Speer Bullets thread

35WhelenAI said:
Absolutely, a good old cup and core bullet of traditional design is an absolute killer. Given the tendency to go for frangible bullets these days, I think you've chosen a good in between.
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For what it is worth: I ran into an issue of inconsistency in the shape of the last box of .308 150 grain Speer hot core bullets I purchased. I don’t consider myself to be an advanced hand-loader, but I am fairly methodical. Among other steps, I measure the BTO on every round I produce.

With the last lot of bullets, I found my BTOs were all over the place. I could not figure out why. Eventually, I started examining individual bullets and, if you look closely, you can see they are not identical. I pulled all the bullets and put them back on the shelf. I switched to Bergers for my 30-06.

1756760643861.jpeg
 
I used 150/165 BTSP in my 308. Killed a lot of deer with them before swapping over to Sierra. They shoot good and work reliably. They were not quite as consistent as Sierra for bullet weight and that's why I switched. None of the deer I shot knew the difference. You do have to be careful not to push them too fast because they're not a hard bullet. At 2600 impact velocity they're fine.
 
I did some crop damage for a friend over maybe a 10 year span. Took quite a few with a 300 WM and cheap 180 Speer Hot Cores, which grouped very tight out to the 650 or so that I commonly shot them to. I figure total around 50 deer and an elk with that bullet. Also used the flat meplat 220grn .358's in a 35 rem and a 358 win. No problems and vast majority of animals were DRT. Had a few short tracking jobs with good blood trails.

Friend of mine has loaded the 225's in a 338 for 20+ years. A lot of moose and elk have fallen to that bullet for him.

For past 10 years or so have been loading higher BC bullets when available, but would have zero trouble loading and hunting with Speers again.
 
UPThunderbolt said:
For what it is worth: I ran into an issue of inconsistency in the shape of the last box of .308 150 grain Speer hot core bullets I purchased. I don’t consider myself to be an advanced hand-loader, but I am fairly methodical. Among other steps, I measure the BTO on every round I produce.

With the last lot of bullets, I found my BTOs were all over the place. I could not figure out why. Eventually, I started examining individual bullets and, if you look closely, you can see they are not identical. I pulled all the bullets and put them back on the shelf. I switched to Bergers for my 30-06.

View attachment 929609
Click to expand...
We are at the tail end of the Michigan Whitetail season and I’ve been driven in from camp by a substantial snowstorm. I’m bouncing off the walls sitting in the house rather than being out hunting. With that in mind, I decided to revisit this threat. I got out my comparator and began taking measurements from the base of the bullets to the Ogive. The results are listed below. I’m not sure how I came up with an extra 15 bullets?? I may have mixed in a few from a previous lot?? That may explain the 15 bullets that are substantially different from the others.

0.444-0.445 inches: 13 bullets
0.446-0.448 inches: 52 bullets
0.449-0.450 inches: 29 bullets
0.452. Inches: 5 bullets
0.482-0.483 inches: 10 bullets
0.485-0.486 inches: 5 bullets


I hope this information is helpful to some of you.
 
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