Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Speer Bullet Experience.

I ran the 165 gr. Hot Cores in a .308 for deer. Worked just fine. Only recovered one bullet and it retained about 65% of the original weight. Accuracy was decent as well.
Paul B.

I use the Speer 170 FN for my 307 Winchester and they are poison on whitetail.

I haven't tried the new tipped bullet in question but hope to some day. But I have enjoyed stellar results from the Gold Dot Bonded line.

The bullet below is a 6.5mm 120 grain Gold Dot Bonded. It was taken from the hog pictured directly below it. MV from the 22" 6.5x.225 Improved Van Horn Spl. Contender barrel was 2615 fps. The range was 142 yards. Performance was as close to perfect as it could be.

The recovered bullet weighs 112.5 grains, although there was still a bit of blood and tissue on it (as you can see in the photo). At its widest juncture, it measured right at 0.6”. The shot landed just where I had hoped, penetrating the left-frontal portion of the chest, separating the heart from its plumbing, heavily damaging the lungs, nicking the liver and then skidding along and breaking three ribs on the right side before coming to rest. The path of destruction was wide, and the chest was filled with blood.







The bullet below -- a .30 caliber Gold Dot Bonded-Blackout version -- was taken from another large boar, and again, performance was textbook. MV from the 24" Van Horn Contender 30-30 barrel was 2469 fps. Range: 170 yards.

The 150 grain Speer Gold Dot Bonded Blackout bullet took the bruiser through the chest, penetrating 2 layers of 1.25" cartilage shield and heavily damaging the lungs in the process. The impact was through the scapula and a rib, exiting through a rib on the opposite side and stopping just under the hide on the far side. At the shot, the hog staggered, whirled and made 38-40 yards before tipping over. Retained weight: 140.5 grains.

Below are the bullet and hog:










Here's another 6.5/120 Speer Gold Dot Bonded victim.






The range was app. 190 yards.MV on htis load was 2615 fps. The bullet centered the coyote low on the chest and ranged all the way back to and through the hip. It was found just under the hide on the back side of the hip.

The heart was absolutely obliterated.



The bullet wound up just beyond the hip and under the hide, but not before it did some serious damage there as well, including chewing up the bone. In picking up the coyote, we knew where the bullet had been because the back leg swiveled freely. Though it still had some "coyote" on it, the recovered bullet weighed an amazing 117.3 grains.

Great pictures Bobby. Very nice photos of the game and recovered Bullets.

Speer bullets are a bargain. I have not used all of them but have had good performance from the ones I have used. I like the original grand slams better with the dual core. The various plaited bullets are a good value and perform well. Speer always made hunting bullets as opposed to target bullets and for that they are good.

The Barnes turds are guilty of the same, every bullet or version of the "X" is all ways the greatest then after you pay big bucks for them start trying to get a good load they discontinue it for the latest greatest version. I quit playing that game and just shoot Hornady rejects and Nosler blems with perfect results. MB

I’ve only ever hunted the old BTSP line, as they were accurate, cheap, and expanded well at moderate speeds. Not much different from a Gameking in performance.

"It would be nice if they would figure out what they want to make and stick with it."

That's my problem with Speer.
I think highly of their older version of the GS's, especially the 145 7mm's, but once my current supply runs out, I'll be looking for something else.

Agree 100%. I've always had great results using Speer bullets in both accuracy and on game performance. The 120gr Hot-Cor .257 is my favorite bullet in the 25.06 and I've used it for years and when I found out they were going to stop making it I bought about 600rds so i'm good on those. I worked up a great load with the 120gr Deep Curl when they first came out but Speer stopped making those so I went back to the Hot-Cor. I used the 120gr Hot-Cor .264 in my daughters .260 but they have also been discontinued and had I known they were going to stop producing those I would have bought a bunch of those as well. I've been thinking about trying the 120gr Gold Dot's in her .260 but haven't as of yet. The reviews I've seen on the Gold Dots verses deer and hogs have been very positive thus far as well as the accuracy. Time will tell if Speer decides to keep them or not.

The Speer 52gr HP Varmint bullet has been my goto for a long time coyote hunting. I shoot it out of my 222 Rem, 223 Rem, 5.6x50R Mag and 22-250 and it works well out of all of them, I usually buy them by the 1000. I use the 87gr Hot core out of my 250-3000 and the 90gr TnT out of my 6.5x58R Sauer and 6.5 Grendle. I just purchased a bunch of 45gr Speer SP's for fox, cat and jackrabbit shooting out of the 222 Rem at Hornet velocities and it is just 1 1/2" lower than my coyote load so I can switch back and forth with out resighting, it is very accurate also.

I hunted deer and elk in the 80’s and 90’s with Speer Nitrex ammo loaded with 165 gr Grand Slams with good performance on game and good accuracy in my .308 Win. Incidentally, I loaded a bunch of 160 gr Mag Tips for my son’s 7mm Rem Mag for practice loads to duplicate the TBBC Federal loads. He got the ammo mixed up and killed the biggest bull that any of us have taken with those Mag Tip reloads. Sadly, Speer quit making those too. I have some Grand Slams that I’m going to try in my 7x57 soon.

I have used various Speer bullets since the early 1970s. Started using Hot-Cors back then in both the .243 Winchester and 30-06, and they worked fine. Still have a 165 from a .30-06 that killed a quartering-away buck at around 100 yards. It retained 85% of its weight.

However, Hot-Cors are not bonded bullets, as some believe. You can prove this easily by putting one in a vise, nose-up, then hacksawing down through the soft-point. The jacket can then be peeled easily from the core. Once shot a buck at around 250 yards with the 105 Hot-Cor from the .243, and the jacket came off at the entrance hole--though the core kept going and killed the deer.

Tried the first Grand Slams in the late 1970s, and they came apart on game. Bob Hagel found the same thing in media tests, reporting it in his book GAME LOADS AND PRACTICAL BALLISTICS FOR THE AMERICAN HUNTER. Speer toughened them up and the work great for a number of years, but then simplified the design maybe 10 years ago, eliminating the harder rear core. Essentially they became Mag-Tips with slightly thicker jackets. I tested some in media (having learned my lesson with the early version) before hunting with them, and 2 out of 5 bullets came apart.

The TNT varmint bullets have shot and expanded well, but the BC's are pretty mediocre due to the big hollow-point. They've needed to introduce a line of plastic-tipped, higher-BC varmint bullets for quite a while, since all their major competitors did so years ago.

Their intention when introducing the Deep Curl line 11 years ago was to replace the Hot-Cor lines completely with Deep Curls, since they believed (as they did with the Deep Shok) they could make Deep Curls as cheaply as Hot-Cors. They planned to phase in Deep Curls and phase out Hot-Cors, but did not make Deep Curls in all the same bullet weights as the Hot-Cors hunters were familiar with, so handloaders had to work up new loads. They also eventually discovered they could not make and sell Deep Curls as cheaply as Hot-Cors, so eventually dropped them and started selling Hot-Cors again.

Another problem may have been the name. The Deep Curls were essentially Fusion bullets, which Speer made for Federal factory ammo--which were already getting a good reputation among hunters, so would have been a natural seller among handloaders. But the Speer publicity guy at the time decided they needed a different name, and decided on Deep Curls. (I know this because Speer/CCI invited several gun writers on a publicity tour in Lewiston at that time, and several Speer employees asked us to please get the publicity guy to change his mind. We tried, but he refused.)

Speer marketing can be puzzling. While the Gold Dot rifle bullets obviously work well for hunting, the Speer site lists the usage for all as "personal protection."

And the Fusion bullets are now available for handloaders at some decent prices. I shoot the 140's in a 7mm-08 Remington 788 carbine that likes a longer OAL and has the magazine length to allow it. The Fusions always seem to be great deer/hog bullets for the money, and not overly hard to get to shoot well. Glad to see them be an option as a component bullet.

Yep--and apparently that happened because Deep Curls didn't make it in the marketplace!

MD: do you have any intel on whether the Gold Dots are selling well enough to stay on the market? Thanks

Nope.

ok thanks

I've used Speer 150gr spitzer Hot-Cors and 180gr round nose Hot-Cors on many many Wisconsin whitetails at a variety of ranges. All worked very well and were accurate out of my 30/06 Remington 700 BDL. And for most hunting ranges, those 180gr round nose bullets are tough to beat.