Sierra versus Speer – The ExhaustNotes Blog

I mentioned last week that Speer offers 168 grain jacketed hollow point boat tail bullets, and that I was going to load a few rounds for the Garand to see how they performed. My initial results with the Speer bullets were not as good as with Sierra bullets, but I’m just getting started. The Speer Competition Target bullets are much less expensive than the Sierra MatchKings, and I want to make the Speers work. I’m basically a cheap SOB.

Speer’s 168 grain target bullets are just $25 for a box of 100; the comparable Sierra bullets are $37.

My accuracy load with the Sierra bullets was 47.0 grains, which did well in my Garand. That’s the load I used with the Speer bullets. Here’s what I did at 100 yards:

Two clips of 8 rounds each. There’s potential here.

I shot two clips of 8 rounds each at the above target. The promising part was that the second 8 shots grouped better than the first. Not quite as good as the Sierras, but the Speer bullets are hinting there’s more accuracy hiding in those shiny copper jackets. I didn’t exercise the care and consistency I normally would when I loaded these; I guess I was in a hurry. I used brass I had fired four times in the Garand, the brass is getting longer, and I didn’t trim it. I didn’t clean the primer pockets, either. For the next load I’ll trim the cases to a consistent length, I’ll clean the primer pockets, and I’ll use all the other little tricks I’ve learned over the years.

I called the Speer folks yesterday to see if they had any further insights on accuracy with their bullets in the Garand. Reaching the Speer guy was not easy; they don’t list a number on their website and I hate those website “ask us your question” pages. I finally got through to a guy who knew what he was talking about. The Speer rep said he couldn’t tell me the Garand accuracy load because they use a different barrel in their rifle and the harmonics would be different. After asking about the load I was using with the Sierra bullets, he told me their IMR 4064 propellant range with this bullet goes from 45.0 grains up to 49.0 grains (higher than the max load with the Sierra bullets). He also said that the Speer bullets do better with higher charges. He recommended I start at 47.0 grains of IMR 4064 and go up from there. The Speer bullets have ogive and boat tail profiles that are longer than the Sierra bullet, so the Speers have less bearing area in the barrel (that’s why they can be loaded hotter). The Speer dude told me they also load to a longer cartridge overall length of 3.295 inches (which basically defines how deep the bullets are seated in the cartridge case). For someone who couldn’t give me their accuracy load, he sure had a bunch of good information.

So, that’s my plan for the next load. I’ll pick up another box of the Speer bullets and I’ll shoot them later this week, assuming my component dealer still has the Speers in stock. It would be good if I can get them to shoot as well as the Sierras. They are way less expensive. Did I mention I am a cheap SOB?

On to that motorcycle commercial thing mentioned in the title of this blog. Good buddy TK sent this YouTube to me last week, and it’s a hoot. It looks like the Harley and Kawi commercials overseas are a lot better than the silly stuff we see here (although I don’t think I’ve seen any motorcycle commercials for at least a couple of years now).

TK, I enjoyed watching these. Thanks much!

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A cell phone photo by my daughter from an earlier Veteran’s Day at the range. She managed to catch an ejected brass case in mid-air. I’ll have to get her out again to see if she can repeat that miracle with the en bloc clip after the 8th round.

Veteran’s Day is upon us (it’s Monday), and I’ll do as I usually do on this fine holiday: I’ll be out on the range observing it with my M1 Garand and my 1911 .45 Auto. I’m a vet, I come from a long line of vets, and it somehow feels like bringing those two old warhorses out on Veteran’s Day is the right thing to do.

I’ve been shooting my M1 Garand a lot lately. A couple of weeks ago I gave the bore a gentle but thorough scrubbing with Hoppes No. 9 and Butch’s bore solvent. I finally got it down to where the barrel had no copper streaking in the bore.

The drill is you keep swabbing with a good solvent, wait 15 minutes, and then run another patch down the bore. When they come out blue like this, you’re not done yet.

The rifle needed a few rounds through it after that for its accuracy to return, but when it did, it do so mightily with a new load I tried. I tested several loads during that visit to the range, but one that the old Garand really liked turned in an absolutely stellar performance at 100 yards.

Eight rounds at 100 yards. Two shots went through the hole at the bottom. It’s the best I had done to date with the Garand. My targets? I get all of mine from Alco Target.

I shot the group above with the last of the 40 rounds I took with me that day, and I liked what I saw when I walked down to the target. For a 100-yard, open-sight group, that’s cooking. It’s about the best I’ve ever done.

It was a quick trip to the tumbler and my RCBS reloading equipment to reload my brass with the same recipe, and the next range visit allowed me to dial in the sights. Here’s what it did at 100 yards:

A near-repeat performance the following week, with six rounds in the 10-ring and two that dropped low. Maybe a fly landed on my front sight for the two shots that went low. Still, at 100 yards, that ain’t half bad with open sights.

The load is the 168 grain Sierra jacketed hollow point match boat tail bullet (their MatchKing bullet) with a CCI 200 primer, 47.0 grains of IMR 4064 powder, Remington brass, and an overall cartridge length of 3.240 inches.

I’m pumped. I’m finally getting used to the Garand’s aperture sights and I’m getting used to the rifle. The rear aperture is huge, and it takes every once of mental concentration I can muster to throw all my concentration on the front sight without worrying about where it appears in the aperture. That’s tough to do, and maybe I dropped the ball and that’s why the last two shots went low. Or maybe it was that fly landing on my front sight.

The only problem with the load I used is that the Sierra MatchKing bullets are expensive. They’re $37 a box (that’s 100 bullets), and that’s at the upper end of the price spectrum for me. But, a good group is a good group, and it’s hard to put a price on the kind of performance you see above. I stopped at my favorite reloading components place (Phillips Wholesale in Covina) to pick up another one of those green Sierra boxes and it was a good news/bad news story. The bad news is Phillips didn’t have the Sierra bullets in stock. But that’s the good news, too. Phillips didn’t have the MatchKings, but they had a new one I had not seen before, and that’s the Speer 168 grain Target Match bullets.

Speer’s 168 grain target bullet, their new Target Match jacketed hollow point boat tail. We’ll see if they’re as good as the Sierra bullets.

The Speer bullets are new to me, they look just like the Sierras, and they’re designed to go head-to-head with Sierra’s MatchKing pills. More good news is that they’re only $25 per 100. So I bought a box. You’re probably wondering if the Speer bullets are as good as Sierras, and that would be something we have in common (I’m wondering the same thing). So I loaded another 40 rounds of .30 06 ammo for the Garand and this weekend I’m going to the range to answer that very question. Stay tuned, and I’ll let you know how they shoot.

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