Does any one here have any experience with this bullet? I am looking for a varmint bullet for my 22-250 AI. This bullet looks just like the Berger MEF's and I was wondering if it has the same expansion characteristics. I think this bullet will hold together better than the TNT's which are vaporizing down range. Any shared experience would be appreciated.

H380

Well, in my experience, forget it.

Those big old bucket mouth Speer hollow points are interesting and expand like crazy, BUT at long range they are a joke.

My buddy and I tried them in our 22-250 Remingtons and were so very impressed at the accuracy at 100 yards. We took them and shot varmints on some ranches where the shots were reasonable, as in less than 300 yards, great performance.

Then came the "rest of the story". We took them to a fun varmint match where you shoot at simulated steel varmints out to 500 meters with your varmint rifle. These are matches where you use your favorite varmint gun and shoot at really small targets out to 500 meters. The Speer 52 grain hollow points shot about minute of pickup at the longer ranges. Forget it, they are not a long range bullet.

At the same matches I had great success with my 22-250 Ackley Improved using the Sierra 52 grain HP. However, I had more consistant blow up on varmints using the 53 grain Sierra flat base. In fact, my favorite bullet to date with my 22-250 Ackley Improved is the 55 grain Hornady V-Max. My dad has built and shot out several 22-250 Ackley rifles now and his favorite bullet is the 50 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip.

Those Speer's are interesting, but not a good choice for long range shooting with a hot 22 caliber rifle.

P.S. I have great fun with them in my .223 Remington barrel for my TC pistol, they are just not a long range proposition.

R F

RF,

Thanks for the info. In looking at these bullets I can see how your analysis would be right.

I had a 22-250 and really liked the TNT bullets. That gun is currently in the 12th week of a 4-5 week gunsmithing makeover. It will be a 22-250 Ackley Improved IF I EVER GET IT BACK! The anticipation of critter devastation is killing me.

Thanks,

H380

Hey H380, I agree with RF's post about there being "better" bullets for the longer range shots.

On the other hand, it might be difficult to find a better bullet for under 400yds. This is a REAL OLD bullet design which has provided excellent performance for thousands of shooters.

For example, if you only want one small hole in a hide and be able to use an inexpensive, normally very accurate bullet, which uses easier-on-the-barrel Loads than the 35-45gr bullets, then the 52gr Speer "might" be difficult to beat.

R Flowers-
I am a little shocked by your experience with the 52 grain Speer HP, but then again, I've never grouped them beyond 300 yards. True, the BC of the bullet isn't the highest, but the accuracy and terminal performance have been superb -- and I have used them for many years now. Back when coyote pelts were actually worth something here in south central TX, I found the 52 grain Speer to be just the ticket for minimal hide damage. In fact, when loaded to around 3650-3700 in a 22-250, I seldom got exits on coyotes, and when I did, they were generally quite small as the bullet had expended the bulk of its energy within the target.

I've recorded many sub-1.5" 300 yard groups with this bullet, and you mention that it has shown good accuracy at typical ranges for you as well. But a bullet that does well as far away as 300 yards should have no problems at 500 -- or so it would seem. A 100 yard target may not be indicative of long range potential, but 300 yards should.

Could your scope be suffering from parallax problems at the longer ranges?

That light a bullet at 500 is going to float around with any wind at all.
David

In response to Bobby Tomek, I do not understand what happens to those 52 grain Speers at long range either.

While I never put them on paper past 200 yards, I killed varmints with them at close to 300 yards with no problems.

However, at these varmint matches we were shooting at the regular rifle silhouette distances, that is 200, 300, 385, and 500 meters. Even at 385 meters we could not hit much of anything and at 500 meters you might as well forget it.

As to the scopes in use, they were 6.5 X 20 Leupolds that are still giving fine service on those rifles.

As a side note, another friend used to use another Speer product that is very similar. Speer makes a 100 grain hollow point in .257 caliber. My friend used to shoot them in a 25-06. What they would do to a ground squirrel had to be seen to be believed. However, he could not hit much of anything past 300 yards with those bullets, either.

In fact, I used to shoot a few of the 115 grain Speer hollow points in my 7mm Rem Mag. It is of the same type of construction. It would totaly destroy a ground squirrel. However, I just never tried to shoot any much over 250 yards with it.

Just another one of those things you run across when you reload a lot. I would guess those hollow points are just too darned large.

R F

If this is the Speer 52gr HPBT that had the exaggerated hollow point, I'll be damned, I didn't know Speer was still making them. I used to use them in my .222Rem. and .222Rem.Mag. They were pretty accurate from the bench at 100 and 200yds. I never used them beyond that range though. I dropped them because of the Sierra 52gr. HPBT and the Remington 52gr HPBR
that I still had a bunch of. Both were superior to the Speer, but that bullet could certainly splatter a woodchuck. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal