Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles What's up with Speer?

Speer announced a couple of years ago that they were discontinuing Hot-Core bullets and replacing them with Deep Curl. Only a few Deep Curl rifle bullets ever saw the market and then they were all quietly removed from the catalog. Now I get a email from Midway on a bullet I had backordered way before Sandy Hook.

Speer 6.5mm 140gr Hot-Core at Midway

It would seem that Hot-Core is back.

Great way to run a company.

They must have had some sort of falling out with Cabela's as I haven't seen any Speer bullets in the store in a long time.

They are a company without direction. The Deep Curls have been discontinued ((just like the Deep Shocks a few years back). and replaced by Hot Cores. What a Charlie Foxtrot!!
You gotta wonder about whomever is running the show. Really sad end to a fine old company. Wonder what Vernon would think.

What in THE HELL?!? Now DeepCurls are out? Yeah, it was Hot-Cor is out for a while, then they were back in stock, now it is the DeepCurls that are out. That is a big WTF. I use some Speer bullets, but in rifles it is the BTSP I like because they open so readily and still penetrate.

I've been reloading for about ten years and Speer has never even been on my radar. I guess they don't market their stuff as well as Hornady, Nosler and Sierra because I have a ton of bullets from them. I always wondered who shoots Speer in the same way I wonder who is buying Lyman reloading press'.

It is a bit confusing but I've been reloading since about '66 and I've used Speer bullets for different cartridges and found several rifles that shot certain Speer bullets very well (240 Wby with the 105 spitzer hot core and 30/30 with the 170 hot core) and was disappointed when I heard the Hot Cores were going away so I bought enough to last a while.

On the other hand I've got s couple of 7 Mags that shoot the 160 Deep Curl REALLY well so maybe i'd better buy up the ones at the local gun shop.

I was excited at some point to try the DeepCurls. They've just never been available. I still think they'd be a very good bullet for low velocity stuff, like out of my 30-30 contender. Oh well. Still planning to shoot either the 165 Speer BTSP or the 168 Amax out of the 30-30 for big game.

No love for them. They are a confused bunch!

I've always had some time for them because they were good bullets for the price. But now - here at least - their price has crept up and made them more expensive than competing products like the Interlock which I think is a better bullet, so I'm off them unless I see a good deal on them.

I suspect with all the looney bastards in the US buying ammo like mad, Speer can afford to just supply Federal factory ammo and have abandoned us handloaders to some extent.

Is speer owned by the same multi national corp that owns CCI, Federal Premium, RCBS Alliant Powders, Savage, Bushnell etc...?

Owned by ATK,yes.

ATK (aka Federal Premium/Speer) was going to make the Trophy Bonded Tip available as a component as well. Even made it to the catalog on the website. Something changed and it never happened, and they no longer list them as a component. I like the 200 Hot Cors, but when it was announced they were discontinuing Hot Cors I stopped buying them.

I always liked the older Grand Slams and still have a supply that I use in 4 different calibers. Have used the HotCor, BTSP, and the 80 grain soft point is still my favorite bullet in the 243 for coyote, groundhogs etc. Also have a Lyman Orange Crusher press to go along with the Redding Turret...

Admit to being a bit unhappy with the Speer offerings of late. Still plenty of products from other mfgr's to fill the gap though!

I wonder how much autonomy a company like speer has under a big parent corp like ATK.

In my circle 0f shooting friends we call Speer the "puzzle palace". I could care less what they are doing as I have enough .257 87 grain Hot-Cors to keep my Savage 99's shootin in my life time and probably my kids.

I like their ogive-forward BTSP design. They don't seem to jack with them and they are usually available.

Yeah, I had a great load for my Ruger .44 carbine with the 270g Gold Dot and now it's gone. I have a box of 270g Deep Curls that I haven't tried yet. I heard somewhere that all they did on these was change the name.

Same bullets...

Very little I suspect.

I have numerous boxes of various Speer bullets and am out the door in an hour on the last day of deer season w/my HVA 7x57 loaded w/145 Speer Grand Slams and max load of I-4350, I have used Speer's since the 60's and love em. Muddy

Same foul up occurred with the Grand Slam. Started out to be a great bullet. Speer is the best in the industry at pooping in their own cage.

Surprised Mule Deer does not provide some insight.

Same here. The 87 grain bullet is the only Speer bullet I use and it has done very well in my .250 model 99. I bought a bunch of them back when I heard they were being discontinued.

If someone else would start making a good 87 grain deer bullet in .257 I'd try 'em in a minute though.

I've never hunted w/Speer bullets. Always Nosler, Hornady, and Sierra...once. They don't really have what I consider a stand out bullet like the 139 7mm Hornady or the 210gr Nosler 338. Their 87gr .257 is a good bullet but not any better than the 87gr Hornady. Even though Hornady calls it a varmit bullet it has killed many deer sized critters. powdr

powdr, I've eyed the Hornaday bullet but the Varmint classification has kept me from trying them so far.

I'll have to try them out some day.

I like the Speer 165 gr. .308" Hot core for my Ruger M77 RSI. In fact, it's the only bullet that rifle seems to like. Scatters anything like a shotgun. My other Speer bullet is the 200 gr. Hot Core for my .300 Win. mag. Good enough to drop a cow elk at 530 yards. laser measured. I have a bunch of 160 gr. old style Grand Slams .284" I'm going to try in a 7x57 and .280 Remington later next week. Big problem is working around what seems like a jillion doctor's appointments. I also haave a good supply of .358" 250 gr. Hot Core Spire Points for my .35 Whelens. I have no problem with the Speer bullets I've used. They've always brought my game to bag so definitely no complaints coming from me.
Paul B.

YES, Alliant Techsystems Inc.(ATK) is the company and they are dividing the military and sporting aspects of the company.....

7mm 145 BTSP are fantastic in my .284 Savage 99.

Just got back last night from several days of deer hunting and am still getting caught up here. Some of this was hashed over in a thread last year, but what I do know is this:

A few years ago Speer invited a bunch of gun writers to tour the plant in Idaho, and a friend of mine and I drove over from Montana. That's when they announced the dropping of the Hot-Cors to us, which was going to take place over a year or two as DeepCurls came on-line.

But not everybody there was enthused about the DeepCurl name. In fact several Speer people talked to us privately, saying the bullets were essentially Fusions, which were already getting a lot of positive feedback from customers using Federal factory ammo. So why not piggyback on that good feeling and just sell "Fusions"? That made sense to me, and they urged me to say so to the marketing guy, who'd thought up the DeepCurl name. So I did. He rejected the idea, very abruptly, probably because he'd already heard it enough from several Speer employees.

The plan was also to sell DeepCurls at HotCor prices, which probably would have helped, but apparently they weren't able to do that. (They'd had the same plan for the DeepShoks, but that didn't work out either.) And availability wasn't great. Even gun writers never got very many DeepCurl samples, which is kind of par for the course with Speer, no doubt because ATK has essentially ONE guy to help out writers for not only Speer but Federal, Alliant, Weaver, etc. etc. etc. I've requested samples of Speer bullets for a number of articles, months before the deadline, and probably 3/4 of the time they don't show up until well after the article deadline has passed.

I like a lot of Speer products, and stuff from the other ATK owned lines as well. But when writers can't get many samples to test, and stores can't get many products for their shelves, then handloaders aren't going to want to commit themselves to a new product. Especially when so many hunters really liked Hot-Cors and now were being suddenly told they weren't going to be able to buy any more.

So MD, are the DeepCurls dead? The 90 gr. 243 DeepCurl was great. I never was able to get any .284 DeepCurls. Just wondering........

Not MD. But I was told in response to an email question almost a year ago, that the Deep Curls were dead. It's only recently that their website has been changed to reflect the fact that they are no longer offered. pretty sorry way to rn a business, IMO!

I love the 120gr 257 DCs. Fortunately I was able to stock up while they were available.

Speer has brought several bullets to the market that I've not ever been able to get my hands on. These bullets keep going away, too! Frustrating. I ended up with some Grand Slams that are poor for me in the accuracy department when I bought a new scale last year. I really wanted to try 22 cal TBBC, and I believe they were available from a place that breaks down military stuff and sells the components. I'd planned to try the DeepCurl/Fusions on timber animals at modest speed eventually, likely out of a 30-30 with 1 in chamber, 1 in mag.

Another great example of a manufacturer responding to demand from the market place when determining what product to offer.

When Speer was first sold out years ago, it went straight to hell. The old Speer Hot Core was as good a bullet as you could buy. Their customer relation's went straight out the door. Every now and then I look to see what Hot Core's are around but don't find them around here. Those old hot Core's didn't shoot loose in the jacket and retained a lot of their weight.

I've no doubt the Deep Curl will return. It will have a different name and a premium price tag.

That's already true. It's called the Fusion, and the premium price is due to being loaded in Federal ammo.

Though handloaders can pull the bullets and then reload them, if that's what they want.

I started out with Speer bullets when I began reloading in 1978; eventually switched to Hornady due to local gunshop availability. The Speer Hot Cor 130/.277 bullets I used back then were accurate and performed well, just got to the point no one stocked them. I've never switched back to Speer.

Funny. I started buying Hot Cor cause I can't find Hornady 100 IL.

More than likly sales are down and instead of keeping up with the compitision by offering a new generation of bullets for long range or a premium bullet for the ultra craze they think they can rebrand and old product and fool us...
Definatly a play by cooperate trying to squeez every oz of profit without investing in any new product research....sad thing....

I've got some deepcurls on hand. Here's what I think also was part of the problem. In general deepcurls are. 0005-.001 oversized per caliber. I have seen posts where people have called speer for more data than they list for deepcurls. Posters have claimed they were told by technicians they talked to that they should never deviate from speers published data and powders listed because of potential pressure spikes. I'm only repeating what I've seen posted...but I do know from measuring mine they are slightly oversized...which may have been a contributor to the fact that many people found them to be really accurate.

ATK has made Speer, Federal's bullet bitch. Make bullets for federal ammo, IF, Cinderella, you do all of your choirs; you can have time to yourself.

Military industrial complex that Like warned us about is a real issue for "brands we loved".

Ike provided one of the most insightful warnings the world has ever seen. Rather than heeding it, we have decided to worship the very thing about which he warned us.

Now they pulled Boattails off their website as a product line. You can still see them listed under individually calibers but the descriptions are gone.

I wonder if now they are going to release the Fusions and discontinue the boat tail.

http://www.speer-bullets.com/products/rifle/default.aspx

With the exception of the 350 & 400 grain bullets I use in a 45-70 & the occasional Grand Slam bullet, I don't use any Speer's.............lots of other bullets to choose from & Speer offers nothing special, IMO.

MM

I use to use their 275 gr.338 bullet, which has been discontinued for some time. I still use the 150 gr. 270 caliber hot cor. My favorite 270 bullet.

I have complained before here about what ATK has done to my once favourite bullet maker so won't do it again. They can be pretty hard to find sometimes but I am happy to have been able get some 250 gr Hot Cor's recently to feed the 35 Whelen and especially the 358 Norma. Really like the 150 and 180 gr Hot Cor bullets for the 303 British too.

I hope not. If so, I better stock up. They are a great bullet at modest speeds, and accurate for cheap. Most people don't know that.

Shot my first deer this week with a 100gr hot cor in the Roberts. Quartering away spike at 120 yds took 2 ribs on entry, jelled inside before exiting a 1/2" hole.

I want to know what's up with Hornady....where's the 100gr IL in 257?

I may be just as happy with Speer actually as I used to be with Hornady.

I've been really happy with the 87 grain .257 Hot Cor bullets. They've all performed very well on everything I've shot with them.

I've got enough of them squirreled away to last me in case Speer decides to stop making them or changes them.

Just picked up 300 of these for my 270 Win. Any loading tips ie proximity to the lands etc?

W H O ..is speer?

They are not a very fussy bullet. Load them to magazine length in front of some H4831, and go kill stuff.

They are still producing 4 of my favorite Speer bullets in 22 caliber and are available in bulk...

50 and 55 TNT, 52 grain HP, and the 55 grain SP...

cheap and more than accurate enough for sage rats at reasonable distances...250 yds or more....

and work well, when either ran hard, or loaded down to 22 Hornet Speeds...

7mm 160g Grand Slams were my bullet of choice for 20+ years. When Speer changed the manufacturing process I went to North Fork bonded bullets instead.

When the Trophy Bonded Tip was introduced I considered it perhaps the best design on the market, given what I wanted in bullet performance. After failing to make them available as promised, I pretty much gave up on Speer altogether.

Now I mostly shoot Hornady SST, A-MAX and V_MAX for fun and a mix of North Fork SS, Nosler AB and Barnes TTSX for more serious work.

Speer who?

I have read that several times myself. I think even on this forum.

What antelope sniper said. I mine oal 3.340.

Pretty much my sentiments exactly. My testing of factory loads confirmed their performance. I'd probably buy a bunch of those Trophy Bonded Tips if they were available.

I picked up a supply of the 30 cal BTSP from Sportsman's Warehouse today. I have a decent stash now, if they do discontinue them. What horrible market practices ATK has forced on Speer. Really put some serious dents in their reputation since they bought them. Speer used to be one of the biggies for component bullets. Now most guys have gone somewhere else, and Speer is not even allowed to sell their best bullets as components. Government can do a number on business in so many ways. Shape up, Speer!

Only Speer bullets I use 50gr TNT always accurate in every rifle I've tried them in.

Oversize bullets are nothing new with Speer. I don't know how many here are old enough to remember,but their .30 caliber bullets used to be designated as .3085" right in the manual. My thought then was it appealed to the reloaders who had war relics in 06 with worn or oversized bores. I do know that some of the best groups I've ever cut have been with Speer Hot Cores. Still have 500 Mag Tips that will one hole in my 7 mag. My daughter's 270 loves the old 130gr Hot Core. The 25/06 is amazing with the old 100gr "stove pipe" hollow point. I wish them no ill will. I want them to drop back to their roots and bring back the old bullets I've used for the last 40 years. trends be damned,there is still room for good old fashioned bullets at my bench.