Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Speer Trophy Bonded Bear Claw Bullets

I have shot both styles and absolutely love the old recipe TBBC's. There are rather significant differences between the old (original) TBBC made by Jack Carter and the newest iteration, made by Speer.

Back in October 2005 I flew to New Mexico to hunt elk. At the Atlanta airport I purchased the latest issue of Peterson's Hunting magazine. This was the first week of October, so I am pretty sure it was the "October" issue. There was an article in that issue dealing with precisely that question. It was not the most complimentary article and basically called out Speer for shooting the goose that laid the golden egg because Speer messed with something that did NOT need messing with! The article started out by the author stating he was receiving letters from PH's in Africa, basically asking "what the devil is going on with the TBBC's?". The time tested TBBC's were now made by Speer and were failing in the eyes of the PH's when used on heavy/big game over there. Limited expansion and petals shearing off were two noticeable complaints. The author then explained that the original TBBC's were made with a copper jacket. The perception is/was, copper jacketed bullets can be "sticky" in the bore at times, foul badly, and have so so accuracy associated with them because of this. Speer decided to "fix" this and make their TBBC's from gilding metal, rather than copper and tweak it a bit to narrow the expansion (allowing, in theory, greater penetration). Original TBBC's are prone to have relatively wide expansion, compared to similar bullets, and sometimes this has shown to have a parachute effect, slowing down the expanded bullet in tissue.

Long story short (sorry so windy) is that the New Speer/Federal TBBC had perceived problems with the petals shearing off and the end result, based on the photos in the article, looked like some of the "TSX Failure" pictures posted from time to time. The PH's in Africa were screaming for Speer to fix it or they were not going to be seen using them in Africa any more. The author took Speer to task in print and said, in so many words, "Fix it! You are ruining a great bullet!"

Speer never fixed it, and today there is no comparison between the two in my opinion. I will add a disclaimer here: Some folks like the Speer variety better because of the perceived accuracy, less fouling, and they just seem to love penetration over expansion. My personal experience is this: They always shot great for me...I never really had much of an issue with fouling and they will always be my preferred bullet for elk, or anything larger. I laid into a lifetime supply of 30 cal 180 and 200 grain bullets and will never look back. With respect to penetration I have no idea how much more penetration I need, as every elk I have shot with it lays em down like they were struck by lightning and penetration was off the charts. My biggest bull ever (358 2/8" net B&C, 996#) was taken quartering on through the shoulder and the bullet ended up in the pelvic canal on top of the bladder of that bull, fully expanded! I'd say penetration was fine. And the bullet was as pretty as could be after smashing the shoulder joint. Here is a pic after it penetrated, what 5 feet? If I could, I'd search high and low for some of the old stuff...if I could not find any, Hawk or North Fork bullets will get the job done in similar fashion and you won't miss a beat.