Loading 350gr plated Berry's Bullets for SW 500 Mag - How much crimp is too much?

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mactroneng

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As the title says, I've been using Berry's Plated bullets for S&W 500 Mag, loaded on top of 22.5gr of Longshot with CCI's Large Rifle Magnum primers.

Yesterday at the range I took the calipres with me and decided to see if the bullets are shifting during firing - and they are! 0.02", give or out, out of the brass.

I've always read to be careful with the crimp on plated bullets as it's not hard to crimp through the plating, which can cause separation and generally bad stuff, but these Berrys Bullets are rated for 2,000 fps (vs 1,200 for most of their other plated offerings) which leads me to believe that the thickness is more in line with a jacketed bullet than a plated one.

Below is a picture showing my little bit of crimp, do you guys think I'm safe to tighten that up at all?

tAdos8f.jpg
 
I've got some 500 S&W that I loaded with these same bullets. Mine have a bit more crimp dialed in than yours - the mouth of the case is slightly rolled - your's doesn't appear to be. If you want to PM me and give me your e-mail address, I'll shoot you a photo and you can see what mine look like. Try as I might, I can't seem to get photos onto here.
 
I use the same bullet over 38gr of N110 with a Large Rifle Primer. It took me a few outings of gradually upping the crimp before I got to the point where the bullet didn't slightly move forward out of the brass. It needs a very heavy crimp!!! I use the Lee Collet Style Crimp Die.
 
mactroneng said:
I also use that Lee crimp die. Looks like I'll be trying five rounds at a time over the course of a few weeks to figure this out.
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I felt like I was way over crimping by the time I got it right, but it was really just enough to keep that bullet in place after firing 4 shots of 350gr at 1800fps. I'd be curious to know how many people in Canada own a Smith & Wesson 500, regardless of model.
 
WilliamSussman said:
I felt like I was way over crimping by the time I got it right, but it was really just enough to keep that bullet in place after firing 4 shots of 350gr at 1800fps. I'd be curious to know how many people in Canada own a Smith & Wesson 500, regardless of model.
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And no issues with separation or leading?

I'd also be curious to know how many people have them here.
 
No issues with the ammo at all, it's very accurate. I only put 300 rounds through it so far (just got it in late august) but I do have one issue with the firearm or me. Seems like once or twice in a range session the cylinder seems to rotate back a bit so I have to move it back in place before firing another shot.
 
Can't say I've had the same issue with mine, picked it up lightly used last Christmas (went from new to used in the same gun store over a 5 week period) but never actually fired it until like April and have since put about 170 rounds through it.
 
Base model with 8.38" barrel (163500). Apparently the reason I got it used was because a guy bought it, put a box of ammo through it and decided he wanted the HIVIZ sights instead so he took it back to the store and placed an order for the one you have.
 
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