I really wish plated bullet manufacturers would stop giving maximum velocity cautions. Plating breakdown is a function of pressure, not velocity. It oversimplifies the condition to the point of being a useless number.
The point remains however, plated bullets are not jacketed bullets and can not be driven nearly has hard as jacketed bullets. Basically, plated bullets should be considered a "clean" alternative to lead bullets; not an economical alternative to jacketed bullets.
jski, you're looking for 1100 f/s. May we have your gun's barrel length?
I load and shoot a lot of plated bullets; especially 38, 357, and 45 ACP. My 357/158 plated bullet of choice is an X-treme SWC. I settled on 7.0gn of Unique years ago. Since then, I have chronographed the loading several times.
Three times (over a few years) I tested the loading (same recipe, different lots) through my 4" Smith 686 and got 1112 f/s, 1103 f/s, and 1120 f/s (10-shot samples).
I believe 7.0gn of Unique is probably where you wanna be. It's a good shooting round. Clearly more potent than 38+P; but clearly more tame than full-throttle magnums. I particularly like shooting it through my 3" 686 - but haven't chronographed it. I would suspect about 1040 f/s through the 3".
BTW, this loading pushes the plated bullet to the edge. I get a nice orange tint in the barrel after shooting a lot of them. But it cleans out (and much easier than lead).
Since I load a lot of plated bullets for 38 and 357; I purchased a taper crimp die for them. If you load a lot of plated bullets, get a taper crimp die. Roll crimping tears up the plating by literally scraping off the plating as the bullet exits the case mouth. I use RCBS. I guess Redding makes a "profile crimp die" that taper crimps when set properly. I hear it's a good product, but I have no personal experience with it.