All,

I have started playing around with the coated bullets for my reloading and have been pretty pleased thus far with the results.  I have pet loads in .38/.357 and .44 Spl/Mag.  Looking to make some .300 AAC BLK, .50 Beo and .500 S&W recipes as well in the near future.

I try to never shoot bare lead anymore.  In fact, my Cowboy Action loads are the only bare lead I still run and those are getting phased out in favor of one of my coated bullet loads as we speak.

Now I know with plated bullets you can buy (almost certainly non-expanding) hollowpoints.  I have some X-Treme plated hollowpoints.  But for some weird reason every place I consider buying coated bullets from doesn't seem to offer any hollowpoint configuration at all.  Any idea why?

I just want to try and duplicate the old "FBI load" 158-gr SWCHP with a coated bullet.

I know that I could start coating my own bullets but that's not what I want to do (at least, not yet).

Does anybody know of a commercially available coated hollowpoint bullet?  Or do you suppose I could just ask one of the big name coated bullet merchants if they would try a run of them?

Call Missouri - SNS - Bayou and ask!

Most places to not offer cast lead HP bullets on large, you may have to look at smaller companies..

Easy answer. Most places that cast in large scale operations use automatic casting machines, the way hollow point molds work doesn't play well with those systems.

You pretty much have to roll your own. Some of the hp's I either cast or swage for the 38spl/357's.


The old fbi load, you actually need to start looking for a hollow bases hollow pointed swc (hbhpswc). They swage soft lead bullets for the "fbi" load. This is what you're looking for.


I have swaging dies to make hbhpswc's but I find it easier/better to cast hbswc's because I'm not stuck with having to use soft alloys that are needed to swage bullets. So anyway you need molds like these to cast a hbswc bullet for your 38spl/fbi load.


I also cast a hbswc for the 44spl, my version of the "fbi" load.


On a side note:
The fbi bullet pictured above has a flat base to it's hollow base design. The lyman hb molds have round pins/bases in their hollow base design. I've tested several different hollow base designs and the best designs are either cone shaped or an octive cone shape. By using this hollow base pin I made

instead of the factory hb pin that lyman designed. I get 30fps to 40fps more velocity from the same hb bullet.

Cramer made excellent hb pins for their molds, these 45cal (45acp) hbswc's are very impressive.


So if you want to try to duplicate the "fbi" load that skeeter & elmer worked on in chicago & buffalo bore sells, you need to start with a hbhpswc bullet.

The fbi used a 158gr hbhpswc bullet
Buffalo bore came up with a 1000fps 158gr bullet/load for the snub nosed 38spl's.

3221 likes the 44spl over the 38spl and uses a 210gr hbhpswc that does 1000+fps out of a snub nosed 44spl.


That bullet was cast with the home made hb pin and hollow pointed using a forster hp'ing tool.

3221,

DUDE, a fellow Ohioan!  I appreciate your experience and pics on this!

And yes, I also enjoy the .44 Spl/Mag rounds.  While I mentioned the .38 FBI load in my OP I enjoy reading about the Keith bullets for .44 as well.

This is what a fbi armorer has to say about the "fbi" load.

I first saw the X38SPD ammo loaded in plain white boxes, nickle commercial Winchester case with red primer sealer, in 1974 at the FBI Academy at Quantico, VA. It was already being used by numerous local PDs, St. Louis, Chicago and Washington, DC among them. The bureau became interested when the FBI Laboratory started receiving requests to process and handle evidence from officer involved shootings around the country, where the ammunition was being used. They were impressed enough with it that samples were requested from Winchester for evaluation.

Once the bureau starting buying the ammunition, additional suppliers were needed to enable competitively bid contracts. Remington quickly jumped onto the bandwagon with its R38S12. Federal was late to the party and had problems getting the bullet cavity geometry, alloy hardness and lubrication right and has trouble meeting the functioning, accuracy and terminal performance requirements. Alot of Federal 38G was sold in normal commercial channels which failed contract acceptance and while some batches of Federal performed OK, it was not consistent from lot to lot. The Remington and Winchesterr stuff was always good in my testing.

At the time the FBI was moving away from the 4-inch Colt Official Police, maintaining those still being used by agents in the field offices, but issuing to new agent classes heavy barrel 3" or 4" S&W round butt Model 10s, (usually 10-6 or 10-8s) with Tyler T-grip adapter. Later they went to .357 Model 13s in similar configuration and held onto those well into the mid 1980s when they started transitioning new agent classes to 9mm autopistols.

It actually became known as the "fbi" load because the feds bought sooooooo much of it.

The fbi regularly checked their revolvers & their armorers would look for 3/1000th's to 6/1000th's (max) cylinder gap. They found that for every 1/1000th of cylinder gap it wound lower the velocity of the load by 10fps. The ww fbi loads would average 950fps from 4" bbl'd revolvers.

Most 158gr bullets and around 5.3gr of unique will give you 950fps from a 4" bbl'd revolver.

The fbi load wasn't extremely hot by any means, what it had was a superior bullet design. A hb bullet brings  a lot to the table that most shooters wouldn't even know about, let alone test. A hb lead bullet does 3 main things:
Makes the bullet have a more consistent velocity when used in extremely large # of different firearms.
Makes the bullet longer
Makes a secondary mushroom.

What the bottom of the hb bullet looks like that is used in that 44spl load.


A side view of that same bullet. As you can see the hb/hp bullet mushrooms/compresses at both ends.


This is what the fbi saw when they processed evidence for other agencies with the ww hb/hpswc bullet along with impressive results. They decided to adopt that load/bullet for their standard issue ammo to their field agents. The rest is history.  

If you really want to take your bullet testing to the next level you should take a hard look at hb bullets. I have over 15 hb bullet molds for 7 different calibers along with swaging my own lead & jacketed hb bullets. It gets interesting when you test a rh hp hb bullet vs a hbhpswc vs a fnhbhp bullet for the same caliber.

At the end of the day 950fps from a 38spl/158gr hp bullet is a proven performer. I like to use either large round hp's or penta point hp's for my 38spl/950fps snub nosed revolver loads.


The snub nosed 44spl is no different. It gets a steady diet of either:
A "fbi" hbhpswc bullet
A hbwc turned around to make a huge hp
A standard hpswc (200gr for 44spl/158gr for 38spl)
A hbhp fn bullet


Most people view the 38spl as an outdated/under powered cartridge along with the 44spl being a forgotten caliber.

Good luck with your testing

Attached File
44's

I just sold a couple 44cal hp molds. Both were lyman, 1 was a 429421 just like your bullet & the other was the 429244.

I use these anymore if I want to shoot a "keith" hpswc.


Something to think about:
When you look at a swc bullet you should look at the bottom drive band & lube groove. High pressure loads do better with thicker bottom drive bands & rounded lube grooves. Loads like the "fbi" load for the 38spl are a low pressure load and will do better with the small drive bands and large square lube groove like the 44cal cal bullet that 30caliber posted. Most commercial bullet casters have molds that have rounded grease grooves. A picture of recovered bullets from the berm. If you look closely at the grease grooves of the round (left) vs square (right) you can clearly see that they did their job and compressed from the pressure of the load. That compression pushes the lube forward and outward. The outward pressure turns the lube into a gasket sealing the bbl. The forward pressure pushing the lube thru the micro defects in the bbl past the front drive bands and lubes the bbl/bullet contact.


3 different "keith" hpswc bullets for the 38spl/357. As you can see 3 different sized/style of hp along with 3 different lube grooves and 3 different sized bottom drive bands.

The red hp is designed with a small bottom drive band and a cupped hp/soft lead and low pressure bullet 38spl p+
The plain bullet in the center has a huge bottom drive band and the lube groove while being long inn't very deep/heavy 357 loads
The green bullet on the right has the same hp as the plain bullet & have a smaller bottom drive band. But the rounded stronger grease groove makes it equal to the plain bullet with the bigger base. The only difference between these 2 bullets is the weight. plain ='s 150gr vs green ='s 158gr. they both are for heavy 357 loads.

I shoot faster than they can make them.  We need more machines.

Did you roll these yourself or buy them somewhere?

Mine.  Mixed red with a little black HF powder and marginal coverage, but I really like the mean look of them.

I would like to extend my thanks to 30Caliber for sending me some of these mean looking coated hollowpoints for testing.  All recipe and chrono data will be posted here so follow along!

Weight of the coated slugs is 247-249 grains.

Diameter of the slugs is 0.4305".

Loaded to the cannelure of .44 Special brass I get overall length ranges of 1.565-1.580".

Will build some ladders using a couple different powders and report back!

Fun with reloading!!!

58 F, 71% RH, 30.04" Hg

***CHRONY DATA***
5 data points per powder load/bullet/primer combination unless otherwise noted.  Chrono positioned approximately 10-feet from the muzzle.

.44 Spl 248-gr Coated SWCHP, WLP LPP, Accurate #5 Powder, 1.565-1.580" COAL
Taurus Tracker with 4" ported barrel

6.2-gr AVERAGE = 615 fps; ES = 30.6
6.5-gr AVERAGE = 620 fps; ES = 23.5
6.8-gr AVERAGE = 649 fps; ES = 44.6

.44 Spl 248-gr Coated SWCHP, WLP LPP, W231 Powder, 1.564-1.574" COAL
Taurus Tracker with 4" ported barrel

4.2-gr AVERAGE = 598 fps; ES = 47.1
4.7-gr AVERAGE = 627 fps; ES = 14.0
5.2-gr AVERAGE = 707 fps; ES = 32.3

.44 Mag 248-gr Coated SWCHP, WLP LPP, W231 Powder, 1.682-1.692" COAL
Taurus Tracker with 4" ported barrel

5.9-gr AVERAGE = 737 fps; ES = 22.9
6.9-gr AVERAGE = 828 fps; ES = 3.6 (*note = only 4 data points*)
7.8-gr AVERAGE = 883 fps; ES = 18.3
9.0-gr AVERAGE = 986 fps; ES = 9.0
10.4-gr AVERAGE = 1083 fps; ES = 39.0

.44 Mag 248-gr Coated SWCHP, WLP LPP, Accurate #7 Powder, 1.682-1.692" COAL
Taurus Tracker with 4" ported barrel

14.7-gr AVERAGE = 991 fps; ES = 26.7
15.5-gr AVERAGE = 1042 fps; ES = 65.0
16.2-gr AVERAGE = 1097 fps; ES = 73.0

Thoughts:

None of the .44 Special loads impressed me much.

That W231 10.4-gr magnum load was stout.  In fact, extracting the empty casings from the cylinder required a punch and a hammer.  While the books show 11.0-gr W231 as the maximum load for 240-gr lead slugs I daresay we are getting uncomfortably close to bad things happening here at 10.4-gr.

On the other hand, the 16.2-gr Accurate #7 load was just fine.  It had a bit wider ES but not awful.  I will build some more of these loads and put them through longer barrels to see what sort of velocity we can get.

Unique or 2400 is your friend in the 44spl/mag's.

I'm getting 1000fps+ from a 2 1/2" bbl'd 44spl using 210gr hp's/2400.