Plated bullets

While back I mentioned trying out some X-Treme plated bullets for .30 Carbine.  Today it occurred that some might not be familiar with plated bullets, so thought I'd use up some digital space on the subject.

Standard jacketed bullets are usually made by forming a jacket and filling it in with lead.  Lots of military ball also uses a steel core(steel being cheaper than lead), but you're still looking at a copper/copper alloy jacket filled in.  Some of the premium bullets- including a lot of hollowpoints- started using a different technique: form a swaged core, then electroplate the copper jacket material onto it.  Gives a very uniform jacket, and since it's actually bonded to the core there's much less chance of them separating after impact. 

Well, somebody got the idea  of doing the same for practice bullets, but using a much thinner coating.  Thus we have the plated bullet:

Here we have a .45 200-grain hollowpoint(X-Treme), a 9mm 124-grain flatpoint(X-Treme), 9mm 115-grain hollowpoint(Ranier), a .38 Caliber 158-grain semi-wadcutter(X-Treme), .38 Caliber 158-grain flatpoint(X-Treme), .38 caliber 158-grain wadcutter(X-Treme),  a .30 caliber 110-grain roundnose(X-Treme).

I've used all of these with zero shooting problems*: no nasty fouling or any other problems of the sort.  Good accuracy, just as good or better than cast bullets.  And since you don't have lubricant being converted to fouling and smoke, they're cleaner than cast to shoot.

Couple of things you should know about them:
If you want to push a bullet really fast, they're not the choice.  The plating on these is MUCH thinner than a conventional jacket or the plating on, say, a Gold Dot hollowpoint, and the makers note that you should not try to push them as fast.  From the Berry's site FAQ:
Velocities depend on the caliber, but as a rule of thumb, we recommend you don't shoot our plated bullets over 1250 feet-per-second. Our 44's actually shoot best around 1150 fps. 45's are generally good at 850-900 fps. Our bullets are not recommended for magnum velocities over 1250fps unless the bullet description denotes a thick plated bullet with a higher listed maximum for velocity.
From X-Treme:
Load Info:
- Our Copper Plated Bullets can be run at mid-range jacketed velocities or higher end lead velocities. We do not recommend velocities over 1500 FPS (Feet Per Second) and only a light taper crimp.
Any velocities over 1200 FPS we recommend either our Heavy Plate Concave Base or Hollow Point products for superior accuracy.  We do not recommend velocities over 1500 FPS (Feet Per Second) and only a light taper crimp.
And from Ranier:
We, at Rainier Ballistics, recommend using lead bullet load data when loading our bullets. There is no need for adjustment when using lead bullet load data. Our bullets are jacketed using an electroplating process and are softer than traditionally jacketed bullets; hence the recommendation to use lead bullet load data.

If you only have access to traditionally jacketed load data, we recommend a starting powder charge directly between the listed minimum and maximum load, and you may use published load data found in reputable reloading manuals.

A slight roll or taper crimp may be used with our bullets;

Overcrimping plated bullets may result in decreased accuracy, and fragmentation of copper plating.


You HAVE to make sure the case mouth is belled(expanded) enough that the bullets can start in easily, like a cast bullet.  The only problem I've ever had with any of these was when I didn't bell enough, and it shaved a bit of the plating up; that makes a nasty spot that will not allow the cartridge to chamber.

They mention crimp.  Since some of the .38 stuff I use in a tube-magazine rifle, it has to have some crimp; light roll crimp seems to do the job(X-Treme does put a light cannelure on most of their revolver bullets, which helps).  On semi-auto stuff I use a light-medium(that's how I describe it; I have no idea how to quantify it) taper, also no problems.  I pulled the bullet on a 9mm after loading, using a inertia puller; the crimp left a definite groove in the bullet, but did not appear to have gone through the plating(that was a 'medium' feel).  As they say, you would not want a heavy crimp. 

The .30 Carbine bullets I tried out(X-Treme)  with the same charges I used with ball as well as some lighter; the best accuracy came with a load I use with cast bullets(12.0 grains of 2400).  I found no signs of copper fouling, and the bullet holes in the target were clean, but the full-power loads did suffer accuracy-wise for me.

Yes, you can get hollowpoints; they cannot be trusted to expand.  At all.  Back in my last water-jug tests I fired a X-Treme .45 200-grain hollowpoint loaded to the same velocity as a 200-grain Gold Dot; it penetrated five jugs, left a nasty dent in the 2x4 at the back of the frame, and if it werent' for the rifling marks

it would've looked unfired.

I have read some reviews of the Ranier 9mm hp above that said it expanded nicely in small game; not having tried it, I'm not stating an opinion until I can get to the range with a load of water jugs again and try it.  Berry's had something up a while back that they're working on hollowpoints that will expand; that's not showing right now.  I'd imagine they're so concentrated on catching up on orders that that's been pushed back.

So, the tradeoffs are that you can't push these as fast as a standard bullet, but they cost about half as much; for general practice they work beautifully, and they're cleaner than cast.  Keep their limitations in mind and you'll be happy with them.

I do have to say that I've tried using the X-Treme 158-grain flatpoints in .357 Magnum in a rifle with the same loads I'd used with standard jacketed bullets with quite good results.  According to the numbers in the load manuals, that's at the upper end(maybe over) of velocity that they say these should be used with.  I need to try these at longer range(only have 30 yards at H&H), but the outdoor range I usually shoot at has been down due to storm damage, so that's still to come.


*I've used Berry's, but don't have any for the picture.