Seating Gold Dot JHPs.

[Japle]

I bought some 135 gr .357 Gold Dot Short Barrel JHPs and immediately ran into trouble seating them. No matter which seating punch I used, the HP opening was deformed.

With a RN punch, the opening was mashed inward. With a SWC or WC punch, the opening was flattened. Either way, it looked like the bullet’s performance would be significantly degraded.
I’m seating and crimping in two steps with different dies in my Dillon. I’m no beginner. I’ve been loading since 1971 and have loaded almost 200,000 rounds.

RCBS makes seating plugs for the 125 and 158 gr Gold Dots, but not the 135. Is there a difference? The 135 is supposed to have a larger opening. And I’m using Lyman dies anyway.

I took my SWC punch, chucked it in my lathe, turned the sharp edge off the shoulder and drilled out the center with a 3/16 bit. Then I mixed up some JB Weld, filled the hole and the mouth of the punch and waited for about 90 minutes until it was nice and firm.

I screwed the punch into the die and gently pressed a dummy round I’d made into the die, forming the JB Weld to the exact shape of the bullet. As the epoxy hardened, I kept pulling the round out, rotating it and tapping it in the die to get a smooth, even impression.

After leaving the die overnight, I tried it this morning. It works perfectly. The bullets retain their shape and seat nice and straight.

And it was free, except for the tiny cost of the JB Weld.

 

[Waywatcher]

Nice! I've been using a RN plug that I ground completely flat on the part that contacts the bullets, and then I crimp in a separate operation.

 

[longdayjake]

Unless it was horribly deformed, it would have worked well. I have recently been shooting a lot of gold dots into water to see how they do. I have found that even gold dots that have their HP cavity plugged up will expand. Granted it isn't as much expansion as when it isn't plugged but it still does pretty good.

 

[Japle]

Unless it was horribly deformed, it would have worked well. I have recently been shooting a lot of gold dots into water to see how they do. I have found that even gold dots that have their HP cavity plugged up will expand. Granted it isn't as much expansion as when it isn't plugged but it still does pretty good.

"Pretty good" isn't what I wanted.

 

[joed]

I quit loading hollow points 15 years ago. Tried all the seaters and still got deformed bullets. So, I've only loaded softpoints from than on. On the good side that means more HP's for you guys.

 

[Fishslayer]

Send Lee a bullet & they will custom make a seating punch. Doesn't cost all that much. If a Lee seating die will fit your press that may be the way to go.

 

[gamestalker]

You may need to change something your doing to seat those Gold Dot SB 135's. I load them and every other weight/style Gold Dot and haven't encountered any deformation issues. I can't imagine what I could be doing so drastically different that I'm not encountering deformation issues? I do realize that the Short Barrel or SB Gold Dots have a softer construction than the standard Goldies.

Well, I'll share with you how I've been seating all handgun bullets for several decades, just in case it should make a difference. To eliminate any question about brass causing the problem, I load a mix of head stamps, including Starline. I use an RCBS RN seating plug. I don't seat & crimp in two different steps. I trim all of my cases to the same length. And for the last 25 or so years I have eliminated belling the mouths, and instead I ream and chamfer the mouth which allows the bullet to set up straight as the seating plug makes contact. That's about it, nothing fancy.

 

[rcmodel]

I had the same problem with the 135 grain SB Gold Dot in .38 Spl.

No seating stem I had would seat them without deforming the HP cavity.

I called RCBS, and they sent me a RNFP stem just like the one I alread had that didn't work either.

I had to modify it on the lathe to fit them.

rc

 

[GLOOB]

If you don't have a lathe, you can chuck the stem in regular drill. Cut it with a Dremel tool with a carbide bit and/or stones and finish with sandpaper.

 

[Chasing Crow]

I am seating 158g Gold Dots with a Lyman die with no problems.

 

[rcmodel]

All the other Gold- Dots have not caused me any problems.
158 grain Deep-Curl same as old Gold Dot.
http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics/detail.aspx?id=171

But the 135 grain Short-Barrel .38 Spl bullet is what the OP ask about.
And it will most certainly cause problems with all the seating stems I had on hand.

New 135 grain SB-GD:
http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics/detail.aspx?id=165

rc

 

[918v]

Have you considered seating them with a .40 S&W seater die? The plug will have a wide enough meplat to only push on the top of the bullet and won't molest the sides. You should know the SB GD uses a pure lead core and is easy to deform. Regular GDs are alloyed so they're harder.