First Look: Speer 10 mm Gold Dot Personal Protection Ammo

With the clear resurgence of 10 mm as a popular cartridge, ammunition manufacturers are churning out new options, both in affordable range fodder and purpose-built self-defense ammo. One of the latest players to enter the market is Speer, adding a 10 mm version of its popular Gold Dot Personal Protection load for the round.

Unlike some 10 mm self-defense loads on the market, the Speer option isn't a watered-down version that produces terminal ballistics similar to that of .40 S&W. Rather, the engineers at Speer elected to take full advantage of the capability offered by this larger cartridge. Loaded with a 200-grain projectile, the round produces a muzzle velocity of 1,100 fps out of a 5-inch barrel, delivering 537 foot-pounds of energy.

Like other offerings in the Speer lineup, the Gold Dot bullet loaded in this defensive round is bonded through the company's exclusive Uni-Cor process, which forms a molecular bond between the bullet jacket and the core, ensuring that there's no separation of these two vital components as they travel through a ballistic medium. As one of the most-popular rounds used by today's law-enforcement agencies, the Gold Dot bullet is proven in barrier-penetration and ballistic-gel testing as providing consistent performance across a range of scenarios.

Other features of the Speer Gold Dot Personal Protection ammo include nickel-plated brass cases that provide enhanced lubricity and a brighter case that can be seen easily while press-checking, as well as duty-proven CCI primers. Packages of 20 rounds are available now, retailing at a suggested price of $34.95.