185gn Berry's plated flat points over 5gn of Hodgdon TiteGroup.
I really like how the TiteGroup meters in my Lee autodisk pro. It doesn't leak all over everything like the H110 does.
Bob and I made a side trip to the plate range to try them out while on the way to Mom's house Friday morning. The results are a bit dissapointing to say the least. Well, at least they wern't a miserable failure like the 90gn Hornady XTP's were in the M1 Carbines.
On the plus side my little Taurus PT-145 ate them like a kid blowing thru a bag of M&M's. This really surprised me since I had read that the Taurus was picky about ammo and wouldn't function properly on lower powered loads.
On the other end of the scale was my XD-45 which choked and gagged on them.
5gn of TiteGroup is too light a load for the XD. I had numerous FTE's and several times the slide did not go back far enough for the hold open to engage with an empty magazine. It was sort of nice to have the empty brass dropping on the bench and at my feet. I am used to it landing 15 feet off to my right.
These 185gn plated flat points just did not feed reliably and would stop 1/4" short of going into battery. Usually all it took was to pull back on the slide a bit and then let it go. They almost seemed like they were hanging up on the breech face.
I have run close to 2000 rounds of RN and JHP through the XD and can count the number of FTF's on one hand. At this point I'm not sure if it is the flat point or the fact that they are plated lead that is causing the problem or maybe just something I am doing when I load them.
I guess the next step is to get some jacketed bullets and see if they feed better.
One thing I did notice was that the nickel plated cases fed way better then the others.
I will also have to load them a bit hotter. I am still new to handgun loading and it's a bit scary when the difference between the starting load and max load is only .5gn
I am going to try making a few more dummy rounds with longer OAL to see if they will feed better.
On the plus side my little Taurus PT-145 ate them like a kid blowing thru a bag of M&M's. This really surprised me since I had read that the Taurus was picky about ammo and wouldn't function properly on lower powered loads.
On the other end of the scale was my XD-45 which choked and gagged on them.
5gn of TiteGroup is too light a load for the XD. I had numerous FTE's and several times the slide did not go back far enough for the hold open to engage with an empty magazine. It was sort of nice to have the empty brass dropping on the bench and at my feet. I am used to it landing 15 feet off to my right.
These 185gn plated flat points just did not feed reliably and would stop 1/4" short of going into battery. Usually all it took was to pull back on the slide a bit and then let it go. They almost seemed like they were hanging up on the breech face.
I have run close to 2000 rounds of RN and JHP through the XD and can count the number of FTF's on one hand. At this point I'm not sure if it is the flat point or the fact that they are plated lead that is causing the problem or maybe just something I am doing when I load them.
I guess the next step is to get some jacketed bullets and see if they feed better.
One thing I did notice was that the nickel plated cases fed way better then the others.
I will also have to load them a bit hotter. I am still new to handgun loading and it's a bit scary when the difference between the starting load and max load is only .5gn
I am going to try making a few more dummy rounds with longer OAL to see if they will feed better.
