Berry's 240 gr 44 caliber bullets?

[DDRanch]

Anyone loading Berry's 240gr bullets in 44 Magnum?

[yeahbub]

I had bought some Berry's a couple years ago and discovered that I wasn't getting the accuracy I had hoped for. I noticed the plating is thick and hard, which I give them points for. They're be great in auto pistols for action matches where precise accuracy doesn't matter. My tests of the HP's indicated that the plating in the cavities is also thick and will prevent them from expanding at any reasonable velocity. My attempts to modify their shape in a swaging operation gave me the impression that the lead alloy core is similar in hardness to WW metal. I shot the ones I had in falling plate matches and moved on.

There's another source for plated bullets that I had better accuracy results with. They were sold under the name Powerbond when I bought them at shows but the Powerbond name disappeared after a couple of years. Web searches haven't turned up this name, but the source seems to be T J Conaveras. Thinner but adequate plating and softer, expandable core alloy, if that's your interest. The 158gr HP was my "duty" bullet for full velocity .357 Mag lever-action use. I've gotten similar results in .44 and .45.

[1hole]

I've found Berry's bullets to be quite good but I don't care for anyone's un-jacketed HP handgun bullets. IME, HPs need high velocity to have much chance of reliable expansion and unjacketed HP lead bullets just don't hold up to high velocities very well.

Cast HP bullets may be useful for some animal targets but paper targets and soda cans don't benefit from HP. I use solid bullets for practice and just buy a few jacketed HPs to load for social needs or deep forest work.

An expensive box of store bought high performance HP bullets lasts me a very long time so the price of getting exactly what I want for the tuff jobs doesn't make a lot of difference in the long run.


The current Rambo driven fad for small high pressure cartridges in handguns with high capacity magazines has left the .357 in their dust but that should not be. The 9mm is just a tiny, very hot loaded cartridge with light for .35 caliber bullets. The .357 is also hot loaded but with a larger case and much heavier bullets so it's nowhere near as touchy to reload for as the 9mm and 10mm.

I love my .44 Mag but .... to be real .... long may the excellent .357 Magnum and strong built revolvers live!