Speer's 300 gr .45 cal bullet.

[brno602]

Anyone use this big slug? I was snooping around for some heavy jacketed bullets for my Rossi in 45 colt found a few at the gun store but if my bad memory serves me right they are .451 dia JSP?
Took a look at the Speer web sight and all they have is a deep curl .45 now .452, so being in Canada I was looking at old stock but my gun shoots the nozler 250gr, .451dia fine but the hornady's all at .452 shoot great just a bit better than the Nozler. My bore sluged out at .452. My cast load as it drops from the mold is .4525 and it shoots great no leading loaded with 9.5gr of uniqe good for 1100+fps out of my 16'' barrel.
But let's forget about thousands of an inch and a half inch group difference does the older speer bullet hold up good?

[brno602]

I need to use spell check! or read what typed.

[adirondakjack]

The old type Speer jacketed bullets were pretty tough constructed. I never ran the 300, but ran some of the 260 gr JHPs out of a Virginian Dragoon I had at the time (the big honking gun would make a SBH look small). I don't remember the recipe, and I didn't have a chrony at the time, but I do remember it was over 20 grains of 2400 (might have been 21.5 gr, but don't trust that), I got slightly sticky extraction, the gun spit the base pin a few times, and cases turned blue. Suffice to say they wwere honking right along at rock cracking velocities. My load book note said "Back off", and I never ran that load again. Despite all of that, expansion was only mild, nothing that inspired confidence the bullet would expand.....

The current XTP is a far better product for the intended use, an expanding bullet.

[brno602]

The old type Speer jacketed bullets were pretty tough constructed. I never ran the 300, but ran some of the 260 gr JHPs out of a Virginian Dragoon I had at the time (the big honking gun would make a SBH look small). I don't remember the recipe, and I didn't have a chrony at the time, but I do remember it was over 20 grains of 2400 (might have been 21.5 gr, but don't trust that), I got slightly sticky extraction, the gun spit the base pin a few times, and cases turned blue. Suffice to say they wwere honking right along at rock cracking velocities. My load book note said "Back off", and I never ran that load again. Despite all of that, expansion was only mild, nothing that inspired confidence the bullet would expand.....

The current XTP is a far better product for the intended use, an expanding bullet.

I had a bad ex with the xtp when they first came out it was a bomb! a 300gr .430 xtp at a real 2000fps out of my .54 cal hawken rep with a sabot what a mess it did! but at 500fps slower think it would work well.

[RKrodle]

I have some of the Speer 300's that Piller gave me but haven't got around to testing any of them yet. I've been told they work good at carbine velocities. I did some testing here while back with various Jacketed bullets for the 45 colt for my Winchester Trapper. I found that the Hornady XTP's were soft for the kind of speed I was pushing out of the trapper. LOTS of expansion and real quick. I found the MAG XTP's to be inconsistent when testing in water, some would expand sometimes and some would not expand at all. The Nosler Partition did like a Nosler Partition and shed the front of the bullet but the rear maintained itself and penetrated. I settle on the Swift A Frame in 265 and 300 grn for a hunting bullet and reconfirmed it this last weekend on one I recovered from a hog.