Ohioans For Concealed Carry Discussion Forums

Fellow Reloaders,

So, I am almost out of my X-Treme 230-gr CPRN bullets for .45 ACP. I have a BUNCH of Rainer 230-gr slugs laying around, though.

The question is, "Can I use load data that I generated with X-Treme copper plated bullets for other manufacturer's copper plated bullets?"

I know X-Treme has thicker copper plating than most of the other brands. Is Rainier comparable? Both seem to indicate that you can use jacketed data.

How about Berry's?

Or should I, just to be safe, make up the original load ladder with that cartridge/primer/powder/bullet combo again and re-chrono everything?

Reloading, like pressure canning, is one of those things where I'd rather ere on the side of caution. Personally, I'd lower the powder charge and work back up. Might wind up with the same load or might find a combo that works better with the new bullets.

^BIG TIME

The easiest answer is that it's very hard to find published load data for plated in the first place simply because plated acts differently, and you can bet for sure that different plated acts differently.

At my bench, where I simply do NOT run maximum loads with plated... I don't start back at the bottom typically, but I have also loaded 100k+ of plated and have some comfort level that you may not yet have.

In my experience, Berry's makes a fantastic bullet and Xtreme is nearly as good (Xtreme is prettier!) All of the others line up behind these two. But all of them have the potential to act differently.

Your ammo is worth more than cheap shortcuts, unless you simply don't need the level of performance/confidence in those particular loads. And that was not meant to be a smart-aleck comment, I'm referring to, say, cowboy action loads that don't typically demand a lot of "performance" in most ways we might measure.