SPEER .30-CALIBER GOLD DOT HUNTING BULLETS

MOSTLY LONG GUNS

- Brian Pearce

More than 30 years ago, Speer Bullets began intense research to advance its bullet plating process that electro-chemically attaches (electrodepositing) pure copper molecules one at a time to a lead core, commonly referred to as bonding. Speer's production capacity is huge and the process is very precise and impressive.

Initially, bullet offerings were designed for handguns and included FMJ (aka TMJ) designs, but soon the product line was expanded to include the remarkable Gold Dot HP bullets that offered truly advanced terminal performance, accuracy, etc. These have become popular as a personal defense bullet, received high marks with law enforcement and FBI protocol and have earned an excellent reputation among handgun hunters (currently known as DeepCurl in appropriate calibers). This bonding technology was soon offered with select rifle bullets, such as the short period when Speer produced the Trophy Bonded line of bullets, and others. More recently, Speer has introduced Gold Dot rifle bullets. While they were initially offered in .22 caliber, specifically for defense applications in AR-15-pattern rifles (chambered in .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO cartridges), Speer has introduced additional calibers, including 6.5mm, .270 (.277), .308 and .310 inch. For this column, the hugely popular .30-caliber, 150- and 168-grain bullets were selected, which are versatile and will become popular for use in service rifles for defense purposes, but are also certain to appeal to hunters using more traditional bolt-action rifles and cartridges.