Speer Gold Dot ammo (courtesy ammoland.com)
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Carry ammo is a big deal — especially if you’re a company making the stuff whose stock price has dropped precipitously during the Trump slump. Vista Outdoors execs will take home some cheer this year after their Speer ammo brand landed a contract to supply the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Customs Enforcement with 120 million rounds of 124-grain, 9mm Luger Gold Dot Duty ammunition. No word on how much the contract’s worth but it ain’t hay. Press release . . .

LEWISTON, Idaho -(Ammoland.com)- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), recently awarded Speer a major ammunition contract.

Starting delivery in 2018, the contract provides for up to 120 million rounds of 124-grain, 9mm Luger Gold Dot Duty ammunition to multiple DHS law enforcement components and other Federal agencies for up to five years.

This contract will provide the organization’s agents and officers with the legendary performance that has made Gold Dot the No. 1 load of law enforcement worldwide.

“Speer Gold Dot has a long history of providing trusted performance time and time again for our nation’s law enforcement and military. We’re very proud to provide Gold Dot to the DHS for their duty ammunition needs,” said Jason Nash, Product Director.

Each Gold Dot hollow-point cavity is tuned by caliber and bullet weight to ensure optimum expansion and penetration. Gold Dot was the first handgun ammunition loaded with true, bonded-core bullets.

Speer’s exclusive Uni-Cor construction process bonds the jacket to the alloyed lead core one atom at a time to virtually eliminate core-jacket separation while guaranteeing uniform jacket thickness for superior accuracy.

Additional Gold Dot features include ultra-reliable CCI primers, plus high-powered, clean-burning propellants and nickel-plated brass cases for smooth function and extreme durability.

Headquartered in Lewiston, Idaho, Speer has a long-standing reputation for making the world’s finest bullets and in 1996 became one of the first U.S. ammunition manufacturers to achieve ISO 9001 certification for quality. The company manufactures a variety of bullets and cartridges for law enforcement, reloading and sporting applications.

Speer is a brand of Vista Outdoor Inc., an outdoor sports and recreation company.

For more information on Speer, go to their website.

About Vista Outdoor Inc.:

Vista Outdoor is a leading global designer, manufacturer and marketer of consumer products in the growing outdoor sports and recreation markets. The company operates in two segments, Shooting Sports and Outdoor Products, and has a portfolio of well-recognized brands that provides consumers with a wide range of performance-driven, high-quality and innovative products for individual outdoor recreational pursuits. Vista Outdoor products are sold at leading retailers and distributors across North America and worldwide. Vista Outdoor is headquartered in Utah and has manufacturing operations and facilities in 13 U.S. States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico along with international customer service, sales and sourcing operations in Asia, Australia, Canada, and Europe.

For news and [gunbrokerback]information, visit their website.

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39 COMMENTS

    • I agree that HST is a superior round for personal protection. However, it is not bonded and for government work I see why they would want a bonded round.

      • Got to go to a ballistics seminar sponsored by federal when they came out with the HST. (Hydra-shock two)
        The guy told us to bring our duty ammo to see how it compared to the HST. When he saw my gold dots, he said it was the one round that beat theirs if it had to go through something before entering flesh. (The something was heavy clothing, Glass, Sheetrock. Not lightweight stuff like a shirt.)

      • Both the HST and the Gold Dot are top tier rounds. My old department issued Gold Dot for our handgun ammo, and the Federal Tactical Bonded 55-grain .223 for our rifles. The Gold Dot excels through the tough barriers such as laminated automobile angled windshields. HST still does well, but the Gold Dot wins in all of the test data. Keep in mind that both companies are under the same umbrella group and there is a lot of cross-engineering that goes on.

        I personally carry HST, and it has more to do with the short-barreled expansion issue out short-barreled handguns such as the LC9s-Pro.

        Both the Gold Dot and the HST are excellent rounds, and at the same time, neither are perfect. There is absolutely nothing wrong with their choice of the Gold Dot.

        • Hornady critical duty was designed specifically for LE in regards to barrier penetration, which is kinda why I suggested either/or for LE. That said I still agree that any of the brands you mentioned will certainly get the job done, I would trust my life to any of them.

  1. Oct 20 2017 was an article in forbes about $158million the government is spending on non military firearms and ammo, this was on top of multi millions that IRS, SBA, VA, and HHS. That and the billion rounds a few years before that just about every single alphabet soup agency is armed up with militant forces and even swat teams, I remember a story in the not so distant past where the DOE used a swat team to raid a mans house, keeping him cuffed in his underware on the front lawn and his kids in a patrol car for four hours and why were these hyper militarized department of education swat soldiers raiding a mans home with flash bangs and automatic weapons there for ? His ex wife (who hadn’t lived with him for years) for unpaid student loans UNfricking believable! Arming all the alphabets of the federal government is very troubling thank GOD for the second amendment, I pray there are men brave enough when the bow finally breaks to stand up to the tyrants we have created.

    • There are a number of valid reasons to practice with your carry ammo. Among them,

      1) ballistics. HP and FMJ rounds may not be ballistically identical; e.g. they shoot to a different point of aim.
      2) reliability. Its a fact of life that some pistols, even the high-dollar ones, will only be reliable with a certain brand or type of bullet. Find the one that works every time and practice with it.

      • 3) If someone else is buying your ammo … why not shoot targets with Gold Dot!

        Frankly at the ranges most LEO’s can hit anything you could be throwing rocks. I’ve never seen any significant change in point of impact that would take me out of the center of mass out to 25 yards with different ammo. From Russian steel case to Hornady Critical Duty.

    • At the scale of this contract, it’s probably cheaper to supply just a single SKU for practice and carry, rather than juggle separate contracts, inventory and ship separate SKUs, and for the agencies involved to just keep track of one load.

    • “Wonder if they’ll buy the whole amount?”

      Speer sure hopes so, I’ll bet!

      *snicker*

      (It’s ringing ‘Jingle Bells’ in that plant, even as we speak…)

    • SKREEEETCH!!!
      TEH GUBNMNT IS BUYIN ALL TEH AMMO 4 THEMSELVES!!! I MUST GIT 2 THE STORE N’ BUYZ ALL THEY GOT RIGHT NOW!!!

      We do remember that from just a few years ago, yes? Are we really going to go through this again?
      🤠

      • Nope. That paranoia was fueled by anti-Obama hysteria. If it’s Trump in the White House–never mind that it’s still the same corrupt, militantly anti-American deep state entrenched in all of these departments–then it’s OK. It’s just business as usual.

  2. That’s reassuring, can we assume they are gearing up to keep people from getting out? We know they have no intention of keeping people from getting in.

    • Some try very hard to keep people out…but sometimes are over-ridden by their supervisors…and/or the supervisor’s supervisor(s)…or by presidential decree (executive order).
      Obama ordered that the most dangerous be given priority for deportation…so many low-level invaders were let go if they were not guilty of other crimes.

  3. CBP- Customs and Border Protection…qualify 2-4 times a year depending on who is in charge…
    shoot 3 sets of 30 rounds each time…plus some extra in scenario shooting…so maybe 120 rounds per officer 3 times a year…multiplied by about 40,000…so almost 15M rounds a year for CBP alone.
    75M over 5 years.

    • That’s just for qualifying. They have range time to stay in practice. If you figure they shoot 100 rounds per month, which is a low estimate, that’s 48 million per year.

    • CBP has now and for years qualified 4 times a year,

      Even though I was a certified range instructor, I had to do the same drills.

      We alternately fired from various distances, using Barriers etc. Nearly all drills involved “Monkey drills”.

      The crisis came after 9/11. when panicked citizens started scarfing up ammo. It got so bad, our resident Pistol “expert” started hoarding our training ammunition.

      We often would use 150 to 250 an all practice. When I made inquiries about this I was told “That isn’t the case”!

      Since I was a Port Director, I went into the safe and took 300 rounds for MY practice. The Range master got all bent out of shape ( I could not have cared less).

  4. Sure am glad my tax dollars buys bullets for them, sure wish their tax dollars bought bullets for me. They should have went with Cor bon or Buffalo Bore, hell it’s only my money their spending, Garrett’s with the silver antimony would be even better.

  5. In my opinion, migration is not bad. This is normal for the whole world, but we must deal with unclassified migration not with the help of patrons, but with the help of pure law and law. You can’t just violate human rights. Good and correct migration (if you can call it that) can lead to good consequences. For example, it is shown in the material https://southernmarylandchronicle.com/2021/03/12/how-immigration-has-influenced-the-life-of-maryland/. When the migration to Maryland brought a new and new impact on the outside world and on the entire state as a whole. Quite an interesting case to study.

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