I am getting a new .357 rifle. How fast can you drive copper washed bullets? You could easily hit 1600 fps out of a rifle, maybe even 1800 fps with light bullets.

What about lead bullets?

This is a modern Marlin with conventional rifling.

When I was buying to potentially start reloading, I had been looking at RMR and XTreme which both sell plated bullets.

XTreme recommends keeping them under 1500.

Rocky Mountain Reloading recommends that you limit their thick plated bullets to 1400fps...but they are pretty conservative

http://rmrbullets.com/?v=7516fd43adaa

Berry's recommends under 1250 fps for the 38/357 pistol bullets. Since you are going to be using a .357 rifle with decently high velocities, I would recommend just purchasing jacketed bullets in bulk and be done with it.

Have you thought about hard cast lead? They make them in rifle calibers and they can be pushed faster than plated bullets.

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:
Have you thought about hard cast lead? They make them in rifle calibers and they can be pushed faster than plated bullets.

I asked about lead, too. How fast can you push a hard lead bullet?

Leadhead bullets has a link at the bottom of the page I linked to with relaod data for hard cast lead. I took a peak at .357 Magnum and they have load data for 1,400 FPS+ loads. Shotgun News had an article maybe fifteen years ago about hard cast lead through an AK, so it can be done for rifles as well.

Also, here's a link to a review of a Lyman reloading manual for hard cast lead. As always YMMV.

Many years ago I had a lot of separations with Berry's, right out of the barrel, at higher velocities.

I haven't seen that more recently, but I don't push them.