All & especially the Gunwriters:

This is a bit of old history, however, I came across some pretty cheap Federal ammo loaded with this bullet and was attempting to figure out why it was discontinued.

I have been doing some internet research on this, and could not locate anything convincing.

Wasn't clear if it was for technical or business reasons. From a technical perspective, it require different loading data and maybe they had some QC issues, but wasn't clear how this may have contributed to the decision to discontinue.

I suppose my primary concern surrounds the overall performance of the bullet in terms of inherent accuracy and terminal ballistics. Were there any concerns with this bullet from that perspective?

Specifically, the "stuff" I am looking at is the 180 gr bullet loaded in 300 win mag. I would be this on whitetails and nothing larger. I guess a key question would be - do the Deep Curls offer anything over the Hot Core bullet when it comes to Whitetails?

Thanks

BB

My understanding is that somehow the Deep Curl bullets were more subject to creating pressure spikes than the old HotCor's. I'm not sure if it's true or just marketing (maybe the HotCor has a cult like following?) but that's what I recall.

BlackBart,

Here's a post I made not long ago involving this subject, on a thread that started about Speer Hot-Cor bullets, but eventually involved Federal Fusion bullets and Speer Deep Curls, both which are made by Speer using the same process:

"Eventually Federal Fusion ammo became so popular Speer decided to introduce the bullets as handloading components. But the marketing whiz then at Speer decided they needed a different, spiffy name--which was really odd because "Fusion" was already widely recognized among hunters. A lot of people thought the new Speers should be called Fusion bullets to take advantage of that fact, but the marketing whiz insisted, and came up with the Deep Curl name. Deep Curls were also going to cost just about the same as Hot-Cors, and were supposed to replace Hot-Cors. But for quite a while very few Deep Curls or Hot-Cors were available--and when Deep Curls did become more available, they cost significantly more. Apparently so many hunters refused to buy Deep Curls (instead switching to Interlocks or other relatively inexpensive hunting bullets) that Speer decided to drop 'em and start making Hot-Cors again."

I'll add that yes, Deep Curls did result in higher pressures than Hot-Cors, which is why Speer often introduced a Deep Curl of slightly different weight than the "equivalent" Hot-Cor, to avoid the problem of shooters just switching bullets and using the same powder charge. But in other calibers they introduced the same weights, especially traditional weights like 1560 and 165 in .30 caliber, which probably resulted in pressure problems when the same powder charges were used.

In answer to your last question, I personally don't think Deep Curls offered anything over Hot-Cors for hunting whitetails. A good illustration is the 165-grain .30 caliber Hot-Cor I used to kill an average whitetail buck in the 1970's. Muzzle velocity was around 2800 fps and the buck was running away at 100 yards, angling just enough for a bullet to slide into the rear of the left-side ribs. At the shot he stumbled a little ways and fell, and I found the bullet perfectly mushroomed in the right shoulder, retaining 85% (that is not a misprint) of its weight.

I dunno how a Deep Curl could have done any better--but that is also far from the only Hot-Cor I've used on deer. They've ranged in size from the 105-grain 6mm to the 200-grain .338, including some 140 6.5mm's shot from the .264 Winchester Magnum at 3200 fps. All worked just fine.

I haven't stuck any Deep Curls in an animal (yet) but using a middle-of-the-road load supplied by Speer, my Zastava M98 with 1:220mm (1:866") twist will put the 175-grain bullets well within an inch at 100 yards.

Left to right, Speer hotcore, Speer deep curl, Hornady interlock

All 150gr .270

The Deep curl has the heaviest jacket and appears would make a fine Elk bullet?

I was surprised at how thin the Hornady jacket is how small the interlock is.

The Hotcore was just as expected

This topic comes up regularly. I tried them in 6mm, .277", and .284". Very accurate bullet with little load work up. The .277"s I had were closer to .278" and that may be the reason they shot so well and the reason Speer recommended against using conventional data for other bullets of the same weight.

In the 1980's I was in love with Hotcors in .270 & .284 but I no longer use them because the extra rounds in my Model 70 magazine would be deformed from the recoil. They are a great performer on deer.

irfubar,

Core and jacket hardness also affect bullet expansion. I also notice the sectioning isn't evenly done, which results in an unrealistic idea of jacket thickness.

John,
I suspect you are correct. I was simply curious so I sectioned the bullets to compare and see whats inside.

I purchased the Deep curls at a reduced price when they closed them out.
I only have one box and was wondering if they would be practical for elk?

My mainstay is Partitions and will probably stick with them.
I dont find enough elk to experiment with different bullets.

My experience with Fusions and Deep Curls is that while they hold together, they also expand widely, which limits penetration. Haven't done a side-by-side test, but would guess they won't penetrate as much as a Partition.

Among other kinds of media, I use stacks dry newspaper to test bullet performance on "tough" stuff. It seems to simulate hitting substantial bone more than any other media tried, giving a good idea of comparative penetration for various bullets. Shooting a couple of different bullets side-by-side into the same stack gives a fair idea of comparative penetration and expansion.

So is there any reason to deviate from the old Hornady Interlock for "deer" sized game and the TSX/TTSX for the larger, more difficult to wrap critters? This is what I have done and all has been fine.

Ed,
In theory that is fine. When I head out each day hunting I may find elk, but more likely deer.

Besides being a rifle loonie means we are obligated to experiment.

So...Factory Federal Fusion ammunition is the same sectioned deep curl bullet in irfubars photo above?

No, they changed the Deep Curls a little, but they were made by exactly the same process as the Fusions, and worked very similarly.

Ed,

Missed your post earlier. Hard to beat that pair of big game bullets!

While I agree that cup and cores are adequate for whitetails, I like what a Fusion/DeepCurl does. Here is a .308" 180 DeepCurl at 2700 fps that I caught:





I have a fairly accurate cross section of one as well but no pic at the moment.

I would like to see Speer offer this bullet as a component again.

I doubt they're going to. Based on what I know the sticking point was price. They'd hoped to be able to sell them at a price level competitive with not only Hot-Cors but Interlocks and Sierra's GameKings and ProHunters. But the eventual real-world retail price was significantly higher, so most hunters bought other brands.

I'm betting they could do it if they brought it back as a "premium" bullet. Those are impressive photos rovert posted.

RM

Yeah, I'm not expecting a return, but would like to see them available again. The few boxes I saw on the shelves were priced very closely to cup and cores but I never really saw any availability locally, just a box here and there. Maybe they weren't making the profit they wanted with the boxes I saw. With Fusion ammo being priced so closely to blue box, though, I would have thought they could offer the bullets near the targeted price point. I know nothing of the pricing structure of factory ammo vs components, though.

Anyway, I thought they had a winner. I have to wonder if the pressure issues weren't a significant factor. I haven't experienced any problems but have only worked with the 180's in a couple of rifles, one of which is loaded quite light.

Maybe, but that bullet was shot from a .308 at 2700 fps. When pushed harder Deep Curls don't hold up as well, because the core is relatively soft and the jacket relatively thin.

Contrary to what many hunters believe, thin-jacketed bonded bullets can come apart when pushed fast, or even when they hit heavy bone. The performance of a bonded bullet also depends on jacket design, not just the core sticking to the jacket. I know this because I've seen it happen with more than one brand of relatively thin-jacketed bonded bullet.

Speer also hasn't shown any particular ability to make or market premium bullets in recent years. They did pretty well with the Grand Slam for a long time, but then eliminated the dual-core construction maybe 8-10 years ago, essentially turning them into heavy-jacketed Hot Cors. I shot five of the new Grand Slams, 200's from a .300 Winchester Magnum, into dry newspaper to see how they held up. Three did fine, but the other two lost their cores and only penetrated half as deeply.

There are plenty of well-established "premium" bullets on the market these days. It's going to take more than a thin-jacketed bonded bullet or a thicker-jacketed cup-and-core to take much market share from Barnes TSX's, Cutting Edge Raptors, Hornady Interbonds and GMX's, Swift A-Frames and Scirocco II's, and Nosler's line-up of everything from Partitions to E-Tips.

I agree. I don't put the DeepCurl in the same category as something like an Accubond. The DeepCurl is like a middle ground between a cup and core and a bonded or partitioned bullet. An Accubond will retain as much weight when driven 400+ fps faster. I see the DeepCurl as a really good deer bullet but I don't think it can or should try to compete in the premium market.

Here's the cross section:



FWIW, I'm loading the DeepCurls light (~2830 fps) and Accubonds 200 fps faster from my 300 win mag.

I bought some 30 cal. 180 gr. Deep Curls because I thought the name and box was cool. Sometimes I think bullets are like fishing lures to me. But I digress. Bet they would work great in my '06 on whitetails. Love the picture of the recovered 308 shot bullet, very nice.

Apologies for the delay - been out of town.

Great discussion, thanks for all the insight, pics and experience shared. Especially Mule Deer, very much appreciate your taking the time to share your knowledge!

I will give these Deep Curls a whirl, and see how they shoot. If they are accurate enough, they should be good enough deer medicine.

Like others, I have settled on the TTSX as my large animal bullet but have been playing around with selecting a Deer bullet. I was kinda leaning towards the Accubond, but as a fellow Looney, just have to experiment I suppose.

I hope to do some shooting today and will report back.

Bob

Bob: I have found the Deep Curls to be very easy to find a good load for. I have use a lot of 120/257cal in 25/06, 257R, and 257AI. Very accurate. Terminal performance looks excellent on deer based on the tissue damage, but have never caught a bullet to see what they look like. Based on that experience, I bought a bunch on 165/30's and 150//270s., when MidwayUSA had them on sale. They have also proven accurate in a 300Sav, 30/06, and 270WSM. No deer yet, but the hogs sure don't like em.

I think they are a great bullet. Too bad Speer can't seem to figure out what the bleep they are doing.

Look forward to hearing your results.

I've been getting a bunch of them from Rocky Mountain Reloading. They are priced right and seem to be as accurate as any other Bullet I've used.

As to the original question, isn't the driving force behind all products providing what the consumer wants? (Belief of that ranks right up there with supply and demand determining price and the Easter Bunny.)

Did consumers ask for a new non melting tip on Hornady bullets?

I used 150 grain Grand Slams on hogs from a308 win often.

Wish they still made those

I have some Deep Curl's (or Fusions?) that I was given -- 200 gr 338's.

From the sounds of it, I won't be pushing them to full velocity out of a 338 Win Mag. Probably ok in a 338 Federal.

I still have a few boxes of deep shock bullets. They were a different bullet and short lived but an interesting design. Does anybody know much about them?

Bb

The Deep Shok were a standard c+c design, but with a sophisticated heavy jacket that constricted tightly in the middle to hold the core in.

They work very well in a 90 grain 6mm form.

Exactly--but Speer also hoped to sell Deep Shoks for about the same price as Hot Cors. Didn't work out then either.

Shot several animals with Deep Shoks when they appeared, and they worked great, both up close and what was considered long range in those days. Have an expanded 180 from a .30-06 factory load that I killed a big bull caribou with at over 400 yards. It expanded into what most hunters would consider a perfect mushroom and retained over 92% of its weight. Saw similar performance from other DS's, but they couldn't make 'em at a price most handloaders would pay.

I also have a stash of 90gr 243 Deep Shocks. Great bullets.

Another example of Speer's excellent engineering, and apparently grossly incompetent marketing and management.

another example of a large majority of american companies,
executives with the diploma on the wall that know little or
nothing of the company they work for. i've seen a bunch of it.

Speer also redesigned the Grand Slam, from what I understand effectively making it a Hot Cor with a revised jacket to mechanically lock the core in place. I haven't used any Grand Slams, old or new, so can't comment on whether or not it was a change for the better. Thoughts?

I don't think Speer revised the jacket on the new Hot-Cors. Or at least it didn't look like to to me when I sectioned some.

The Grand Slam jackets always had a ring similar to the Hornady Interlock ring around the harder rear core to hold it in place. Instead they just quit using the twin cores, so essentially the present Grand Slams are Interlocks with single-alloy, softer cores.

At twice the price...

Well I'm totally disillusioned!!!

That's odd to me because loaded Fusion ammo is priced very slightly higher than standard cup and core ammo.

That's because the bullet is a relatively smaller part of loaded ammo, and producing hundreds of thousands of bullets, in a relatively limited caliber/weight array for common factory ammo, also lowered per-bullet costs.

Also, handloaders shoot a lot more than hunters who buy factory ammo, and most deer-hunting handloaders aren't willing to pay even a few bucks more for 100 bullets when there are cup-and-cores right next to 'em on the shelf that cost less.

It may seem odd to Campfire members, but a lot of handloaders still buy whatever 150-grain spitzer is cheapest. And they kill plenty of deer.

And when one considers that deer are the most hunted species of big game in North America, that makes sense.

John , understand and agree handloaders buying more product and being maybe fickle .

But it seems to me Speer reversed that same logic with the fine bear claw bullets that I can now only find loaded by federal ?

I'm not following your logic, for a couple of reasons.

The Trophy Bonded Bear Claws were originally made by Jack Carter, and eventually Federal started loading them in factory ammo. A few years later Federal started making them, and as far as I know the present, tipped version is still made by Federal, not Speer.

Plus, the Trophy Bondeds have always been known as deep-penetrating, premium bullets for game larger than deer, which is why they're priced higher.

I liked them..shrug

I guess that may be my confusion , the .358 , 225 grain that I had used on moose were packaged by Speer . The supply I had was 10 years old or older and when looking to replace could only purchase through federal as loaded . I was told federal had told Speer to only sell as loaded ammo.

Thus my comparison .

I had always considered them to be the next level of quality in the Speer line over hot core and grand slam.

There was a lot of confusion when Federal and Speer were thrown together in the 1990's. But back then I toured the Federal factory, the Federal guys showed me some of the new Trophy Bonded bullets they said they were making, and later shipped me some Federal ammo loaded with them for testing.

Probably it was easier for Speer to distribute bullets for handloading, since Federal didn't offer any component bullets (even though they sold brass and primers, which I saw being made. Or maybe Speer actually made them--and makes the present "tipped" version of the Trophy Bonded. Though I doubt it, since Speer has never offered any plastic-tipped bullets under their brand name, despite every other major American bullet-making company offering plastic-tips--these days even Sierra.

I still have enough 160- and 175-grain Deep Curls to last me the rest of my life. But I think I'm going to go the Finn Aagaard route and just load a bunch of 154-grain Interlocks at about 2600 fps or so and be done with it. Boring, I know, but they work for anything I'm going to shoot...at least any time soon.

I have some 154 grain RN Interlocks loaded in my 7x64 at that speed and they shoot great. Look right too!

Once again resurrecting a necro-thread.

If the Fusion is a redesigned Deep Curl, i.e., a Deep Curl with a boat-tail, do they (Fusions) still suffer from the squirrelly pressure issues of the Deep Curls?

I don't think it matters which bullet we use if we make a good shot.

Except for the 46gr .224 FP, I've given up on everything Speer. I just can't seem to find what I want to try, either locally or online. I had an alert set with Midway for some .44 bullets. The notification came in the middle of the night, and by 9:00 when I checked my email, they were all gone. There are too many other good bullets available that are easy to acquire to make a careeer out of trying to get Speers.

True. I've just seen some pulled Fusions for sale and was wondering if they have the same erratic pressure issues as the Deep Curls.

I've got 200 Accubond blems coming today from SPS that I got for .$34 each, delivered, using a coupon code. Ought to just about complete my cal .30 stash. Noslers, Sierras, and Hornadys are available everywhere. Not sure what Speer's business strategy is, but the niche they seem to be trying to fill, number one maker of Unobtainium, seems like a dead end to me.

Business strategy?? You think they've ever encountered that term? 😂

Word on the street is "yes"!

That was my gut feeling. Thanks.

It's sort of a sad commentary on American businesses . Here you had a company with a pretty strong share of the reloading component market and evidently they haveenough govt contracts or demand from finished ammo that they have just let their component business erode as evidenced by some of the posts here stating they have grown tired of hunting for bullets to buy. I hate to say it but I don't care how busy you are the tine to expand and make capital investment in capacity is when the market was booming. Their cash flow should have been at its peak and their wear on their tooling would have been heavy during the shortage demand so even if their demand does level out they come out with newer tooling that's paid for and they can retire or mothball their older tooling for the next rush.sou do like there is definitely some poor business p,anning going on.

I used the Speer Grand Slam in their factory loads once upon a time. Very deadly in .308 Win on deer and elk. I loved the old TBBC loads and still have some .35 Whelen ammo. Shot some near ragged hole groups with them today until I got the coffee shakes. No opinion on the Speer Deep Curl.

Well.... @#$%&!! I've been trying to get several boxes of Fusion 375 H&H for a long time. Everybody is out. Seems like I ain't missing much. I'm going on a Australian buff cull hunt and wanted to try 4 or 5 buff out with them. Gonna do 4-5 with each other bullets like A-Frame, Accubond, etc... About 25 buff total for 2 weeks.

Just get the 270 grain TSX and mow em down.

I am resurrecting this old thread because I finally caught a 175-grain Deep Curl. I've been using them on feral pigs for several years now, and I have yet to find a bullet that performs any better. The test medium for this bullet was a feral pig 75-80 yards away (sorry about the poor cellphone picture and granite counter top), shot with my 7x57 at a muzzle velocity of about 2300 fps - a "nostalgia load" for sure.

From the top:


From the bottom (note concave base):


From the side:


Another side shot:


Expanded diameter: .565" or 1.98 times.
Expanded length: .649 or 48% of original length (1.345").
Retained weight: 161.0 grains or 92% of original weight (175-gr).

As has been noted, the Deep Curl was discontinued as a reloading component, and replaced by the Federal Fusion as a factory loading only. I am happy that I bought a boatload of both 175- and 160-grain bullets when they started to disappear from dealer shelves. It has proven to be one heck of a bullet in my limited experience on all shapes and sizes of pigs.

Seems like most shops have given up on Speer bullets. Seldom see them in any consistency, certainly not a full line. Pity, I used them almost exclusively in my 2506 for over 20 years. First the 120 BT, then the 120 Grand Slam.

Now I use almost exclusively Barnes.

I used the 120 Grand Slams in my 25-06’s for years also. They were accurate, killed the hell out of deer and damn pigs. I wish I could still get them.

My first favorite 30 caliber bullet was the 150 grain Hotcor Spitzer. I used it a lot on Wyoming Mule deer and Antelope. I also took two elk with it. I liked this bullet, it did a lot of destruction and exited on broadside hits on the biggest mule deer but was a bit overly destructive on Antelope and though the bullet was 2 shots for 2 elk neither exited on broadside behind the shoulder hits. My plan this year is to shoot a deer and a couple of hogs with 170 gr. Fusions out of my Marlin 30-30. I bet they will work just fine.