Anybody tried the Berry's 165 Hollow base round nose Berry's Thick Plate bullets? They are $129/k and the Thick plate allows for velocity upto 1450fps. I just assembled some test rounds using these bullets. I'll updat once I've had a chance to test. I did some middle of the road loads using AA #9, HS-6, Blue Dot, and HP-38, everything is between 1,100 -1,200 range. With the non-thick plate Berry's 124gr HP's in my 357 Sig loads I would get keyholing once I got into the medium warm loads...we'll see if the Thick plate is the answer.
The thicker plating should help especially if the outside diameter is 0.400" or better. Berry's make a good product for what they are designed for.
Quote from: hAkron on July 28 2012 09:35:28 PM MDT
Anybody tried the Berry's 165 Hollow base round nose Berry's Thick Plate bullets? They are $129/k and the Thick plate allows for velocity upto 1450fps. I just assembled some test rounds using these bullets. I'll updat once I've had a chance to test. I did some middle of the road loads using AA #9, HS-6, Blue Dot, and HP-38, everything is between 1,100 -1,200 range. With the non-thick plate Berry's 124gr HP's in my 357 Sig loads I would get keyholing once I got into the medium warm loads...we'll see if the Thick plate is the answer.
I have shot a few thousand of the 180 Berry's and also found a significant speed limit on those. I have not tried the variant with thicker plating, but that should theoretically help clean up groups as velocities increase.
Another option for inexpensive quality bullets is PowerBond bullets. PB refers to their bullets as "copper bonded." They remind me of some of the Speer bullets. They have loaded and run like jacketed bullets. I switched this spring and have thus far gone through about 1500. They are of a higher quality, in my opinion, than Berry's. Prices are better too. The prices listed include shipping.
http://powerbondbullets.com/products.html
taterhead what effects did you notice that created the speed limit?
Quote from: sqlbullet on August 04 2012 04:48:16 PM MDT
taterhead what effects did you notice that created the speed limit?
I assume that you are referring to the standard Berry's. If so, then I could get decent groups up to about 1050 fps. Maybe 1100. Beyond that, groups began to open up drastically with the occasional keyhole. I tried a few different powders with the standard Berry's with similar results. A7 could group ok up to 1100. Blue Dot grouped the best at about 1035 fps (9.2 grains). Push faster, and the spread grows and grows to the point that sometimes it would completely miss an IDPA target from 25 yards. :o
It took a lot of fiddling with the standard Berry's to get to work. I seated longish at 1.26, gave a wide bell, seated and crimped in separate steps, crimped only to about 0.423" to just straighted the bell. And, of course, keep the speeds to a reasonable level.
I have been really happy with PowerBond -- especially after using a few thousand Berry's. They group excellently thus far pushing close to 1200 fps (180 grain). I don't treat PowerBond any differently than I do for loading jacketed bullets. 1.25", normal smallish bell, seat and crimp in one step, etc. I intend to keep pushing the velocities on them to see if I can get the groups to worsen. I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I have never used them before, but keyholing and large groups is the complaint I have heard before. But I have never heard a good explanation for it. Usually these are signs of too slow a twist.
Maybe the bullets skid the rifling?
Anyone know?
The plating breaks down. I've shot thousands of these in .40's, and a few hundred in 10mm. Excellent in the .40, but an absolute joke with 10mm velocities. The speed limit, according to my tests, is just as said, about 1050-1100 FPS. Above that, accuracy goes out the window. I shot a bunch and couldn't figure it out, right away. Set up the chrono, and shot some progressively warmer rounds, with every imaginable bearing tension and crimp (some only closed enough to just fit in the chamber). At about 1250, they actually begin to frag the plating (shotgun pattern on the paper), and above 1600, they come completely apart (like a REAL shotgun pattern). Just for the halibut, I loaded up some "magnums" in the .38-40. At 1800+, I think they were vaporizing at the muzzle, and I shotgunned my chrono (6'), never getting close to the target. Well, not the target I was aiming, but every other target on that 4x8' board! Yeah, speed limit, methinks. Also, I believe it's more than just the plating. They are swaged (or supposed to be), so that leaves wire stock quality or mfg process. I dunno....
I have never had success with plated projectiles. I tried Berry's in my 38super and recently Rainer's in my 10mm all have terrible accuracy at all velocities. Have about 900 Rainer HP 160 grn projectiles left !
I think I'll avoid them in the future.
That's why Berry's is producing the thick plate versions of the .400 165gr HBFP and the .356 124gr HBRN, for velocities over 1100FP/s
I wonder if they used a harder lead, like 16:1 or WW alloy instead of dead soft wire stock it would make a difference. I know there are guys at the cast boolits forum that plate, but I have never really paid attention.
I have also considered swaging jacketed bullets using 9mm casing as the jacket. There are several guys doing that. But for me, happy with the performance I get from lead, seems like I would be solving a problem I don't have.