I shot the Winchester Model 70 Alaskan 375 HH yesterday. Here is the run down.

Ammo: Winchester Super X Silver Tips (not ballistic) from the 1990s.

I was using the iron sights. Shooting off the sticks. I fired four shots over the chrono. The loads ran as follows out of the 25 inch barrel:

2507;
2487;
2522;
2572

The Average was 2,522. The average foot pounds per square inch at the muzzle is 4,237.

No one can complain about a factory load reaching 2522 fps at the muzzle. There is a lot of space between the base of the bullet and powder charge. I honestly thought these loads would not break 2350.

Accuracy. I shot a less than an inch right out of the center of the a six inch plate. The brace stick in the center was 1/4 inch wide. I cut that in half. 30 yards off sticks with iron sights is not an accuracy test, but a good test of my use of the iron sights.

The recoil was not heavy.

We moved back to 50 yards. I shot four more rounds of 270 grain Hornady Spire Points Superformance. The loads read as follows over the chrono:
2849;
2876;
2871;
2852.

The average was 2862. The average foot pounds at the muzzle is 4910 fpe. The drop at 300 feet is 7.7 inches. This lead touched put all four rounds touching one another.

I have used a similar 270 grain Spirepoint load in one of my African 375 Rugers to shoot the large Euro-boar and an elk. All exits through heavy bone.

The Hornaday 270 grain Spirepoint is not the toughest bullet. The recoil is heavy. The recoil of Winchester is less because the length of pull is a good inch longer than the Ruger. The Winchester kicks with this load, but the Ruger African Kicks me more do to the shorter length of pull.

This load in the 375 Ruger African split the walnut stock at the forearm lengthwise after two shots. A new stock with some reinforcement has made my Walnut stock 375 Ruger African very useful.

The Silvertips on paper are a great load. Most factory 375 loads today are rated at 2400-2450 fps. The Silvertip is why PHs for most of my life would not allow soft points on buffalo. I have 246 of these left. I am going to take this load and rifle hog hunting.

I will not scope this rifle until the end of the year. I am thinking of a VX6 2x12.

The temp was 100 degrees. We kept the ammo cool.

I used 300 grain Silvertips in my Krieghoff .375 H&H double rifle to take lion, leopard, eland, greater and lesser kudu. All but the eland were one shot kills, and the eland was dead and didn't know it. The second shot hit him in the hip joint as he was turning away to flee. The perfectly expanded bullet was recovered in the socket of the joint.

I still have several boxes of the "Fail Safes" from years back. They are a great bullet but on thin-skinned game they will go right through. Hit a bone however + it's a whole new game.

Those loads are moving along, epecially the 270 grain load.

I only used Silvertips once on safari about 40 years ago.

Worked fine, but they were very fragile.

Shot a warthog running across. Hit him on the point of the shoulder. He continued running for about 100 yards before he fell dead.

His shoulder was destroyed, but the bullet never made it into the chest cavity.

I shoot the 375 Ruger,as to recoil, its an attention getter, but held hard its Ok for me..Mine is a Hawkeye wood and blue, at 7.5 Lbs, 8.5 lbs with a scope and mounts loaded..

Its easy to get a tad over 2600 fps with a 300 gr. bullet in the Ruger or the Holland, but you get better penetration at 2400 to 2500 fps, so that's where I shot most of my AFrican game with the Holland, including buffalo and I got nice toadstool recovered bullets and all the penetration I ever needed..and the recoil was considerably less..I have graduated to the Ruger these days, It only took me 40 years to admit it might be a bit better, but sans nostalgia it is IMO..Nostalgia has played a big part in my hunting and choice of firearms, but this has been the exception, at least so far.

Those are pretty impressive velocities from the Silvertips. The Hornady stuff is in a different league; the Superformance line of ammo does take ballistics to a new level. In that regard, I really like the innovations coming out as of late.

On the Silvertips themselves, are they good or bad? I've never used them on game but I read stories of hunters in both NA and Africa using them on heavier animals with success. I've also read a few stories of (mostly African) hunters taking a knife and popping the tip off when they wanted to go for something smaller and needed the quicker expansion. Neat to imagine.

I have done considerable research on the 2 legendary brown bear guides on Kodiak Island, Bill Pinnell and Morris Talifson. Both of them used .375 H&Hs in their model 70s for over 40 years. They started out using Silvertips and found them not holding together. I spoke at length to one of their guides who told me they even sent some samples of bullets they had dug out of bears back to winchester. They ended up using CoreLoks the rest of their careers. If you want an interesting read about them, get the book "The Last of the Great Brown Bear Men."

Devere: I read your article on Pand T and there 375 Winchester Model 70 Winchesters.

Thank you for the great article.

Im a little confused.

In the original post the ammo was Ballistic tips. Are you talking about the newer Winchester Ballistic Silvertips or the older Silvertips? They are not the same bullet.

mr. cougarz: I was responding to those who had made comments on "silvertips". P&T would have used the original silvertips as their guiding careers were from 1949 or 50 up thru somewhere in the early 90s I believe, and they surely changed over to using Coreloks quite early in those years.

quote:

Originally posted by devere:
mr. cougarz: I was responding to those who had made comments on "silvertips". P&T would have used the original silvertips as their guiding careers were from 1949 or 50 up thru somewhere in the early 90s I believe, and they surely changed over to using Coreloks quite early in those years.

Yes, Cougar. The bullets I grew up with were Ballistic Silvertips. These are silvertips. My mind makes Silvertips-Ballistic Silvertips automatically bc it is so use to it.

These are white box with red and orange banner from 1990s Silvertips.

Sorry, for confusion.

What one has to realize is that Silvertips have been the best bullet and the worst, just depends on what time field you used them. Originally they were bad, Winchester fixed them and they were good, so good they fixed them again and they were bad, and so on that's been the history of Silvertips..I discussed this with Finn Aagaard on a couple of occasions. He had the time element figured out pretty close, wish I had written it down..He was spot on for sure..Winchester just can't get it through their heads, if it ain't broke, don,t fix it..The bean counters fresh out of school are apparantly less than brilliant, they ate the covers off their books.

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:

Yes, Cougar. The bullets I grew up with were Ballistic Silvertips. These are silvertips. My mind makes Silvertips-Ballistic Silvertips automatically bc it is so use to it.

These are white box with red and orange banner from 1990s Silvertips.

Sorry, for confusion.

Gotcha, thanks for setting me straight.

I only used the old Silvertips one time I can remember on an elk in the 1970's. Most my shots were pretty close range in the Cascade mountains so bullets hit at close to maximum velocity. It worked ok but I had a preference for Corelokts which were always pretty reliable for me. That time period was also when I started to handload so I could use 180gr Nosler Partition's in my .30-06, I never looked back.

Cougar: Thank you for getting me straight.

I too and to this day Im a Corelokt fan,they still work,and now they have a bonded core, so I guess that's a good thing..I have some old loaded 375s with Silvertips from yesteryear, I will probably use them on deer, so no matter their DNA, the will work well enough..

My understanding of the old original Silvertips (in all calibres) was they were a delayed expansion bullet and then they let go but were still travelling at high velocity when they let go inside the animal.

I think it was 1967 or 1968 and I got my first 270, a Sako. On ny first shooting trip with it I took all sorts of bullets (we would reload in the field) and including 130 grain Silvertip factory ammo.

I chest shot a lot of the large male Red Kangaroos with them. While they are large in the lower part of the chest (remember they are sstanding up) they are not muscled there, so not a stong resistance to a bullet as would be a similar weight deer or pig.

With 100 grainers they would drop on the spot. With the Silvertips they would nearly always hop off for a 100 yards or so. However, the size of the exist holes were huge. They looked and acted like little damage was done inside them but they expaned quickly on the offside and blew the rib cage out, I guess because they were still going fast when they hit the other side.

In Australia quite a few blokes use the 6mm PPC and with bullets that are benchrest rejects from the blokes that make them. 68 grains is the common weight. They will all tell you they leave any other bullet way behind whether shot in the PPC or 243. With the benchrest bullets, unlike normal hollow points from Hornady etc. the nose of the bullet thickens when the point is swaged. So expansion is delayed, sort of similar to the Silvertip used to do.

Saw a box of 220gr silver tips in .30-06. What is a comparable bullet to the silver tip that is still being produced?

I saw some silvertips sold in the classifieds here and they went for a lot more than I would have guessed. Maybe I'm spoiled with the SPS factory seconds..or perhaps I don't know what I'm missing with the silvertips

Well maybe Corelokts or who ever still makes cup & core non bonded soft points I would think.

I love the way Silvertips looked though and they do have the advantage of not battering the nose during recoil while sitting in the magazine.

Too bad Winchester never made a more modern bonded core version.

quote:

Originally posted by Cougarz:

I love the way Silvertips looked though and they do have the advantage of not battering the nose during recoil while sitting in the magazine.

They look great in the 375 as did the original 270 grain Power Points. Both also had the right ogive for the freebore a 375 has and the 3.6" OAL loaded length.

quote:

Originally posted by Cougarz:
Well maybe Corelokts or who ever still makes cup & core non bonded soft points I would think.

I love the way Silvertips looked though and they do have the advantage of not battering the nose during recoil while sitting in the magazine.

Too bad Winchester never made a more modern bonded core version.

Hornady still makes the cup and core 270 and 300 grain Spirepoints. The 270 grain is loaded in the Dangerous Game series.

Hornady and the interlock is not my favorite over all, but the 270 grain PP Spirepoint is the only bullet I have used hunting. Exits through elk neck, 3 shots exits thru my big boar, and of course leaf the wise a whitetail buck.

I think in the 375 the lack of exposed lead tip and a heavier jacket makes it perform “better compared to other interlocks I have tried. I would not use it on Buffalo but it appears fine on 600-700 pound animals.

I tried to catch one in water yesterday. I did not use enough buckets.

Then there are Sierra Game Kings in 375.

I read on this forum that the Corelockt is now being made by Hornady for Remington.

My gunsmith was an engineer for Remington he told me the Corelockt he was making was nothing like the Corelockt you gentlemen used back in the day. Based on how soft the performance I had with them I agree. He said the inner locking belt was drastically reduced to just the canaclur pinching the jacket.

He does not know what Hornady is doing assuming Hornady is making the Corelockt.

If I recall correctly, the Remington 375 H&H bullets were NOT CoreLokt but stated on the box as soft points. Anyone, please clarify.

Thanks,
Geoff

quote:

Originally posted by geoff:
If I recall correctly, the Remington 375 H&H bullets were NOT CoreLokt but stated on the box as soft points. Anyone, please clarify.

Thanks,
Geoff

That's correct. I don't know who the projectile supplier/maker was, but they are are NOT Corlokts.

This is just a bet, but I would go with Hornady Interlock bc that is the bullet used in Federal Blue box.

I would like to see Devere opine on this issue. As Hornady would not have been making or supplying bullets used by P&T.

Cougarz,
Winchester still makes the Silvertip but in no way looks like the old silvertip of yesterday, its black with a white nose, and resembles the Balistic Tip more that anything else..I have 60 of them loaded but have never shot them, I hesitate to use a bullet that I have no knowledge of...

quote:

Originally posted by secondtry:

quote:

Originally posted by geoff:
If I recall correctly, the Remington 375 H&H bullets were NOT CoreLokt but stated on the box as soft points. Anyone, please clarify.

Thanks,
Geoff

That's correct. I don't know who the projectile supplier/maker was, but they are are NOT Corlokts.

They look like Hornady RN to me.

mr. lheym500: While I've handled Morris's .375, I've not peresonally seen any of their ammo. The pictures taken for the article were taken in 2011 and sent to me by the owner of the rifle. I went back and looked at the pics in my computer and there are a couple of them with the factory ammo box in the background with the Remington "Kleanbore" name on the green and red box. The info re: the failures of the factory silvertips came to me from one of their assistant guides, a man I know quite well who was also a real gun guy. That info was based on my friend working for them in the early 90s so those failures were occuring somewhere prior to that time, and my best guess is that is was quite a ways back, as their praise for the CoreLoks had been over quite a period of time.

Devere: In your article you do give the associate credit for witnessing the failures with the Silvertips.

In the article you ask why the rifles of out great N.American hunter’s rifles are not more romanticized or subject of writing.

In part, this is due to N. American hunters not writing about their exploits and the rifles used in making those legends.

We know Hemingway’s rifles and guns because he wrote them down to us. Likewise, President Roosevelt and Roark wrote of their rifles.

Remington today makes a soft point, the original corelokt, and a bonded core corelokt, they also sell these to the customer as bullets only..can be hard to find however, they also make a monolithic Hollow Point 150 gr. for the 30-30, and those puppies will shoot thru an elk broadside and even at an angle according to my horse shoer, who is an avid elk hunter stays in the high country thru bow season and rifle season packs in on horses and sets up house keeping..These new 30-30 bullets like mighty close to Barnes TSXs...

Ray-
I have a box of the old 300 gr SilverTips
with silver tips and the white W-W box.
I prefer the North Forks, Hawks and Nosler partitions.Also a box of 300 gr Woodleighs
and some failsafes, along with Hornady 300 gr steel jacketed solids. Even have some old 350 gr Barnes originals. They will work on thin skinned game,
just like the Hawks. They all work well in my 1952 Model 70.

Most of todays bullets work great, we just like to discuss the issue as we did back in the day. I can't remember a recent (last 20 years) of a truly failed bullet..

I believe if the bullets say corelokt they are Remington or so Im told as its a copyright or whatever...

Ive never had a problem with the Hornday interlock bullet in any caliber and Ive shot game with them for years. Never had one fail, on a spine shot like all bullets they stay together in a ragged mess, but the spine is a true test of bullet integrity...

The 300 gr Sierra in the .375 H&H is another bullet that's always performed perfectly even on Buffalo and Hippo and it shoots as flat as say a 180 gr. 30-06 or the 150 gr. 270 for all practical purpose..

My favorite 375 bullets for DG are the 350 gr. Woodleigh PP or the North Fork cup point, and the GS Custom line of bullets, Noslers are always good..