The title. ^ Thanks for reading!

On page 2 of this very forum: https://www.ar15.com/forums/AR-15/Federal-62-Grain-Fusion-vs-Federal-62-Grain-Fusion-MSR-vs-Speer-LE-62-Grain-Gold-Dot/16-687846/

A previous engineer at Speer told me no they aren't the same bullet.  The internet tells me they are the same.

I buy them both regardless.

Same bullet, different brass, powder, and primer.

Just bought a bunch of 62 grain Federal Fusion MSR for my PD as duty ammo. Speer is out of stock everywhere.

While I prefer the CCI primer in the Speer over the Federal primer in Fusion and would prefer the nickle plated Speer brass over the non plated Federal brass, those are not really important. I prefer the faster powder in the Fusion MSR for 16" and under barrels which gives better velocity in short barrels. If I had to guess, the Federal brass also probably also has a bit less powder capacity, so it can get away with a bit less powder to get a small velocity bump as well. It might feel different if both offered 5.56 loadings, but neither do.

The availability of Federal Fusion MSR is 100x better than the Speer. BUT, when you can actually find the Speer, it tends to cost a little less. This is probably due to the Federal MSR not being in the Federal LE line and thus not being available for department purchase without a Federal Excise Tax applied, but you can still get the .223 MSR at about $1.28 a round plus tax SHIPPED to your door RIGHT NOW in CONUS.

I recently tried Fed Fusion 62gr (MSR and standard Fusion) and Gold Dot 62gr. They all had slightly different POI which tells me they are loaded different. iirc the Fusion MSR had the best groups followed closely by the GD out of the 3 loads.

I would probably buy the Gold Dot if price and availability were the same.