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

I share your frustration with Speer. And in addition to the examples you mentioned, there were the Deep Shock line of bullets, and the Deep Curls. Both were introduced with great fanfare and the summarily dropped. Makes one wonder if management has a clue what they are doing!

One the positive side, I have had decades of great performance from the 145 Hot Cores in a 280, and 120 Hot Cores in a 257AI.

I never understood why Speer dropped the 120gr .257 & .264 Hot-Cor among others. They were proven bullets in the field. I know they were supposedly dropped for the deep curl but then they dropped that one to. They still make the 257 BTSP and it's a good deer bullet but it's no Hot-Cor. I have always had excellent on game performance with the Hot-Cor bullets.

I know it has alot to do with supply and demand and there's lots of bullet choices out there on the market these days to choose from that are stella performers but, there's also lots of really good bullets that have been discontinued. What a shame.

I ran across some Speer 140gr .264 Hot Cores the other day and brought a box home with me.
I want to run them in my Kimber 6.5 CM and see how they do.
I used the Speer Hot Core in the past in my .270 and a .284 with great success.
Potential victims will be paper, steel, deer and elk....400 yards max.

I have used the 250 gr. Hotcor in a 35 Whelen and a 358 to good effect, have yet to catch one. I used a couple of 200 gr. .308 Hotcors out of a 300 Win Mag pushed near 3000 fps on an African Waterbuck and it performed perfectly and I did recover one of them. Looked just like their advertisement. I have used many 150 gr. Hotcors out of both the 30-06 and 270 rifles with perfect satisfaction on both deer and Elk. The .308 version was a bit softer and more destructive than the .277 version so after recovering a couple of them from dead Elk I stepped up to 180 gr. Hotcors and Partitions for my 30-06 Elk hunting. A favorite bullet in my 7x57 was for years the 160 gr, Hotcor, a great bullet. However I put almost every bullet shot at game in the ribs with few exceptions, being a meat hunter that made a lot of sense and did not really stress the bullets much. Still I got mostly quick kills and no recovery issues.

I used the 120 grain 257 in a Roberts for several years. I only used two bullets in that rifle, the Speer 120 and the Hornady 75 grain HP. Both great bullets and sadly both discontinued. I shot several deer with those 120 grain Hot Cores and never found them lacking.

B I N G O.

I have avoided this thread since the OP. I began today on P 1 just to see what hunters have experienced.

I was NOT going to post my results. Nate, you hit the nail on the head on those 2 points.
I have only used S HCs in 2 cartridges. 270 W some years back and I was not satisfied.

I used them in EDIT (Wally World) FED Blue Box 300 WM, 180 gr. I have the boxes which say, "Speer Hot Cor".

NOW Wait.... my closest shot using those bullets was 180 yds. A couple +/-200 yds. then 1 at 386 yds. SO it wasn't because of HI vel. They clocked 3000 fps but at 200---400 yds they've slowed down.

I MUST be cursed with them OR got ahold of 2 bad Lots, which is possible.
I did get SMALL exit holes from 'parts' of the bullets but NOT a whole bullet.

I only have pix of 2 bucks showing the exit side and 'LITTLE' exit damage.

I'll chalk it up to BAD lots and leave it at that....but not buying any more.



2008, 180 yds


2009, 386 yds --Look Close on R side, tight behind shoulder......very little evidence. Took 2nd shot to finish while he was laying on ground.


Jerry

Try 41.0gr of RL 16 with those 140's. They shoot as good as any bullet I have tried and cost half as much.