Plated bullets through suppressor?

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marcus99
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Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by marcus99 »

Specifically, Xtreme 147gr RN plated 9mm bullets through an Octane 9HD.

So far I have been using Montana Gold 147gr CMJ bullets. They're great; no complaints. But the Xtreme plated bullets are significantly cheaper. I bought 500 of them a few months back and haven't loaded them up yet. Before I do so I wanted to check in here to see if there would be any problems or reason not to do so.

Mainly I've read about jacket seperation with plated bullets and damage to the baffles. Is this a legitimate concern, or more of a myth or possibly related to a certain suppressor/bullet/ammo brand? I have read in numerous places about being careful regarding crimp so as not to break the plating - o.k., I will place extra scrutiny at the crimp stage...is there is anything else?

And just an FYI, for now these would only be shot through my Octane 9, but in the future I'd be interested in shooting them through a Bowers VERS 9S and Liberty Mystic. I figured I'd mention those since although the Mystic is also stainless like the Octane, the Bowers uses aluminum baffles (correct me if I'm wrong?) and I'm not sure if that would affect anyone's response to my thread.

Thanks - Marcus
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by doubloon »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDtd2jNIwAU MUSAFAR!
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Emilio
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Emilio »

You'll be loading subs so no worry about running them too fast. Like you say Just watch your crimp.

Sounds like you are carful and do homework first, many don't then have problems. :mrgreen: the Bowers will be ok if correctly loaded.

Yes, MG CMJ are great and what I use. I may have to go plated too someday but It will be awhile. :D
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Will_M
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Will_M »

I shoot 147gr Xtremes through my Octane 9. Great bullets. Zero issues with plating separating.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by jt526 »

I use Ranier and Berry's and never had a problem
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Fulmen
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Fulmen »

A good advice would be to test the bullets through your particular barrel first. I've seen this before with Glocks and certain brands, they stripped the plating at he grooves creating a huge outward spray of copper and lead that could mess up a silencer pretty fast.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by batman4706 »

I buy the "heavy plated" bullets from Extreme for my 40 & 45 and also their 150 gr 308 bullets. All work fine through my Octane 45 and YMH 7.62 M2.

I emailed YHM about using them in their can and they said no problem.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by marcus99 »

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like I should be good-to-go. I'll load up some & head out to the range and report back shortly
Emilio wrote:You'll be loading subs so no worry about running them too fast. Like you say Just watch your crimp.

Sounds like you are carful and do homework first, many don't then have problems. :mrgreen: the Bowers will be ok if correctly loaded.

Yes, MG CMJ are great and what I use. I may have to go plated too someday but It will be awhile. :D
I've found over the years that you can learn as much if not more from your own mistakes and failures, as well as those of others, as you can from successes. Fortunately technically oriented forums like these exist to run stuff by other shooters.

The MG CMJ are indeed really nice, but if these xtreme run equally well and cause no issues, I can save over $100. That adds up for sure over the longterm.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by bani »

run them too fast and yes, the plating shreds off inside the barrel. looks like birdshot on the target.

keep them under 1200fps and you should be fine.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Fulmen »

It's not only a matter of velocity, some barrels seems to shred thin plating regardless of the load.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Historian »

Interesting addendum to above conversation is what just crossed the desk,
pure copper bullets, G2 R.I.P.

<< http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/0 ... phase-one/ >>

In particular the topology is interesting if indeed it works as touted.

One wonders if it would function in a suppressed system.
marcus99
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by marcus99 »

Fulmen wrote:A good advice would be to test the bullets through your particular barrel first. I've seen this before with Glocks and certain brands, they stripped the plating at he grooves creating a huge outward spray of copper and lead that could mess up a silencer pretty fast.
Fulmen wrote:It's not only a matter of velocity, some barrels seems to shred thin plating regardless of the load.
I believe Fulmen is correct based on my experience yesterday. Here is what happened:

I loaded up 100rds of the plated bullets in question using 3.4gr of W231 and seated to 1.14" using what I consider a mild crimp. I partially pulled the first 5rds using an impact hammer to observe the crimp. The jacket was not broken, just a slight indent was observable:

Image

So I went to the range with four hosts: Glock 17 and 19 both with Lone Wolf barrels; Walther P99 with Jarvis barrel, and Beretta 92 with what I was told was an OEM Barrel* (more on this below) that I then had threaded by Tornado tech. I shot 15rds through each host. After 60rds I wanted to make sure no plating was coming off inside my Octane, so I remove the piston/spring/retainer cap. This is what came out:

Image

None of that is carbon. That is all little bits of plating. I didn't know if that was from all 60rds having been fired across all four hosts. Basically I wondered if it was my reloads that were the problem (i.e. perhaps I applied too much crimp?) or whether it was what Fulmen mentioned regarding a particular barrel shredding plating. At this point I had 25rds left (I had shot 15rds unsuppressed), so I shot 6rds through each of my four hosts, and after each 6 rds I would take out the piston/spring/retainer cap and check to see if plating fell out. NOTHING (maybe one or two small flaks - possibly left over from the first 60rds) came out after shooting the Glocks and Walther...but after I shot 6rds through the Beretta this came out:

Image

Again, that was all little bits of plating. When I got home I found lead had caked itself to the first and second baffles, as well as the edges of the "nipples" of a few subsequent baffles, and the inside of the endcap too. I have never found lead inside my Octane before, and I have shot about 1,500rds of the Montana Gold 147gr CMJ.

I put the SS parts in my ultrasonic cleaner for 2hrs at 140 degrees with a 50/50 of Purple Power/Water, which got rid of the carbon layer and allowed me to scrub away the spots of lead with a bronze brush. Fortunately the majority of the plating seemed to have come off inside the piston/birdcage/expansion chamber area, and I found no damage to those areas. The endcap lead was a little trickier to remove as I wanted to be extra careful around with anodizing and aluminum, but I got it almost all off. One bit of anodizing seems to be missing, presumably from a bit of plating hitting it(?), but otherwise it looks alright too. Fortunately only about 20rds were shot through my Octane with the Beretta, so I caught it early. My Octane seems fine (no baffles or endcap strikes) and I doubt any damage was done, but thought I'd see what others had to say here.

If I am correct in my thinking, the Beretta's barrel did what Fulmen said could happen; it shredded the plating. I did get hit in the face with a lot of spray when shooting the Beretta suppressed yesterday (I don't know if it was gas/powder or plating), but I've found that is common to get sprayed when shooting my Beretta suppressed (dry, never wet) so it didn't raise any alarms. I bought the barrel from a guy on berettaforum over a year ago and am now wondering if the barrel is defective or not OEM (that is of course taking the assumption that factory Beretta barrels don't also strip plating). As mentioned, it was threaded by Tornado Tech and I've never had any baffle or endcap strikes with it, so this would be the first problem I've had with it.
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Emilio
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Emilio »

Nasty! :cry: Have you tried hard cast through The Beretta barrel? I've used the same loads in 9mm and that's plenty light.

I've used hard cast through the Octane 9 with 38's/ sub 357.

The drawback of plated ,,similar to drawbacks of aluminum cans. :mrgreen:
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by blackops_1 »

Marcus Did you chrono any rounds thru any of the barrels before shooting suppressed? Maybe they got over 1200 fps in the Beretta? I don't own one but I'm curious if the rifling is polygonal <sp> like the glock factory barrels are? I've gota Octane 9HD that I shot for the first time last week with a lone wolf 9mm barrel in my glock. Also using plated bullets, I haven't taken it apart yet since I didn't shoot much but will now while keeping my fingers crossed :shock: Should be ok I think since my average fps was around 930-950 if memory serves. I did notice a bit of blowback and the slide wasn't running very fast. Almost didn't return to battery 1 time so I swapped in a new recoil spring and that stopped the shavings/blowback. If it really was shavings anyway, was my 1st time shooting centerfire pistol :wink:
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Abiqua »

I have loaded thousands of Xtreme plated bullets and ran them thorough Sigs, Glocks, H&Ks, and Uzis. I've never had any issues.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by AKDOC »

What does the end cap look like? I have a topic in silencerco section about similar concerns, Im worried I was getting minor end cap rubs but now Im thinking maybe Im just getting end cap blast from jacket pieces. Is yours showing continuous wear from this as far as you can tell?
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by blackops_1 »

Didn't find any fragments in my octane. Was shooting these in my lone wolf barrel:
bullseye 3.9 grns, avg fps 1009 out of this barrel unsuppressed. Can obscures sights so I'm not going to
chrono those babys 8)
average coal 1.149
The bullets were either made by rainier or rocky mountain reloading's 2nds fmj's. I don't remember offhand, Both bullets are just plated, at this point I'm going to price some delta precision fmj 147's before shooting the can again.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by marcus99 »

I highly doubt the plating was coming off due to speed. The loads were subsonic in all the hosts, and as far as I can discern, the plating ONLY stripped in the Beretta barrel.
blackops_1 wrote:Didn't find any fragments in my octane. Was shooting these in my lone wolf barrel:
bullseye 3.9 grns, avg fps 1009 out of this barrel unsuppressed. Can obscures sights so I'm not going to
chrono those babys 8)
average coal 1.149
The bullets were either made by rainier or rocky mountain reloading's 2nds fmj's. I don't remember offhand, Both bullets are just plated, at this point I'm going to price some delta precision fmj 147's before shooting the can again.
Did you find that load to ring your ears? I have both a G17 and G19 both with Lone Wolf barrels and the other day I tried either 3.4 or 3.5gr of Bullseye (I forget which) pushing a 147gr MG CMJ through two Octane 9's and it rang both my ears and that of a friend. The bullet was not going supersonic.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by aries14482 »

Did you find that load to ring your ears? I have both a G17 and G19 both with Lone Wolf barrels and the other day I tried either 3.4 or 3.5gr of Bullseye (I forget which) pushing a 147gr MG CMJ through two Octane 9's and it rang both my ears and that of a friend. The bullet was not going supersonic.
Interesting. I had a similar experience shooting AE 147gr through my Walther PPQ with Jarvis barrel and a friend's Osprey 9. His Glock 17 with the same can was fine, but that load in my Walther rang my ears.

I wonder if it has something to do with the speed at which the action is unlocking? If it's unlocking faster and with higher pressures, maybe what's ringing our ears is 'port pop?'
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by blackops_1 »

aries14482 wrote:
Did you find that load to ring your ears? I have both a G17 and G19 both with Lone Wolf barrels and the other day I tried either 3.4 or 3.5gr of Bullseye (I forget which) pushing a 147gr MG CMJ through two Octane 9's and it rang both my ears and that of a friend. The bullet was not going supersonic.
Interesting. I had a similar experience shooting AE 147gr through my Walther PPQ with Jarvis barrel and a friend's Osprey 9. His Glock 17 with the same can was fine, but that load in my Walther rang my ears.

I wonder if it has something to do with the speed at which the action is unlocking? If it's unlocking faster and with higher pressures, maybe what's ringing our ears is 'port pop?'
I didn't shoot very many rounds with zero hearing protection. Maybe 3 or 4.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Artful »

I've used plated bullets for years without problems. - I'd take a closer look at that barrel. It may need lapping.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by marcus99 »

I loaded up another 100rds for use in my M11/9. Before shooting them, I shot off just 1rd from my Beretta unsuppressed, which I suspected was shredding the plating, at a blank piece of white printer paper. If I was correct in my theory that it was the barrel, and not my reloads, that was causing the plating separation then little bits of plating should be visible from the Beretta, but hopefully not my other hosts.

The Beretta (the grey stuff is solvent residue from a clean bore):

Image

I figured I didn't even need to shoot the Beretta any more. The bits of plating were obvious. I then fired 5rds through my M11/9 on semiauto unsuppressed:

Image

Again you can tell which round was the first due to the solvent residue. There was also no evidence of plating coming off either. So I loaded up 30rds, screwed on my Octane 9 and flipped the selector to fullauto. After that mag I unscrewed my Octane, disassembled it, and found a few pieces of plating inside, as well as some lead on the endcap. The Octane was thoroughly cleaned prior to this, so I know for certain that the plating resulted from those 30rds. It wasn't very much plating, just a few pieces, but there was definitely some separation going on.

So...the plot thickens. Is it my reloads; am I crimping too much? Perhaps my reloads are fine, but just one round was responsible for all the bits of plating I found (a rough case mouth on a piece of brass broke the jacket?)? Is the platting shredding but only on fullauto? Is the plating always shredding in my M11/9 but those initial 5rds at the paper weren't enough to demonstrate it? I need to do more testing.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Fulmen »

marcus99 wrote:the grey stuff is solvent residue from a clean bore
Actually it's probably lead thrown off the bullet. Barrel/bullet/load-comboes that strip the jacket tend to produce these results quite reliably.
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by Emilio »

Check your crimp and test.

Are you using a tapered crimp? Not impressed with those bullets! Would rather shoot proper bin hard cast. :mrgreen:
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Re: Plated bullets through suppressor?

Post by wmdaniel70 »

Are non-jacketed hard cast lead bullets ok for suppressors (not too dirty)?
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