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Plated bullets in rifle

Note, the bullets pictured above were all fired through the Marlin.

Observations: The plated bullets all held up pretty well. There is one "petal" that was shed from one of the Xtreme rounds, but aside from that (and some terminal impact damage) the copper plating held together well. OTOH the Missouri bullet coating didn't do nearly so well. It's hard to say for sure whether the coating was lost in the barrel or in the dirt, but most of what was shed came off in "petals" between rifling ridges (aside from obvious terminal impact effects).

The dark side on the copper bullets is flash burn. The copper is still intact with the exceptions mentioned above.

While the handgun velocities were about the same between the Berrys and Xtreme, the rifle velocity for the Xtreme was about 10% higher. I'm not sure what to make of that, but perhaps it demonstrates the Marlin likes the Xtreme bullets better.

These plated bullets would probably benefit from a taper crimp rather than a roll crimp. It looks to me like the taper crimp did just enough damage to the plating to increase the odds that a petal between the rifling marks might separate in a couple of spots. I've ordered a Lyman taper crimp die to see if that will improve matters.
 
Good info.....I suspect the Berry bullet is the hardest. If you have some slower burning powder, it would be interesting to see the results--2400 or Unique.

I tried the Missouri coated bullet in the 30-30; the speed verses accuracy results were disappointing. The coating did not seem to benificial. By the time I figured out how slow to load them, I was better off with plated or cast. Cast with a gas check is best, but gas checked bullets are too pricey unless I put the gas check on myself.

Thanks for sharing...
 
These are plenty fast for plinking. I have been using aa#9 or win296, with xtp and nosler sp for full power loads, but I don't shoot a lot of those. But these lighter loads are a lot cheaper and more fun to shoot. Not counting brass, I can load these for around $0.17 per round.

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