Old Norma bullets?

16 April 2003, 13:46

Gatehouse

Old Norma bullets?

My .375 rifle and dies arrived today...The bullets I have ordered haven't arrived so I skulked down to our local Sporting Goods store with the hopes that MAYBE, just MAYBE- they'll have some .375 bullets of some description.

All they had was 300 gr Norma "semi pointed soft point" bullets. The box looked like it must have come from the 60's.

Knowing Norma is a good brand of brass, I bought them.

Anybody know anything about these bullets?

16 April 2003, 14:15

Dark Paladin

are they silver, with exposed lead tips? if so I have the bullet in my 358 norma, and I belive they are old OLD woodleigh soft points, but dont quote me on that, it was what I was told they were, very hardy and stood up well to game.

16 April 2003, 15:49

Gatehouse

Yes, they are silver coloured, with exposed lead tips.

I loaded up a couple and shot them into some firewood rounds to see what would happen.

They penetrated about 14" of the wood, and the jacket seems like it would peel back uniformly, on game- like you see in the pictures. [Smile]

They deformed quite a bit, but I was still able to make this out. I wasn't surprised at the deformation, though. I was shooting at about 25 ft! [Big Grin]

Thanks for the reply.

16 April 2003, 17:11

Leftoverdj

Put a magnet to them. Old Norma's were steel jacketed.

16 April 2003, 17:34

Gatehouse

quote:
Originally posted by Leftoverdj:
Put a magnet to them. Old Norma's were steel jacketed.

Yup, they're steel jacketed according to the magnet.

What do I need to know about loading stel jacketed bullets? Anything different than copper?

The steel must be really soft. The lead seems soft, too.

16 April 2003, 18:26

Eagleye

Norma marketed a lot of different bullets with those mild steel jackets. They also loaded a lot of factory ammo with them. I have shot a considerable amount of them [handloaded] in 6.5mm, 270, 7mm and 30 cal. The jackets are quite soft and the bullets expand well in game. They obviously will not copper-foul your barrel like copper or gilding metal bullets will. You should back down a couple of grains to start, just like any prudent reloader will do when changing bullets to a different design. You should have no trouble with them at all. Shoot them and enjoy! Regards, Eagleye.

17 April 2003, 02:08

trb

Sounds like old Norma "Alaska" bullets, they have a decent reputation in scandinavia, I think they switched to copper jackets ca. 10 years ago. Never knew they made them in .375 though, has not been in their lists the last ten years at least.

Tron

17 April 2003, 06:18

Alberta Canuck

With at least some Norma bullets they switched to a copper-alloy jacket as long as 30 years ago.

I bought a case of 4,000 Norma 9.3 m/m 286 gr. bullets in 1972. About half the boxes therin had the older nickel-plated steel jackets...the other half had the copper alloy jackets.

AC

17 April 2003, 11:57

Stefan

Beeing born and raised in Sweden Iï¿½ll try to put some info in on the Norma bullets.

There have been a couple of "silver jacketed" bullets made by Norma. The softpoints was the Alaska and the "silverblixt" A ruff translation on the latter would turn out: "silver flash" The Alaska was a non bonded FB bullet that was made in several different calibres from 6,5 and up to 9,3 (I think!). The "silverblixt" was a similar bullet but with a leadcore made out of two different pieces of lead. The front section contained a soft led that made the bullet to expand really fast initially. In the rear part of the bullet the lead was harder (antimon added). The idea was to get a rapid expanding bullet with deep penetration. Later there was a another version of this bullet with a plastic ball instead of the exposed leadtip. This bullet was named "plastspets" or in eng. "plastic tip".

The exellent Swedish round .358 Norma Mag. was more or less "killed" here in Sweden by the absolutley unbelivable lousy performanse of the "silverblixt" bullets that Norma loaded the ammunition with. The v/0 was at about 2850 f/s with 250 gr bullets and the fragile bullet shattered compleatly when hitting bones in the shoulder in Swedish mooses back in the 60:ies.

Personally I donï¿½t like any of the old Norma bullets with steel jackets. They shatter quite easy and regulary loose most of the lead. I have seen these bullets used on moose mostly and there may well be other suitable game for them. But I would not load them in any of my guns going after a Swedish moose.

Stefan.

[ 04-17-2003, 03:00: Message edited by: Stefan ]

28 April 2003, 16:21

Atkinson

Your best advise is to never use an unknown to hunt with...ain't worth the risk.

28 April 2003, 16:27

Gatehouse

Ray
Don't worry...I recieved some 300 Grain Noslers and I've worked up a nice accurate load for them using RL15.

I don't feel the need to perform any penetration or other types of test with them...I'm pretty sure they will work fairly well. [Wink]

In fact, if it can't be killed with a 300 Gr Partition at 2500FPS, I'm going to run away. [Big Grin]

29 April 2003, 17:08

caveman1

I had some factory 358norma rounds with the 250 Alaska bullets. Norma recommened that I pull them and dump the powder because of age uncertainty. They said the bullets were pretty good elk/moose bullets!!! I use them for practice rounds. The cases were worth the effort since they cost so much. I use partitions and barnes x for hunting with I4350.