My understanding is that the bulk plated bullets like Ranier, et al, are soft swaged then plated. The HP feature is popular among target shooter because the HP is swaged after plating, aka "double struck", ensuring a uniform size and concentric projectile for best accuracy. My loading experience with plated bullets bears this out, it's easy to deform bulk bullets with hard crimp.
The Gold Dot is a proven self defense round. For piece of mind, I would seek out third party testing data before committing to any self defense load especially if it used a plated bullet.
YMMV