Swaging plated bullets?

[RLW]

Wondering if anyone has an idea of how much you could swage plated bullets without damaging the plating? For example if you swage a 9mm bullet up in size, how large in diameter could you make it without issue?

[ReloaderFred]

The plating will crack if you swage them too much. I did make a thousand 9mm round nose plated bullets into flat points for shooting in 357 Sig, but anything I did to them in excess of that split the plating.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[MOcaster]

Speer Gold Dots are swaged plated bullets. The little "gold dot" in the hollow point is from the plating getting pushed to the bottom of the cavity. I've swaged a couple fired plated 40 cals that weren't too deformed into 40 cal hollow points. They look like Gold Dots, aside from the different profile and color.

[ReloaderFred]

The plating on the Gold Dots is about twice the thickness of regular plated bullets, which makes quite a difference. The best way to know is to just lube up some plated bullets and run them through the swaging die and see what happens. That's what I did.

Jacketed bullets will swage a lot. I've taken Winchester 9mm FMJ 115 gr. cup base bullets and swaged them into round nose soft point bullets. I just turned them around and the base became the nose when I was done. I just wanted to know if it could be done, and it worked quite well. Just experiment and see what happens.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[reed1911]

From what little I have done and the rest through discussion the general guideline is for general re-shaping they are fine and do well. Change in caliber does not work worth a hoot going up unless it is .308 to .312. Going down is normally okay provided it is one caliber shift (.44 to .41 or .45 to .44 but not .41 to .35 (the .375 lies in the middle)) the copper stretches well. IF you are shifting a RN or FN into a HP you will be fine, the HP will have exposed lead but in the HP who cares.

How about you tell us you plan and we can comment from there?

[Bonz]

I am thinking on the same thing. I bought a bunch of 245gr copper plated HP's that are sized at about .500 These are some of the worst bullets that I have ever seen; out of round, .500" +/- .005, bumpy, etc. I have no idea what to do with them except throw them in the lead pot. I tried to size one down to .452" and there is no way, I would need a whole range of sizing dies to reduce them that much.

[475AR]

I am thinking on the same thing. I bought a bunch of 245gr copper plated HP's that are sized at about .500 These are some of the worst bullets that I have ever seen; out of round, .500" +/- .005, bumpy, etc. I have no idea what to do with them except throw them in the lead pot. I tried to size one down to .452" and there is no way, I would need a whole range of sizing dies to reduce them that much.

I would take some or all off your hands... I shoot the 50 GI and they work well in it. Tried to use in other 50s but did not work well because they are so short it is easy to over drive them and when that happens very bad accuracy.

[RLW]

Well, I have some of the 150gr .308 extreme bullets on hand but no die to try and swage them up in. I did put one on the ground nose up and pound it with a hammer. went out .020 without any issue but I assume that the rifle bullets are plated thicker than the pistol bullets as they are rated to a higher velocity. I have a little project I am working on that may require me to bump some up maybe .015 so we will see. We will see.