Fliers with Plated Bullets in Glock 40S&W

[GeoDudeFlorida]

Yeah I like #5 with hard cast coated bullets in a 40.

You were one of the posters who said to try it. Right on!

 

[LiveLife]

Glock 22, 10 yards from a rest ... getting fliers ... Berry’s CPRNFP ... Velocity for both loads should be well below 1200fps ... I DID NOT OVER CRIMP

Regular plated bullets with around .004" thickness plating usually advertise 1200 fps max velocity rating but the 1200 fps rating applies to plating failure and not accuracy.

I shot USPSA with Glock 22 using 155/165/180 gr jacketed bullets and used plated bullets (including Berry's) for practice. What I often found was when regular plated bullets were pushed past mid range jacketed load data, group size increased. When slower lead load data was used, accuracy remained and since, I have used lead load data with various "regular" plated bullets with good results. And when lead/plated load data was not available, I used conservative jacketed load data and worked up closely monitoring accuracy trends.

using data from Speer TMJ ... Could it be that simple? Just slow em down?

Not all plated bullets have the same plating thickness and lead/alloy core construction -
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ng-at-25-50-yards.808446/page-3#post-10470195

Speer TMJ is thicker plated bullet with around .015" plating thickness and can be pushed harder with jacketed load data. FYI, Speer Gold Dot HP is also thicker plated bullet with around .018" plating thickness and often load data for TMJ/GD HP list higher start/max charges than plated load data.

Even with Speer TMJ, I sometimes found accuracy to drop at near max load data and I used lower powder charges to retain accuracy.

BTW, gilding metal used for jacketing usually run around .020" - .030" in thickness.

Going by the reloading data on the Hodgdon website, you are over max charge on the 165Gr using Titegroup ... BERB stands for Berry's bullets. I personally would use the data listed for Berry's Bullets (BERB).

This is good advise. Whenever plating load data is available when using plated bullets, I reference the plating load data for my load development instead of jacketed load data.

However, even with using plated load data, keep in mind that published load data was tested for SAAMI max "average" pressures and NOT ACCURACY. While accuracy trend improves as you increase powder charge from start charge (Likely from more efficient powder burn), optimal accuracy is sometimes reached before max load data, particularly for plated bullets.

And another thing about Titegroup ... it burns hot and violent, especially near max/max load data. While I like Titegroup for 9mm, for 40S&W, I prefer to use slower burning than W231/HP-38 powders (I particularly like Herco/WSF/BE-86 for 40S&W to produce accuracy). With 9mm 115/124 gr FMJ/RN bullets with shorter bullet base (think less neck tension), swings/fluctuations in pressure could be better "released". 40S&W 155/165 gr FP and especially 180 gr FP bullets (FP similar to SWC) have longer bullet base and produce greater neck tension and swings/fluctuations in pressure, particularly spikes with Titegroup near max/max/over max load data could translate to larger groups (After all, we correlate more consistent chamber pressures/muzzle velocities to smaller SD numbers which tend to produce smaller groups).

I’ve never had this obvious of a problem with 9mm plated bullets, even running them near max, but maybe the 40 has different characteristics

NOTE on 40S&W OAL and accuracy - Who knows ... following on that pressure fluctuation/spike thing ... I have found that 40S&W accuracy can benefit from using OAL longer than SAAMI max of 1.135". Depending on the barrel/magazine, max/working OAL can be long as 1.180"-1.20" used by many match shooters. For my Glocks/M&P using factory and Lone Wolf barrels, longer than 1.145" starts to bind rounds in the magazine and impact reliable feeding so I settled down to 1.142" for TCFP/FP profile bullets which improved accuracy.

In the Herco 40S&W thread, longer OALs were tested for accuracy and match shooting member 1KPerDay found using longer OAL for Berry's bullets improved accuracy of his match loads - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-for-lead-plated-bullets.743416/#post-9363753

Hodgdon doesn't even list data for 155Gr Berry's bullets with Longshot.

Load #2 is 155gr Berry’s over 8.5gr of Longshot. 1.135coal. Mixed brass.

We can often reference load data for slightly heavier bullet weight for our load development.

165 gr BERB FP Longshot Start 6.9 gr (1,091 fps) - Max 7.8 gr (1,199 fps)

So OP could start the Longshot powder work up from 6.9 gr using 155 gr bullet while watching accuracy trends.

I will ditch the Longshot altogether for this project and just focus on Titegroup loads for plated bullets ... I also have HS-6 that I might try one day

I would recommend faster burning Titegroup for slower velocity target loads. Since you are loading full power loads, I would suggest slower burning than Unique/Universal powders.

I was trying to duplicate carry loads

For decades, I used WSF and bulk Speer Gold Dot HP/Remington Golden Saber JHP bullets to load duplicate practice defensive rounds for factory rounds I used for my pistols.

In recent years, I switched to BE-86 due to greater velocity and accuracy it produced.

 

[LiveLife]

5.0grs of titegroup with 165gr Berry’s bullets stopped the flyer problem.

Nice. I love happy endings.

One of the many reasons I have come to prefer W231 ... I have not tried any jacketed bullets since I'm not loading for power or penetration, just plinking and close-range "accuracy." Pie-plate at 25yards accuracy.

For lighter plinking loads that are still target accurate, try faster burning than W231/HP-38 powders.

Disclaimer: Conduct load development below published load data at your own risk - With W231/HP-38 and 180 gr TCFP plated bullets, I actually WORKED DOWN from start charge and found 3.9 - 4.2 gr worked well to produce light 9mm like recoil yet accurate enough loads for training, especially for transitioning shooters from 9mm to 40S&W.

 

[GHinNH]

FWIW... the subject of Keyhole, poor grouping and copper flakes/stripped plating was discussed at a group I belong to on Discord.

After eliminating all the usual suspects, the problem was the bullet is too tight a fit against the barrel grooves. After re-sizing the bullets, groups were reported as dramatically improved and stripped/flakes of plating and keyholes were eliminated.

Personally, I use cast lead data when working up loads for plated bullets and go from there. I run average 1170fps all day long in 9mm, and I've recovered enough projectiles (Berrys/Xtreme/Speer) to know I don't have that happening, but if I ever run into problems down the road it would definitely be something to look at.

 

[vaalpens]

Load #2 is 155gr Berry’s over 8.5gr of Longshot. 1.135coal. Mixed brass.

Velocity for both loads should be well below 1200fps.

I don't have any tested Titegroup loads, but I did test some 155gr jacketed bullets with Longshot. Longshot works well with 40s&w. I have a feeling your 8.5gr Longshot load could be over 1200fps. Plated bullets just starts acting weird when you push them close to their velocity limit.

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: LAX
COL: 1.125"
ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP, Longshot, 7.5gr, CCI500
Average: 1114
ES: 27
SD: 10.8
Force: 427
PF: 172
Velocities: 1128, 1121, 1115, 1101, 1107
Grouping @ 15yd: 1.17"
Test Date: 11/20/2018

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: LAX
COL: 1.125"
ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP, Longshot, 7.6gr, CCI500
Average: 1136
ES: 52
SD: 18.6
Force: 444
PF: 176
Velocities: 1137, 1132, 1135, 1112, 1164
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.71"
Test Date: 11/20/2018

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: LAX
COL: 1.125"
ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP, Longshot, 7.7gr, CCI500
Average: 1148
ES: 25
SD: 9.1
Force: 454
PF: 177
Velocities: 1134, 1152, 1159, 1148, 1147
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.55"
Test Date: 11/20/2018

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: LAX
COL: 1.125"
ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP, Longshot, 7.8gr, CCI500
Average: 1154
ES: 14
SD: 6
Force: 458
PF: 178
Velocities: 1162, 1149, 1148, 1156, 1158
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.84"
Test Date: 11/20/2018

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: LAX
COL: 1.125"
ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP, Longshot, 7.9gr, CCI500
Average: 1164
ES: 36
SD: 13.1
Force: 466
PF: 180
Velocities: 1146, 1167, 1182, 1159, 1167
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.68"
Test Date: 11/20/2018

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: LAX
COL: 1.125"
ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP, Longshot, 8gr, CCI500
Average: 1184
ES: 18
SD: 7.5
Force: 482
PF: 183
Velocities: 1176, 1194, 1179, 1184, 1190
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.73"
Test Date: 11/20/2018

 

[Hartkopf]

Thanks again for everybody's help! I've been reloading for a year and a half but I still ended up way out in left field. I've got lots to learn and yall make the learning curve way easier to deal with!

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: LAX
COL: 1.125"
ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP, Longshot, 7.6gr, CCI500
Average: 1136
ES: 52
SD: 18.6
Force: 444
PF: 176
Velocities: 1137, 1132, 1135, 1112, 1164
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.71"
Test Date: 11/20/2018

That's a little surprising.

Any idea why the outlier at 7.6gr?

 

[vaalpens]

Any idea why the outlier at 7.6gr?

The bullets I used (ARPulled, 155gr, FMJRNFP), maybe explains the high ES of 52. These are all pulled bullets, so I didn't expect very good ES/SD numbers or excellent accuracy. I thought the accuracy was actually very good for being pulled bullets.