No matter how you feel about it, long-range hunting is here to stay. Even if you are a bit on the skeptical side, as I am, it still means that advancements in product design inspired by long range are important. For example, ammo that is more accurate, shoots flatter and uses advanced bullets will be beneficial to any hunter. No matter if you are trying to stretch out past bragging distance or if you shoot your game up close, better ammo makes you a more effective hunter.
As most everybody knows by now, Remington filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and the company was disbanded. The ammo side of things was bought by Vista, the same company that owns Federal. While they keep the two companies autonomous and distinct from each other in terms of names and products, they do share technology when it’s beneficial. As a result, the new Remington Premier Long Range ammo features technologically advanced bullets made by Speer (another Vista-owned company), the Speer Impact bullet, developed specifically for this ammo. The bullet was designed to have a high ballistic coefficient (BC is the measure of a bullet’s ability to cut through the air) and is engineered to handle a very wide range of impact velocities.
Hunters rarely get to pick how far they shoot. You may plan for a long-range shot when an opportunity turns up very close. Or you might be hunting in the thick brush, expecting a close shot and suddenly there is a huge buck across an open clear-cut. What are you going to do, walk away? Hardly. Wouldn’t it be better though, to use ammo that can handle either of these scenarios?
In the past, if a bullet was designed to work at long range it often failed to hold together and penetrate at close range where velocity is higher. Conversely, if it was designed to handle close impacts, it often would not expand at long range.
The Speer Impact bullets use a jacket that is electrically plated to the lead alloy core, similar to the process used to cover a trailer-hitch ball with chrome. In conventional bonded bullets, the core and jacket are soldered together with heat. The process used by Speer plates the gilding metal to the lead alloy core for a much tougher bond. By controlling the thickness of this plating and a few other technical aspects, they are able to manipulate and control the expansion qualities of the bullet.
The technology used for the Impact bullet is not exactly new. Speer developed it for their Gold Dot handgun bullets in 1991. In the mid-’90s they added rifle ammo, using the same bullet-making technology, called Nitrix. Unfortunately, that ammo was short-lived because Speer was sold, but a few years later in 2005, the bullet-making technology reappeared in the Federal Fusion line of rifle ammo. Today the Impact bullet takes that technology a step further.
Remington says that these new bullets will expand with an impact velocity that is 200 fps slower than conventional bullets. The bullets will also hold together on high-velocity impacts and penetrate deep into big game. We used to think that the best of both worlds was a pipe dream, but here it is.
I’ll be honest, this stuff is new and has been scarce. I have only shot targets with this ammo. However, I know some industry people who took big and tough critters like aoudad, black bear, elk and moose with Premier Long Range ammo at a wide range of shooting distances and they all report excellent results.
The bullet features Speer’s trademarked Slipstream Polymer tip that is engineered to increase BC and initiate expansion with any impact velocity. To further increase the BC, the bullet uses a boattail design. I can remember years ago when a Speer engineer told me that current boattail bullets were poor hunting bullets because the jacket and core would separate on impact. This plating technology completely negates that problem.
I tested the Premier Long Range ammo in a couple of rifles, using the American Hunter protocol of three, three-shot groups at 100 yards.
One rifle was a Remington Model 700 I have owned for 29 years. It’s about as average as a hunting rifle gets. I keep my shooting info on a computer database and after checking the data compiled over the years, I can say that this is the most accurate factory ammo I have tested in this gun. It beat the previous record by .001 inch in group size average. It ain’t much, but it’s still a win and it counts.
Using my custom precision rifle in .300 Winchester, the PLR missed the factory ammo record by .002 inch with a group average of .77 inch. This statistically means nothing. The more I shot, the better the ammo performed and some of the latter groups were outstanding. I suspect a repeat of the test would produce record-setting results. I am hoping to get some of the bullets to handload as Speer now offers them as components. I expect ½ MOA performance.
From the long 27-inch barrel of that .300 Winchester with a 250-yard zero, impact is 2.6 inches high at 150 yards and 3.2 inches low at 300 yards. That’s excellent trajectory and perfect for any long-range hunting situation.
The ammo is listed as available in all the usual suspects: 6.5 Creedmoor, .270 Win., 7mm Rem. Mag., .308 Win., .30-06, .300 Win. Mag. and .300 Rem. Ultra Mag.—all with high-BC bullets that are slightly heavy for caliber. I am lobbying for a .280 Ackley Improved and hope the guys at Remington are paying attention.
Coming soon are the three PRC cartridges, 6.5, 7mm and 300. These are some of the best long-range cartridges ever introduced, and when the PRC design’s fast twist and heavy bullet is matched with this new Remington Premier Long Range ammo this may well set the standard of long-range hunting for years to come.
Technical Specifications
• Cartridges and Bullet Weights: 6.5 Creedmoor (140 gr.), 6.5 PRC (140 gr.), .270 Win. (150 gr.), 7mm Rem. Mag. (175 gr.), 7mm PRC (175 gr.), .30-06 Sprg. (172 gr.) (tested), .308 Win. (172 gr.), .300 Win. Mag. (190 gr.) (tested), .300 RUM (190 gr.), 300 PRC (215 gr.)
• Bullet Type(s)/Style(s): Speer Impact, molecularly bonded w/ Slipstream polymer tip/boattail
• Ballistic Coefficient: .522 (.308 Win., .30-06 Sprg.)
• Muzzle Velocity: 2825 fps (.30-06 Sprg.); 2885 fps (.300 Win. Mag.)
• Muzzle Energy: 3,048 ft.-lbs. (.30-06 Sprg.); 3,511 ft.-lbs. (.300 Win. Mag.)
• Uses: big game
• MSRP per box: $59.99-$97.99; remington.com
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