the 1200FPS mark. I have run our 155gr .40 bullets in my Tanfoglio Limited 10mm at velocities beyond that with great results. We just have to draw a line in the sand since people seem to push the drawn limits.
We have constantly improved our bullet profiles and have added plating as we have gone along over the past 8 or so years. I am hoping to finish testing in our tunnel to see if we can publish a greater fps with our current generation of bullets. As it is there are only a handful of commercially available calibers that would push any pistol bullet beyond 1300fps, and those are long barreled hunting pistols that would not use a plated bullet anyway.
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