Monday, February 07, 2011

Tried something at the range today

I've been carrying Gold Dots for my defense ammo. I try to fire a magazine of them as the first ones so as to keep in practice with the amount of recoil and muzzle blast, but even handloading them Gold Dot bullets ain't cheap. Or even inexpensive. So did some digging around. I've got a bunch of 200-grain Berry's .45 hollowpoint plated bullets for loading practice ammo; they say to stick with mid-range loads but I decided to try them with a load comparable to the factory GD loads for that weight/type bullet.

I put 25 rounds of them downrange with no problems at all, and I didn't notice any more fouling in the bore than had after firing them with lighter loads. I'm going to have to make up some more and do some further trials, including shooting them over a chronograph to see if the velocity is coming up to what it should be, but so far it looks good.

2 comments:

Kevin said...

I carry the 200 grain Gold Dot over 7.0 grains of Unique. For bowling pins and other practice, I use the Ranier Ballistics 200 grain HP, very similar to the Berry's. Same velocity, same point of impact. Half the price or less.

Firehand said...

Damn. Read your comment and something clicked, did you post a review on the bullets at Midway? If so, I think that's what made me try that hot a load.