Maybe I've just had good luck with the SGKs. But, I've never had one come apart on deer. As a whole, they are the most accurate bullet I've reloaded. Now I've always used the heavier for caliber GameKings. 150s in my 270s, 160s in 7mm and 180s in 30-06.

I've been a huge fan of MatchKings for a long time. Like somebody already said.......If they aren't accurate for you, something else is wrong.

Then, one day, I put a 250 gr. .375" SGK through about 6 feet of black bear. I was amazed/impressed and the bear had no idea that it wasn't a bonded core or mono-metal bullet that went in his hip and almost came out his throat.

That little episode has and will continue to save me a great deal of $$ on hunting bullets.

Several years ago, High Master Long Range match shooter told me that unless the caliber for match shooting did not start with a 3 and the brand of bullet did not start with an S, you are wasting your time and money. Don't know about the 3 part, but would have to agree with the S part. More often than not, Siera will be in the winners circle.

Just a fun experience to point out how Sierras work to me.

I have used 110 grain prohunters for fox and had some homegrown loading data, so I loaded twenty 270 win with the 115 SMK over 55 grain of my lot of Norma N-19 and went to the range. The gun is a Tikka M65 with a shot out barrel and an old Zeiss, but she still puts them on the spot if the barrel is cold. I shot one sighter at a half inch target paster and hit just outside, low and right.
One click left and one up, one shot at the cap and a center hit. Feels good.

As I probably have said before: Any decent load of Norma powder(and most others) with Sierra bullets in a good gun will do amazing things.

quote:

Originally posted by seafire/B17G:
What they have works...

actually it bothers me that the markets keep catering to everyone who thinks they need the latest and greatest each hunting season, when a lot of bullets that have worked just fine for decades are being canned, and replaced with bullets that cost twice as much and don't do anything better than the previous stuff...

dead is dead...and old stuff works just fine...

Right you are. Ive been wanting to shoot some RN's to test for accuracy for a couple rifles and cant even find the damn things anymore.

Used to be if you needed more bullet you just went up a few grains.

I went to the escondito Safari Park with my kids this spring and was disgusted to see their display by the California condor exibit that was demonizing the evil leaded core bullets.

And as I applied for a deer tag this year I was asked if I would consider using non leaded bullets. If there were an option for "HELL no" I would have taken it.

I won't use them. Period. Cut and pasted from another thread I posted in a couple years ago about Sierra Pro Hunters:

I think I have said this before on this website, but here goes again...
I hunted with Sierras yaars back, and loaded them for my father as well, in an 1891 7.65 Argentine Mauser. Dad always shot "engine room", but he lost a small hill country buck one December at a distance of about 60 yards. Knocked the animal down and the buck managed to get his feet up under him. He went off thru the brush, plowing with his back legs, front end broken down, and we never found him... No exit, and no blood.
The following year Dad handed me the jacket from another 150-grain Sierra that he found in the front shoulder of a doe he took. That jacket was on the entrance side. Two cup and core separations was enough. I started loading Speers...
I told a friend of mine about the two instances. He went to the SHOT show in Vegas a few years later and talked to Sierra. He was told that Sierra bullets have thin jackets and are not designed to be pushed at >3000 fps.
The words "thin jacket" mean everything... IF the jacket is not thick enough to withstand the work hardening that takes place once it starts peeling back, it is going to separate, and with the cores not being bonded to the jacket, failure is imminent.
One other thing: do a search for a Handloader article on bullet failures, written about three years back. It shows Sierra as being the bullet that came apart the most often...

JMHO, guys.

In the world of re-loading there are basically two mind sets, those who work up a load for the absolute best accuracy (and couldn't care less about velocity) and those who work up a load for the highest velocity while maintaining good acceptable accuracy. I fall into the latter group.

The re-loaders who, like myself, want the highest veloctiy from a particular rifle tend to have the most problems with Sierra bullets coming apart. At least that has been my experience. In my case I have had 3 instances of Sierra bullets seperating. Not jacket seperation but the lead itself coming apart into multiple projectiles. In one instance the bullet came apart in flight before it arrived at the deer. It was a very dead deer though as were the other two. All three instance were with a 140 gr. .277 bullet leaving the muzzle at well over 3000 fps.

Like others have said, if you don't push them too fast they will usually behave themselves not to mention they are probably the most accurate production bullet on the market.

As I've posted elsewhere, what is blamed as "bullet failure" is often bullet selection failure.
When you take a bullet that is designed to do it's best work at 2500-2900fps and drive it at some sort of boyhowdylookwhatIcando velocity, it's asking for failure. To blame that failure on the bullet is kinda silly. Or, at least, ill informed.

Yeah, that .311" Pro Hunter 150 was just screaming out of that 22" barreled 7.65 Mauser when it came apart... mv was right at 2650. i know, because I loaded them, and I clocked them. One thing it was NOT is selection failure, other than selecting Sierra, period.

The 250 Game King I posted about above left at 3060 fps and landed 50 yards later.......so not going a whole lot slower. Maybe I just got lucky. But it seemingly held together quite well.

quote:

Originally posted by Strut10:
The 250 Game King I posted about above left at 3060 fps and landed 50 yards later.......so not going a whole lot slower. Maybe I just got lucky. But it seemingly held together quite well.

The 338 and 375 Game Kings are tough. Sierra makes them for bigger animals. I was going to use the 215 GK in my 338 Federal but after testing I thought it was too tough. Shoot it about 2500 fps in some water jugs with zero expansion. Here is a pic. You can see how thick the jacket is at the tip.

Not all Game Kings are created equally.

This is a bit out of left field but I had considered trying it once before i realized I don't need bonded bullets. Disclaimer, trying this would be totally at your own risk. It is an UNTESTED IDEA. Anyway, you could possibly bond your own bullets. The main way that bullets are bonded is that they are "soldered" to the jacket. That means that the core must be melted at some point after the core and jacket are put togather. The melting point of lead is 621 degrees F while copper is something close to 2000 degrees F so, you could take those Sierra bullets and stand them up on their base possibly in a steel or aluminum block to hold them upright and put the bullets in a 650 degree oven to melt the lead. If you don't have access to an oven that will set itself to 650 degrees, you could use a household oven and set it on "clean" which is 900 degrees. I would suggest trying a few at first and taking lots of measurements to make sure the copper jacket didn't deform at all but providing that it didn't you would have a "bonded" Sierra bullet. Something could possibly be done with a torch as well but that is quite uncontrollable.

I like Sierra bullets and quit Speers except for varmits because of what I found post mortem in deer.

I tested many of what I was using and found that the HP versions mushroomed like the SPT but held more weight at recovery.

Now years later I realize that the Speers that I passed judgement on may have been a bad batch, but I still don't use them.

I Use several bullets in different calibers and get game taking performance from them. Why would I bother with a bonded core that doesn't kill anything more deader?

I don't like monometal bullets much and have some left over that I'll probably dump, in their place I'll likely be buying cup & core bullets unless I can get Partitions on sale. Sierra 250gr SPT work great in the .338WM, I've used 7mm 160gr HPT from both Speer and Sierra I think, but don't even know if they are still offered. The 120's and 165's in the .257 or .25-06 and .30-06 work great.

Some of you guys just hunt way tougher deer than the rest of us.

IMPACT VELOCITY is what you want to look at when it comes to projectile selection. Very rarely do you shoot something (apart from in the head) at muzzle velocity. If ranges are close and impact velocity high then premium or bonded projectils are a better choice. No argument.

I'm not surprised old mates Sierra 'failed'(His criteria) at 60 yards impact.

I use Sierras in most of my firearms. They are older designs ie 7x57 with conventional velocitys at conventional ranges. Not close and it doesn't matter how far away.

quote:

Originally posted by wildcat junkie:

quote:

Originally posted by enfieldspares:

quote:

What they have works...

actually it bothers me that the markets keep catering to everyone who thinks they need the latest and greatest each hunting season, when a lot of bullets that have worked just fine for decades are being canned, and replaced with bullets that cost twice as much and don't do anything better than the previous stuff...

dead is dead...and old stuff works just fine...

Harrumph! Just like Speer "dumped" my favourite 270 Winchester 150 grain un-cannelured flat base soft point! Luckily I found and bought five hundred "new old stock" from a gunshop some two hundred miles away.

They're doing away W/all the "Hotcore" line & replacing them W/the "Deepcurl". They don't have a 200gr 8mm Deepcurl in the works.

I asked them if they would continue the 200gr 8mm Hotcore & could not get an answer one way or the other.

I bought 400 of the 200gr 8mm Hotcores from Midway. That's all I could afford @ the time.

Hopefully I can get some more before the supply dries up.

Im kinda mad at Speer. Ive used a lot of their bullets over the years and now they appear to be more concerned with premium pricing than offering a product at a reasonable price.

I am convinced that the "new" Grand slams are nothing but the old Deep Shok bullets in a different wrapper. Excellent bullet by the way, but they figured out that they could sell them for much more. If they kept things as they were my shelves would be loaded with Deep Shoks.

Re; the Sierras, the most important aspect about making a bullet accurate is ballance, this means eliminating voids in the alloys and swaging process. Sometimes bonding bullets complicates this, so if Sierra were to take up making bonded bullets they prolly wouldnt end up being the "Sierra" that we have come to know and love. Could even tarnish their reputation.

I am perfectly content that they are content. Before there were bonded bullets, people like Jack O Connor used to suggest using heavy for caliber bullets for better penetration and weight retention. Good news for the Sierra fans, that still works!

Also after sectioning several bullets I am personaly convinced theat a Pro-Hunter will retain its core better than a Gameking as the base of the lead core on the boattails is tapered inside. I think boattails are overrated, especialy with the potential of todays rifles. I just wish Sierra would expand their line of ProHunters to include some more heavy for caliber options.

Just my .02 c.

quote:

Originally posted by BlueCan:
This is a bit out of left field but I had considered trying it once before i realized I don't need bonded bullets. Disclaimer, trying this would be totally at your own risk. It is an UNTESTED IDEA. Anyway, you could possibly bond your own bullets. The main way that bullets are bonded is that they are "soldered" to the jacket. That means that the core must be melted at some point after the core and jacket are put togather. The melting point of lead is 621 degrees F while copper is something close to 2000 degrees F so, you could take those Sierra bullets and stand them up on their base possibly in a steel or aluminum block to hold them upright and put the bullets in a 650 degree oven to melt the lead. If you don't have access to an oven that will set itself to 650 degrees, you could use a household oven and set it on "clean" which is 900 degrees. I would suggest trying a few at first and taking lots of measurements to make sure the copper jacket didn't deform at all but providing that it didn't you would have a "bonded" Sierra bullet. Something could possibly be done with a torch as well but that is quite uncontrollable.

If you have ever tried to solder copper pipe without cleaning & fluxing the surfaces to be joined, you will appreciate why this suggestion wont work.

quote:

Originally posted by Wstrnhuntr:

I am convinced that the "new" Grand slams are nothing but the old Deep Shok bullets in a different wrapper. Excellent bullet by the way, but they figured out that they could sell them for much more. If they kept things as they were my shelves would be loaded with Deep Shoks)

Interesting post. I think you are right. I just wish they would make the Grand Slams with better ballistic coefficients and a reasonable price. They aren't as complicated to make as the old Grand Slams. I can't see how they can justify the price especially now with the bonded Deepcurls at 1/2 the price. They really need to come up with a premium bullet if they want to charge a premium price.

When I was beginning to reload, I started with 'premium' bullets like Accubonds, Scirocco II, A-Frame, Interbonds and the like.
Accuracy with those bullets has never been convincing nor consistent.
The Sierras that I had bought for plinking actually became my accuracy reference. I now use the them exclusively. Preferably the ProHunters. I find them to be just as accurate as the GameKings but with better weight retention.

quote:

Originally posted by Oddbod:

If you have ever tried to solder copper pipe without cleaning & fluxing the surfaces to be joined, you will appreciate why this suggestion wont work.

Fair enough, like I said, it was just an idea. I have not soldered much copper pipe, and when I did it was properly prepared. I have seen Sierra make bullets and I do know that the copper is very clean. Flux is definately not in there but I imagined that the lead would at least stick, but perhaps not be "water tight". anyway, it was simply an Idea that i had thought about but gave up on.

Sierra are a very smart company who make great products and have business savy. The two do not always go together.

They are specialised in making very accurate bullets which are very consistent batch to batch. They work well in hunting as well as target shooting. Theya re also specialised in making high volume products. To enter in the bonded core market they would ahve to learn new technology which has high costs. It is also low volume - not their expertise.

The 224 cal 53 gr HP bullet is amazing in my old Tikka 222. I shot a fallow hind front on and it penetrated one shoulder and reached the liver. I also had great results with the 358 cal 225r Game King which was perfect for the 358 Win.

quote:

Originally posted by scottfromdallas:

quote:

Originally posted by Wstrnhuntr:

I am convinced that the "new" Grand slams are nothing but the old Deep Shok bullets in a different wrapper. Excellent bullet by the way, but they figured out that they could sell them for much more. If they kept things as they were my shelves would be loaded with Deep Shoks)

Interesting post. I think you are right. I just wish they would make the Grand Slams with better ballistic coefficients and a reasonable price. They aren't as complicated to make as the old Grand Slams. I can't see how they can justify the price especially now with the bonded Deepcurls at 1/2 the price. They really need to come up with a premium bullet if they want to charge a premium price.

I've used the Grandslam quite a bit in my .375 Weatherby. I'm totally convinced that IT IS NOT THE DEEP CURL bullet. I don't believe anybody with any actual experience hunting with them out of a magnum rifle could make the above statements. They are an excellent ,tough hunting bullet. I don't think either one of you guys have ever used them, just quoting what you read somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by swampshooter:

I've used the Grandslam quite a bit in my .375 Weatherby. I'm totally convinced that IT IS NOT THE DEEP CURL bullet.

I didnt say the Deep curl, I said the old Deep Shok.. Huge difference..

Deep shoks had a limited run and were sold in boxes of 100 for just a bit more than the hot cores and then they went away, just before Speer changed the GS.. And their construction matches the description of the gs as well. Tapered inner core and a thicker jacket at the base with a fluted tip. Deep shok/Grand Slam..

OH, and FWIW it seems that the Hot cores are not "going away" as some have suggested. They appear to be staying where the deep curls are not going to be available, which means I can still use the 220's in my 358.. Thanks Speer!

quote:

Originally posted by seafire/B17G:
What they have works...

actually it bothers me that the markets keep catering to everyone who thinks they need the latest and greatest each hunting season, when a lot of bullets that have worked just fine for decades are being canned, and replaced with bullets that cost twice as much and don't do anything better than the previous stuff...

dead is dead...and old stuff works just fine...

Exactly, game has been dead for decades before some of this bonded stuff and monometals appeared. For me, I find many of the new stuff harder to develop a load with, that shoots good. Sierras are good stuff