SPEER® Rifle Bullets: How to Choose the Right One.

The reloader faces many choices when selecting bullets. All the names and types begin to blur after a while. Here's some tips for matching the right SPEER bullet to your hunting needs.

Weight

This is a good place to start. Weight is something that is easy to quickly match up with a game animal. Here's an easy exercize that will help.

Look at the cartridge you're using. Let's say your choice is the 280 Remington. Speer makes .284" (7mm) bullets from 110 to 175 grains. Make a list, from small to large of all likely targets that are reasonable for the 280 Remington:

• Small varmints
• Large varmints
• Small whitetail/antelope
• Large whitetail
• Black bear
• Elk/caribou

Next to each game type, right the available .284" bullet weights:

• Small varmints 110 gr
• Large varmints 115-130 gr
• Small whitetail/antelope 130-145 gr
• Large witetail 145-160 gr
• Black bear 160-175 gr
• Elk/caribou 175 gr

Now you have a good starting point to choose a bullet. Obviously, the weight distribution would shift depending on cartridge. For instance, the small 300 Savage cartridge is not likely to give much velocity with a 200 grain Hot-Cor® bullet, so you'd make the heaviest bullet the 180 grain instead.

Construction

When we say "construction," we're generally talking about the ratio of copper jacket to lead core. A bullet for light game has a jacket that is relatively thin for fast expansion. As the game gets more robust, so does the jacket. A really tough soft point like the ultra-premium Trophy Bonded Bear Claw soft point may be over 50 percent jacket.

Lets see how this stacks up for the Speer 7mm (.284") 145 grain hunting bullets:

This is the typical relationship among Speer standard game bullets; the boat tail is more lightly constructed, the Hot-Cor is next, and the Grand Slam is the heaviest. To get heavier jackets, you must move up to the Bear Claw.

The wise handloader will use this information to tune his bullet to the game. Even with bullets of the same weight, Speer has a hierarchy of construction that you can put to your advantage.

We handled a call from a gentleman from "back east" who was planning his first Idaho hunt. He would go after antelope in the southern plains, then travel to north-central Idaho near Lewiston for a shot at a mule deer. He did not want to travel with two rifles, and called to see if there was a way to use his 30-06 in both hunting areas.

We helped him settle on the 165 grain weight, loading the boat tail for long shots on antelope and the 165 Hot-Cor for mule deer. We recommended that he sight in with the boat tail as he would be using it on thesmaller target at potentiall long range. The choice was perfect for the game he harvested; each was cleanly taken and the bullet performance was just right for each animal. To top it off, the Hot-Cor printed within less than an inch of the boat tail at 200 yards, so he didn't have to change sight-in.

When Should I Use a Boat Tail?

From the previous section, it's apparent that Speer uses construction to create choices. The boat tail bullet in light to medium weights is more lightly constructed. As the weight increases, we toughen the boat tail to be practically as tough at the Hot-Cor. The 30 caliber 180 grain Speer boat tail has the same jacket weight percent as the Hot-Cor. Thus, for ruly long shots on heavy game, the heavy 7mm and 30 caliber boat tails are more than adquate.

The boat tail design was conceived to reduce the aerodynamic drag on the bullet. Every object moving through air has a low-pressure zone behind it that contributes to drag. The boat tail design has a smaller base surface area and thus is less affected by the drag-inducing low-pressure zone.

Boat tail bullets have an advantage at the point, normally very distant, when the bullet transitions from supersonic to subsonic velocity. This transonic zone causes any flying object to suffer buffeting until true subsonic veolocities are reached. The boat tail is less affected and thereforehas the higher potential for accuracy at extreme ranges.

In the "real world," the beneficial ballistics effects of the boat tail design do not appear until the bullet is more than 300 yards from the muzzle, depending on launch velocity and ballistic coefficient. We compared the path of boat tail and flat base 30 caliber 165 grain bullets. Both types were launched at 2800 ft/sec, typical 30-06 velocities. At 500 yards, the boat tail showed a 5 percent advantage in velocity, a 10 percent advantage in energy, and hit the target only 2.2 inches above the flat base.

Some Bullet "Don'ts"

• Don't choose a bullet that is too light just to gain a little velocity. If you're going to make a mistake in choosing a bullet weight, make it on the heavy side. Bullets that were too light have left more wounded game in the field than those that were too heavy.
  
  
• Don't use varmint bullets or match hollow points on big game. Varmint bullets are designed to come apart on impact and penetrate very little. Match hollow points may or may not expand. They were built to make holes in paper. If they do expand, the disruption pattern is more like a varmint bullet than a hunting soft point. Lost game could result.
  
  
• Don't test accuracy with 3-shot groups. True, you won't shoot more than that many at a deer, but a single 3- or 5-shot group won't give you a true picture of the accuracy potential of your rifle or your ammo. Have you ever fired a nice group one day, and tried it a week later with everything the same and got bigger groups? The same thing could happen on a hunt. Statistical studies show that the least number of shots into one group that will give a good picture of an ammo batch is seven. Proper sample size is critical to knowing the true nature of your ammo.