Absolutely true. The encapsulating copper-plating covers the entire bullet, whereas traditional FMJs leave the base of the bullet with exposed lead. When the charge ignites, some of that exposed lead base on a traditional FMJ gets vaporized and ends up in the air. Using copper encapsulated bullets reduces the lead in the air IF the plating is not compromised during loading or firing. You would need to recover a spent bullet and inspect it to see if that is the case. You may also find that the case mouths are shaving the copper plating away when seating the bullets in the cases (which would likely also harm the accuracy potential of the round). Traditional FMJs on the other hand have a thick, hard jacket, and are alot less prone to those kinds of issues.
Advantages:
You can also just run lead bullets in your Mark 23 if you want to. Many guys on here do. Especially if you are looking to run at the slowest speeds possible, lead cast bullets should be absolutely no problem. Of course, you still would need to keep an eye out for barrel-leading just to be extra safe, but I really doubt you would have any problems. If you were going to work up a hot, self-defense load, you'd want to use a good, jacketed, self-defense bullet like a Gold Dot for instance, but plain lead is just fine for plinking.For what it's worth I relaod tons of ammo. 75% of that is lead. With the cost of components going up and the fact that I now own a MK2 that I want to shoot the $hi! out of I am faced with having to look for something oher than lead. The plated bullets are a substantial savings over jacketed. I purchased 500 230gr Rainer bullets for under $50. Winchester 230gr FMJ were $17 per 100 at local dealer, that would be $85 b4 tax. With that said, the seed I would be pushing the Rainers at out of my MK23 would be <950FPS which should not peel the plating off. To be quite honest, I will be working on as slow a bullet as possble. If I do not find something with the Rainers that I am hapy with then I will just move on and suck it up with FMJ's. I am looking to hit the range sometime b4 X-mas.
With teh cost of ammo on teh rise I am surprised that HK Pro doesnt have a reloading section. But then again, what do I know... I'm the NEWB in these parts!
Polygonal barrels are not so much trouble for lead when compared with traditional land and groove barrels. That whole rumor was caused by Glock recommending against lead in their poly barrels. But, that had something to do with the transition between the chamber and the rifling being kinda sharp and making it more prone to leading in that area of Glock barrels. Hk does not recommend against lead in their poly barrels (neither does Kahr).
I'm not sure which brands are which, but I have about 10 factory FMJ bullets I recovered from a stack of phone books and about half have exposed lead in the base and half do not.
