Anyone shooting 270g Speer hot cores? Whats your experiences with them?

I´ve used Speer Hot Cores in my .375 and they tended to explode on game. Good bullet for plinking and load development.

I started with 286 Nosler partitions and never saw any reason to try anything else.

Have used the 270 gr Speer 9,3 bullet in my 9,3x74R. My load is not fast, but matches the regulation of the double rifle very well.

UNFORTUNATELY, the bullet has fragmented on game ... leaving severely curved wound canals that are full of lead chunks.

GREAT practice bullet that is very accurate. Lousy game bullet.

I shot a buffalo (american bison) with the 270 gr Speer in 9.3x62 at about 80 yards distance in 2004. This shot was in the neck, penetrating the first vertabrae and on out the other side. I developed the load in a hurry, since I had just recieved a new rifle and wanted to use it.

Since then, I hve shot at 1-gallon water containers (5 or 6 lined up, with soft wood backer) to recover the bullets. The Speers lost a lot of metal in the nose section. The Nosler Partition sometimes lost all the lead in the nose section, but the remaining shank is pretty long and the copper mushroom is still present. I shot my moose with Nosler Partitions..

I have also found the speers to be pretty soft. I had one fail to penetrate a moose neck, lots of copper and lead fragments in the wound. I stick witht he 286gr partition now, much tougher bullet that never dissapoints on game.

I guess as w/ any bullet, velocity is a factor. Driven at 2100fps (9.3x57), they work great. jp

The SPEER 9.3 270 gr. is the PERFECT bullet for the 9.3x57 at 2000 fps.
It is so accurate in my Husky 146 with irons.
The load I use is from one of P.O. Ackleys manuals. It is the IMR 4064 load for 270 gr. bullets. Just a SUPER load for the 9.3x57 and 270 gr. "hotcores.

Have heard good reports from 2 guys in Whitehorse with the 270 gr Speer in the 9.3 X 62.
One on a big bull moose frontal shot thru, the neck went thru 5 to 6 inches of neck vertabrae.
My buddy shot a big 6' plus black bear thru shoulders with same bullet. Both bullets were around 2300 FPS at muzzle.

The Speer 270 grain has been shooting well out of my 9.3x62, very accurate. I am tempted to use it on Elk but the soft bullet reports bother me.
I won't get the chance this year as I have a Muzzleloader Bull tag.
Mine is shooting right above 2300 ft per second 15' from the muzzle.
Good luck with yours!

Very accurate and grate for most African plains game smaller than Eland. Have shot alot of Kudu (and heaps of Impala) with this bullet. Kudu are fairly thin and very soft animals though Have tried it on buff and got away with it, but would not choose to do it again looking at what was recovered. Wouldn't use it on eland either.

My load is running between 2325 and 2350 fps

Thanks for all the great posts. I picked up 4 boxes of them at Sportsmans wherhouse on inventory reduction at $9.00 a box. I figure they'll work great for local deer, black bear and practice. I'll be in Zimbabwe in april for buff and plains game and I've trying to decide weather to go with the 270 Speer's or a 286 Partition for my plains game load. Ganyana would you use the 270 Speer for Zebra? That will be the largest and toughest of the plains game I'll be shooting. My plains game rifle is a 9.3x62 at 2300-2400. I'll be shooting buff with 320 Woodleigh's in my 9.3x74R double.

I had horrible results with Speer bullets in my 35 Whelen on game. I was impressed with the huge hole they put in a mule deer doe with my 9.3, until I found little bits of jacket and lead scattered about the wounds upon butchering!

I've been happy with the 286gr. Prvi bullets from Graf's for practice but haven't whacked anything with them. 232gr. Norma's work very well on deer sized game for me. But when it comes down to it I will stick with 286gr Nosler Partitions, fantastic penetration and nice big holes in and out with the best accuracy with my rifle at 2450fps.

SWD,

In 2004 I hit a very nice Zebra stallion with a 286 gr Nosler Partition from a 9,3x62 at 2425 fps. Range was about 40 yards. He literally dropped on his knees. Did a make sure shot from the back between his shoulder blades. No bullet recovered. Was told that Zebra can be tough.

Come to think of it, I didn't recover any Noslers from the Impala, Warthog, Blue Wildebeast, or Kudu either. Haven't recovered any from White Tails or Pigs either ... and never required a second shot.

The 286 gr Partition is a GREAT hunting bullet unlike the Speer.

SWD
I have killed a few deer and pigs with the Speer 270 from my 9,3x74R double.

It has worked well. I have only recovered one bylet from a @325lb pig I shot quartering away from me at 19 yards.

However I would not take it to Africa.

I have shjot quite a bit of game in Zim with my 9,3 and I have always used either the 286 Woodleigh soft or the 286gr Nosler Partition, [also the 286 Woodleigh Solid when called for].

The 2 softs have performed perfectly.
Whether on impala, zebra the Noslers did a great job. I shot a cape buff with the 286 Woodleigh soft and it performed perfect. It is my favorite soft in my 9,3 double, the Partition a very close second, but in truth it and the Nosler perform almost identical.

This is based on shooting the same sized game and recovering both bullets.

Is your 9,3 a bolt of a double?

SWD

With so many better bullets available- why bother? Norma Oryx is the most accurate factory ammo in my 9,3 and works superbly on lion. Would use that on anything up to eland with confidence. Shot a buff earlier this year with one. Frontal shot, broke the spine. You have Swifts, Nosler, woodleighs etc... If you are comming all this way, choose the best.

I am limmited by availability and wring the best I can out of what is available ( In Harare, the only factory ammo available is RWS TUG's and only bullets are speer or woodleighs)

Ganyana

Have you used the TUG's? And of so how did they perform?

I'll be using my Merkel 141 9.3x74 double rifle with 320 Woodleigh soft and solids for buff It's already regulated, set up and ready to go.
For plains game I'll be shooting a custom built 9.3x62 on a 96 Sweede. That's the one I need to decide on a bullet for. I stoped by Huntingtons yesterday and picked up some Woodleigh 286 Protected points and will give them a try. They were out of 286 Partitions and so is Midway. Does anyone know who has 286 Partitions in stock?
As far as the 270 Speers go I'll save them for practice and local deer and black bear hunting. They should work fine on those.

450

Have not tried the current stocks of RWS But the folks who have...have not been impressed! See Don Heaths "what goes on here" in African Hunter vol 3 of 2007.

Mouse93 has been playing with the current "4th" generation TUGs and while they are better than the "gerneration 3" in stock at Harrisons, they fall very short or the 1970's vintage stuff I have used on buff.

What do you guts think of other SPEER bullets like the grand slam??

The 270 gr. Speer is just to fragile for me..It comes apart on just about anything..Because of that it sometimes kills quickly, but you can't depend on it to do that....

I like other Speer bullets but Speer only makes one bullet for the 9.3 and thats the .270 gr. unless somethings changed.

I really like the 286 gr. Nosler for about anything.

quote:

Originally posted by Ganyana:
450

Have not tried the current stocks of RWS But the folks who have...have not been impressed! See Don Heaths "what goes on here" in African Hunter vol 3 of 2007.

Mouse93 has been playing with the current "4th" generation TUGs and while they are better than the "gerneration 3" in stock at Harrisons, they fall very short or the 1970's vintage stuff I have used on buff.

I used a "gen III" on a moose last year. There was no exit on a +/- 100 yard shot. I found a piece of the jacket in a steak I was eating. Certainly was a suprise to me!
This year I'm going to use the 286 Nosler Partitions.

I started shooting ghe 9.3x62 about 10 years ago. I have always used Nosler partitions for gaem and practiced with the Speers.The consensus has always been the Speers were too soft for the 9.3x62. They are cheap for practice but I wouldn't want to use them for big game.

quote:

Originally posted by Ganyana:
Mouse93 has been playing with the current "4th" generation TUGs and while they are better than the "gerneration 3" in stock at Harrisons, they fall very short or the 1970's vintage stuff I have used on buff.

Hi guys - JFK - latest TUG report worth mentioning - had to dispatch a wounded red deer calf (impala ram size) with 9,3x74R - "perfect" Texas hart shot at 10m with "gen.3" (V0 2280 fps) - bullet found under the hide at the neck base (~1.3 m penetration) - lost the bullet somewhere but it looked like:



And a note on a factory Oryx by Norma - to those familiar with Woodleighs - in 9,3x74R it is on par with PP - IMO.

A few years ago I shot a whitetail doe with a 293gr TUG from my 9,3 double. The shot was @ 40 yards, the deer facing me. The TUG went all the way through breaking the rear upper leg bone that runs through the rear ham.

The bone was broken "aggressively".
I was also impressed with the damage in the chest of the deer.

I recently acquired a few boxes of RWS 9,3x74R with the UNI Classic 19,0g/293gr, the "new name" for the TUG.

They shoot really good in my D 99 Duo.

I will give them a try on pigs in the near future.

You will hear a lot of bad reports on the tigs ans tugs because like Noslers, the general public has been brain washed with the "perfect mushroom syndrome" These bullets many times blow off the front portion and it scatters frags throughout the body cavity and the rear portion passses through the animal and many times leaves a small exit hole, but one that normally bleeds freely...The truth is they are exceptionally good bullets

Frangible bullets that shatter or disintegrate in-target leaves a mess of lead contamination way beyond the wound track - a mess for the meat hunter. Obviously it is not a perceived mess for the cavemen-type.

Warrior

Sorry to stir from the original SWD's speers.

TUG is just that - uiversal - nore a friend or a foe - both - if you don't know what to expect out in the field here in EU (from 7 kg roe calf up to 300 kg brown bear), just take TUG (UNI) in 9,3x74R/62 and you wont look back, for buff and company there are better bullets around. Old fox Mr. Brenneke knew what he was doing then - bullet basicaly do just what Saed's Walterhogs do at .375 velocities - shed and penetrate...after using it for 15 years, I am still amased how far and straight that small (~60%) remaining rear goes!