Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Speer Hot-Cor ??

I'll bet that I'm thinking of the Van Zwoll article. I remember that he cut some off with a side-cutter.

I don't have the paper anymore, but I seem to recall there were slight deviations beyond 500 yd. I wouldn't swear to that under oath though. Regardless, the appearance of a battered bullet tip upsets some folks. So I would go so far as to say that polymer tips, while not used only to address aesthetics, sure helped in that regard with buyers.

I was a victim of ignorance, didn't know the effect if any.

Hope you find some of the above useful.? Really? What a humble guy. I think you just wrote one of the best lifetime bullet summaries I ever read. And I bet it was great fun looking back through your notes, photos, etc to recall and summarize all of those experiences.
Thank you very much!

Rex

I have really only used HotCors for one purpose but they have excelled for that one.
I have found that the .358 250gr Speer HotCor (at least the old ones in the yellow box) are a perfect surrogate for the Nosler .358 250 Partition in my 35 Whelen AI. I get the exact same (within the noise level) velocity, POI, and accuracy with a given powder load with both bullets. So any time I want to work with a new powder in the 35 Whelen AI (again, in my rifle), I can just do the initial work with the relatively inexpensive HotCors and then switch over to the One Dollar Bullets for final validation. Back when they were about $7.50 for a box of 50 I just threw a box onto every order I ever sent in to my distributors, so I have plenty to cover that task forever.
I have heard many very good reports on the effectiveness of the .358 250 HotCor, and I reckon maybe it was made in the beginning to be a good bullet in the .358 Norma Mag, so maybe that's why it does real well at Whelen (and lower) velocities. But I never shot game with them, rather using the One Dollar Bullets for my precious hunts. But if the SHTF, I have plenty of bullets if I can't get those pricey ones anymore.

Anybody seen similar analog performance between HotCors and Partitions at other calibers/weights?

Cheers,
Rex

Rex, I have used the 250 gr Hot Cor spitzer ever since I got my first 358 Norma Mag, way back in 1969. It is not only accurate, but also very effective on big game when launched at 2800 fps by 67.5 gr of IMR 4895.

That load has shot well in every 358 NM I have owned, and every one I am familiar with. One of my best friends used the same load on his rebarreled '03 Springfield for more than thirty years, and has a jam jar half-full of expanded 358 Hot Cor 250s taken from moose, bears, and our big mountain caribou bulls which are the size of mature elk.

The Partitions are wonderful bullets, and I have used them a lot, but whether they would shoot to the same POI as Partitions in the nine Norma, I do not know, as I never loaded that bullet. Glad to hear that they do.

Ted

Marie Laveau is an example of why I don’t believe in equipment Supremacism. All of us cognoscenti know the Hot-Cor is Black magic though.

One thing I forgot to mention, I have 34 from a Speer .277 Grand Slams left from a box of 50 my son gave me. Are they bonded? Are they too tough for deer? My son gave them to me because he said he had them fail on deer because they passed through without doing any immediately fatal damage to the deer's plumbing and they ran off and he never found the deer. He's normally a pretty good shot and killed his first deer at the age of 9 with my old .270. He's no newby. What do y'all think? Are they too stout for deer size game?

The 130 .277 Grand Slam is a fantastic deer bullet. That was literally the only bullet my dad handloaded when I was a kid. He did recover one that he killed a large cow elk with and it looked like an advertisement.
I had great luck with the 140 GrandSlam in the old Nitrex factory loads for my 260.
Don’t recall using HotCors on game right off hand. I have been using up a bunch of 55gr .224 Speers I was given lately and they seem to work fine on pigs out of my .223, not certain they’re HotCors.

I too used the Grand Slam 165 gr in my .308 Win with the Nitrex factory ammo back in the day. Never had issues with hit critters running off not to be found. Happy Trails

"What do y'all think? Are they too stout for deer size game?"

I don't think so. I ran the 165 gr. 30 caliber Hot Cores at 2550 FPS from a Ruger M77 on big northern Arizona Mule Deer and that all dies very nicely. Shots ranged from about 35 feet to 250 yards and I only recovered on bullet, that one from the 250 yard shot and it traveled almost the full length of the deer. All the deer were one shot kills.
Paul B.

Because the OP asked specifically about Hot-Core bullets I didn't go into my experience with their old Mag-Tips or Grand slams, but because the above posts bring them up, I'll add:

Mag tips in 270 didn't seem to be really bad, but no better then any other cup and core bullet I used, and not as good as some (like the old plain vanilla 130 grain Winchester Power Point or 1970s Remington Core-Lokts in 130 and not near ad good as round Nose Core-Lokts in 150))

In 7MM the Mag Tips were good enough to make me believe they may have been a bit better then some others.

In 30 cal using 165 grain mag tips there were at least as good as most other cup and cores and better then many.

With 30 cal mag Tips my old friend Bob read in the Speer manual their recommendation for the 300 Savage, and he loaded his rounds with 165 grain Mag Tip bullets. I was with him on several hunts when he killed deer and one young cow elk with his M99 and all his bullets did very well. We recovered 4 that I made notes about. 3 from deer and the one elk. All did well and expanded well. The one from his biggest deer came apart in his hand, but was still together when we skinned the deer inside my shop. He shot the deer mid body as it jumped to run from him and I recovered the bullet from the neck under the skin. Weight of the core and jacket were 114 grains. Not bad really considering the deep penetration. The best one was from his elk and I still have that bullet (one of them. he shot 2 times, one exited. ) It went in to the front shoulder missing the bone, and was found along the flank on the other side. It weighs 129 grains.
My only kill with a 30 cal Mag-Tip (150 grain) was not as good, but at the higher velocity of my 30-06 I would not have expected it to be either. 2825 FPS from the Muzzle of my Browning M95 and again on a large mule deer, shot at only about 40 yards. Bullet hit just behind the shoulder (Broad side shot) and should have excited about the same place on the other side but the jacket came off and the bullet veered to the rear and made a mess of the stomach. I found the jacket but the core broke up. I got some 180 grains after that, but I never shot anything with them so I can't say how well they would have done.

In the Grand Slam line I never got one that I'd say was "bad" except one.

In the 120 grain from my 25-06, if I used a scale of 1-10 with 1s being 100 grain Sierra Game-Kings and Burgers and 10s being Nosler Partitions I'd put the Grand Slams at about an 8.

In 270 I used Grand Slams in 130 and 150 grain weights. 100% of them exited all the deer and antelope I ever shot and I never saw any evidence of bad brake-ups in the wound channels. I rate them as 10s or at least 9s. Nothing bad to say at all.

In 30 cal I used 150s and 165s in the Grand Slam line. In 1 case I recovered a 150 grain bullet from a mule deer buck, shot with a 30-06 shot at about 200 yards through the upper shoulder and the bullet came apart AFTER I removed it from the opposite flank. Weight of the core and jacket were at 83 grains according to my old notes. Penetration was about 20 inches. Can't say much bad about that. I used them in 308s 30-06s and two 165s from a 300 Weatherby. The Weatherby did a lot of meat damage, but I got an exit in a straight line dropping 2 deer with 2 shots and neither took a single step. So I can't complain.

I bought some 200 grain G.Ss. 30 cals and loaded them into 300H&H and 300 Win Mag, but never shot a single animal with any of them. A friend in Nevada swears by them (from both 30-06 and 300 Win Mag) and so I bought some, but I just have to trust his statements. Personally I can't say how well they work. They shoot tight groups in my 300s.

No experience with GSs from 338s or 358s.

And my last one to mention is the only Grand Slam I have reservations about. Their 285 Grain 375. I killed a bull moose with 2 of these. I shot the moose and it didn't seem to mind all that much. So I shot again and it walked up out of a mud-hole about 20 feet and then fell down. Both bullets made a sideways 8 on impact and came out about 7" apart on the off-side. One hit a rib on the other side of the chest and made a hole in it about the size of a dime without even breaking it off. Both exits in the hide looked like 38 special wad-cutters has made them. So I believe this is proof that neither bullet expanded at all.

I have killed game with 300 grain Hornady solids with my 375H&H and it kills well but not "electrically". The kill with the Grand Slams was exactly like the ones with the solids. So in my opinion, the 285 GS bullet were likely made for MUCH thicker skinned animals the moose, (Buffalo Elephant and hippos?) and acted just like solids. From a 375H&H solids do still kill well just because they are large enough to make them bleed out, break about any bone they hit and always exit. But the "controlled expansion" of that GS bullet didn't exist.

They are very accurate, and for buffalo, hippo and elephant I suspect they may be just fine.

I think that the 87 grain 0.257" Speer HotCore is the best current production medium game bullet for use in 250-3000 rifles with 1-14" ROT barrels.

I also use 0.358".180 and 220 grain HotCores. The 180 grain bullet is a quick killer in the 35 REM and 356 WIN. I found the 220 grain bullet to be much tougher than the 180 grain bullet, so much so that through and through penetration showed little if any expansion. The whitetail does that I shot with them died, but not as quickly as with other bullets. If I was going to hunt deer with a 0.358" bullet from the 35 REM or 356 WIN it would be the 180 grain Speer. If I was going to hunt black bear, elk, or moose with a 0.358" bullet from the 35 REM or 356 WIN it would be the 220 grain Speer.

Absolutely! I tried some BHN 10 cores which is only twice as hard as lead and couldn't believe how hard I had to lean on the handle.

I use quite a few Speer bullets. The ones I make were inspired by Speer. Of the Speer bullets, my favourites are their 85 and 90 gr 6mm bullets and their 200 gr. 308s. This design is a blending of the Speer and protected point Euro bullets.

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That is Awesome !

Thanks. The critters don't care for them though.

I stopped using them years ago. Frankly, either I am just to stupid or Speer is terrible about product development and marketing because I find their entire lineup confusing.. I think their either need to rebrand, reintroduce, or build something new. Hot core is not bonded. Grand slam is no longer a premium. It was now it’s not. Good thing Hornady and nosler are out there for this guy

My family, and guys in our deer clubs here have killed a freight train car full of white tails with a 7/08 with the NON HOT CORE 130g BTSP, loaded with a hot load of IMR 4895 around 3000 fps...seems to be a magic deer killing load for Rem 700's and A Bolts.

Yes. I have been using Speer 250gr 358s #2453 to work loads for Partitions in both Whelen & Norma Mag. The 200gr 338s #2405 work well in my 338-06 as 210 Partition substitutes too. The newer black boxes of both say Hot-Cor, but the older yellow boxes dont. Same bullet #s though. I have a middlin' newer yellow box of the 358/250s that do say Hot-Cor. What's in a name? PA whitetails didn't like them much at 358 Win. speeds with a case full of W748.