Alright this is what I recently asked Speer:
"I have heard that the 50 round boxes of speer gold dot handgun ammo commonly sold (in my case the gold dot 9mm 124 grain jacketed hollowpoints)are all old police surplus. Is this true, or are they in fact
newly manufactured ammunition like the 20 round boxes?"
To which they replied:
"Speer sells our premium Gold Dot hollow point ammunition in two
packaging configurations.
50 count boxes are labeled 'LE Duty' ammunition, the 20 count boxes are
sold as Speer 'Personal Protection' ammunition.
The LE (50 count) boxes are typically sold to Law Enforcement
distributors, but it is not entirely impossible to find them from other
retail sources.
In order to tell you the age of any product I would have to have the lot
numbers from the box. Our lot number look something like "B24Q12" or
similar."
It's not really a definitive answer, but I guess I'm getting somewhere. I'm going to let the person know the lot numbers then see what's up.