Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Speer Grand Slams?

How do you tell the difference between the originals and the new ones? I have some 7mm 160s in the orangeish plastic box.

You should have the older ones. I think when they changed the construction they also changed the box.Those old 160's were very good penetraters.They will smash though both shoulders on a whitetail and keep on going.

They arent much for expansion though. Take out both shoulders or get ready to track

If you section one you can see the dual core of the older bullets.

I know the originals had the initials "GS" on the base of the bullet, don't know about the later ones.

I'm loading them for a 300 Wby. 180 gn.And RE 26. I've shot a few whitetail bucks with them. They just drop dead when it hits them and don't bruise up the meat much at all. I have been very impressed with them. The accuracy is good. I like watching deer drop and not even kick when I shoot.

The news ones do too. Unless I saw a rock bottom deal, I'd never buy them again. They're a glorified C & C that's priced right up there with the Partition and TTSX.

I have some old 25 cal 120 gr GS's in the orange box, plastic with a slide top?

IIRC the really old ones came in a yellow plastic box, I bought a lot of them in the late 80's in 7mm 175 gr, the last of them are loaded in cases.

When they're gone I'll simply switch over to the 175 Partitions, my 7X57mm shoots them with equal accuracy and the same velocity.

The 6mm, 257 and I believe 6.5mm Grand Slam bullets always were a 1 piece core, from 277 on up were the dual core bullets. We shot a bunch of deer and bears with those 140's in the 260 Rem and 6.5x55 with great results. The old 165, 180 and 200 gr were my favourite bullets in the 30-06 and 308 Norma Mag. I tried the new 165's in a 300 WSM I had but testing showed it would lose it's core so I stopped using the Grand Slam bullets. The 180 gr Mag Tip was a great bullet for a lot less money, to bad they discontinued it as well. There are other bullets that are better for the same or less money these days, I do hope Speer recover's from what ATK did to them and they come out with some great new bullets.

I haven't shot any game with them...yet...but the 7mm 175 gr. GS's were the first bullets I could get to shoot well in my .280 Ruger #1B.

If they're the old style you'll have to work hard to recover one.