Shooting ranges that I have been frequenting lately prefer/require plated or jacketed bullets be used. I have acquired plated bullets for 158 gr .38 swc, 200 gr .45 ACP/AR and 240 gr HP 44 special but can locate no loading data. I have read that velocity should be kept under 1200 fps, that increasing the case belling and utilizing a taper crimp is helpful so as to not break through the plating to the underlying lead. I cannot, however, find any suggested loads using my traditional powder preferences of WW231/Unique/2400. Most often used calibers are .38/44, .357 Mag, .44 Special and .45ACP/AR. Does anyone have experience and/or a recommended data source for plated bullet reloading? Thank You.

A roll crimp will work with a plated bullet, however care must be taken to not over do it. Hot loads or loads with light bullets (per caliber) moving fast are not a good choice with plated bullets.

Try the Sierra manual, also Lyman Pistol and Revolver manual has lots of data for jacketed as well as lead.

Use lead or low jacketed data. Works for me. I shoot 1000s of Berry's.

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-jwk- US Army '72-'95

On the Ranier website it states to use lead data for all of their bullets.
Berry plating is a little thicker though and I have had no problem using jacketed data with them. I do stay below 1200fps with them, something I don't do with lead!

The new Lee manual has SOME plated specific data in it. Not sure if it is by bullet manufacturer or just "plated bullet data".

FWIW

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Skip

The plated jacket is softer than a standard jacket and won't require as much powder to reach the velocity. Most plated bullet producers also admit that their larger diameter bullets (.44-.45) should be kept below 900-1000 fps.

How much less powder is going to be dependent upon bullet & powder in use. I can tell you that with 9mm 115 gr bullets and Unique, I can drop the charge 0.4gr and keep the same velocity going from a standard bullet to plated. [Keeping the same charge gets me an extra 100 fps and leading issues. Depending where you are in your load data, you may be able to just drop a plated bullet in without changing the powder charge.] That's probably a reasonable increment to try-so long as you don't go below established minimum charges as shown in loading manuals/powder manufacturers websites.

I didn't change any of my die adjustments and haven't had issues in a couple of thousand rounds.

I've always used lead bullet loading data with plated bullets and have been satisfied with the results.

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Centennial Every Day

For crimping, roll in particular, I seat/crimp a couple of bullets, diassemble w/inertia puller and examine the crimp. Adjust crimp as needed until I get the slightest hint of crimp on the pulled bullet plating.
Kevin

I use Clays and Universal Clays for a lot of my plated loads. I find that bumping it up about .2gr over my lead loads always puts them around the same velocity as lead. If I can't find lead data then I go to the low end of the jacketed data.

Who says? Have you actually measured the thickness? How thick is it?