Evening gents
I have reached the age where most of my friend's grandparents as well as my own have passed and as well as our own parents hitting their 70's and 80's, some have passed. When the opportunity arises I will buy their ammo, most of which is from the 50's - 80's.
I had the itch to shoot some of it recently. I grabbed my pre 64 m70 270 and hit the range.
I shot yellow box Western, white box Super X, orangish box Norma, old Federal and Hornady, green and yellow Remington and pony express Super X. It all chrono'd about 3,000 fps and largest group was 3/4".
So here's my question.
How much different are today's standard cup and core compared to days of yore? In regards to reliablity? Lethality?

Perry

about the same in reliability but todays bullets are more lethal IMO..I remember a lot of failures back in the 40s and 50s..bullet too soft, too hard, they kept at it until they got it all right and that's today...All bullets today are better than yesterdays bullets, at least on game is the bottom line..I would probably say the Remington Corelokt, the WW Powerpoint to be an exception, they are still as good as the best, maybe better...Its not a open and shut case btw...But lets be honest the bullet boys have done one hell of a job of improving todays bullets, the super premiums are the all time best...

Ray has hit the nail right on the head.

+1 for what ray said

I buy the ammo for the plinking factor and then you have reloadable brass. I never dreamed the velocities and accuracy would be as good as it was.
I'm going to have to shoot a hog or two dozen with them just for curiosity sake
It is interesting that when you weigh the various Winchester/Western 130gr ammo's over several decades, it's all with in a few grains. I guess the recipe did not change much from the 1950's to now.
Perry

A friend has loaded up 156gr 1960s model Norma Alaska for his Husqvarna m1896 6,5*55 with peep sight for this years moose season.

I am getting long in the tooth, as in your parents age and I have shot factory loaded ammo over the years. What I haven't been able to understand is how any critter can be any deader than dead. I haven't shot much factory ammo at all for several decades but what I have seen is the accuracy of the off the shelf isn't what it used to show. I mostly shot Remington Corelokt in the green and yellow boxes and was never disappointed with accuracy. I have used and witnessed the use of factory ammo in the last ten years that was just deplorable. I guess the mentality is that something newer just has to be better. Some of these newer monometal bullets just pass through animals just like shooting them with FMJ military ammo and the critter doesn't even slow down. I guess that just hones the hunter's tracking skills, but I won't use them.

I have been involved in assisting many youth get deer with .222 and .223's. A 55 grain cup and core like the Remington Corelok or Winchester equivalent is all you need. Dead is dead. For the most part someone that comes along and says "premium" bullets or heavy for caliber is needed, probably has a vast more experience at it than me. But their experience is on the keyboard only where mine was in the field.

I have always done well with Remington Corelokt bullets. Had some failures using Sierras, but never lost an animal.

quote:

Originally posted by perry:
I buy the ammo for the plinking factor and then you have reloadable brass. I never dreamed the velocities and accuracy would be as good as it was.
I'm going to have to shoot a hog or two dozen with them just for curiosity sake
It is interesting that when you weigh the various Winchester/Western 130gr ammo's over several decades, it's all with in a few grains. I guess the recipe did not change much from the 1950's to now.
Perry

Personally I think that cup and core bullets worked just fine back in the day "when they were applied the way they were intended to work". There is a reason why old loading manuals and ammo boxes prescribed specific bullets to light, medium and big animals (including some solids). And that same reason was why rifles like the 35 Whelen were designed. For bigger heavier slugs to do the heavy work, and THAT principle worked then and still does today. Cup and core is all about proper dosage and placement, and I would submit that there have been far more failures of shooters to grasp that concept than in failures of the bullet itself.


The onslaught of reports of "bullet failures" hit a fevered pitch in the 60's when the whiz-bang Magnum craze really got some legs and certain gun writers began talking about the zippity do dah miraculous shock effect of calibers like the 220 swift. That was when shooters began to step back and complain that their 150 grain deer slug from a 300 WM somehow didnt drop their Elk the way they were led to believe it should. As if those "bullet failures" were bouncing off of the suddenly armor plated Critters. (Also see; shooter failure) But use a 200 gn core lock from back in the day in that WM, (which is nothing special really, just a plain jane cup and core made the right way), put it in the boiler room, and your results should be just as satisfactory today as it ever was.

If cup and core bullets from the 50's were simply too weak to get the job done, if they were bouncing off of deer from a 30-06, how in the bleep did anyone ever kill anything with a lead round ball from a muzzelloader? Are we to believe that a 40 caliber round ball is somehow superior to a simple 30 caliber cup and core? If so I am going to start selling cast bullets as "Premiums"!!! No core separation guaranteed! Pfft..

Dont buy the nonsense. Damage kills. And a well placed cup and core applied as intended will do a hell of a lot of damage to critters made of flesh and blood.

Shooting Texas Hill country whitetail with a 222, 223 and such is fine, those are small deer and Ive culled many of them, shot lots of bucks and never had a failure with my .222 and a 60 gr. Hornady sp or HP...Ive even seen that work on Mule deer as my kids, grand kids used it as their first deer rifle..

Corelokts, WW Power Points, Western 130 gr. HP in the 270, were my favorites in the early 1950s and they worked on deer and elk as kid the Silvertip and corelokt on elk in my 250 Savage, or the WW and Rem Cl in my 25-35..got close and made the shot count..Thats what we used, all factory ammo, because its all we had, and we had failures, yes we did, but we never lost an animal that I recall, but I remember some long tracking jobs and long days, fortunately my dad and his brothers are all ranchers been tracking their own cattle huge desert ranches for years and they could track as could grampaw who was a Texas Ranger that tracked Mexican bandits with a Siminole Indian for Gen. Cook or some Army General on the Neuaces Strip in Texas. They could track..Today its pretty much a lost art even in Africa and Mexico.

I've been digging through my collection this week and I found two more "interesting" boxes, to me at least.
Norma 150gr "Olympic grade accuracy" boat tail soft points. And, Frontier 150gr soft points. The Frontier are loaded in military 30-06 cases.
Going shooting today, I'll report back

I really need to list some of these in the classifieds and share the wealth. I have enough 270 ammo to choke a horse!
It is fun to go shooting for .50/rd and then wind up with a good pile of once fired brass!

Perry

I shot the old Norma's today. 1/2 " group at 100 yds. Not bad for 60 yr old ammo

Perry