I almost never hunt with factory ammo, so my experience with Remington Core Locts is very limited. This past weekend I wanted to try to kill some depredating feral hogs on our place, and knowing that they were likely to show up in a bunch and killing more than one would require a quick gun, I carried a BAR .270. I don't load for this gun because a number of years ago a friend in the sporting goods business gave me a whole s***load of old Remington-UMC red and green box 130 grain coreloct ammunition (has to be 30+ years old), and it shoots extremely well in this BAR.

At any rate, the BAR did come in handy because I had a whole mob of hogs show up near dark about 225 yards out, stringing by in a parade. I was able to knock down three of them with the four (or was it five?) rounds in the gun, with the gun running out of ammo and the last of them dissapearing over the hill about the same time. These were all grown or virtually grown hogs of 200 pounds+.

The largest hog was hit a bit far back with the bullet angling rearward and exiting out of the ham. It ran about 75 yards before collapsing and expiring. The other two had complete penetrations, and since they were anchored on the spot, I assume good expansion also.

Now to my question: I saw a recent article in Handloader (I think by John Barsness) that indicated a notable difference between the Corelocts of the "good old days" and current production. Do you Coreloct users find this to be the case?

Stonecreek,
Around 1953,I put 2 i80 gr corelocks from a 30'06 broadside through both lungs of a spike buck at 60 yards.
Neither bullet expanded,and the deer ran for 100 yards,with no blood trail.
That soured me on corelocks,I've never used one on game since. However,I did see an illustration of a cutaway of an 'old' and a 'new' corelock bullet. The new bullet has a thinner shell,and will open up better.
It's too late for me,I have found the Hornaday Interlock,and that is what I personally use.
Frank

I remember seeing somewhere that the spitzer Core-Lokts were indeed modified, but that the roundnose weights were left as-is/were.

RSY

My father being a man of poor organization lost all of the ammo I loaded for his .270 and was forced to use facotry Remington 130 spitzer core locts on a whitetail hunt two weeks ago. He shot a monster 9 point first in the shoulder and then in the neck at 80 yards. Both bullets fragmented and failed to penetrate to the far side of the deer. The deer was stopped only because a fragment from the neck shot hit the spinal cord. The bullet that impacted the shoulder did not make it to the far lung. This deer dressed out at 247 pounds. He switched guns after that to fill his doe tag. His 30-06 was shooting factory Remington Core Locks 180gr round nose from 1981. He shot a doe near the same size as the buck and the round almost removed the far shoulder. Exit would was over 6 inches in diameter. Say what you want, but everything Remington makes today is low grade, mass produced trash.

The Corelock that I have a lot of experiance with on game is the 150 gr from a 7mm RM. These were handloaded bulk bullets starting at about 3000 fps. Their performance was outstanding at woods ranges.

I also read that article by Barnsnes. I take all this stuff on bullet performance with a grain of salt. It seems that either I hit them and they die or the bullet misses. Maybe if I used small bullets like some do for game my opinion would be different.

I used the old RN Corelokts for many years in 06, 30-30, 270 and the 300 H&H and I, like Jack O'Connor never had a failure and that is many head of game taken...I used the pointed Corelokt a lot in Africa and never had a failure...

The new corelokt has a soldered core and simply cannot fail...

A certain number of bullet failures must be logged up to poor bullet placements and bullet failure is the oldest excuse for poor shooting that I know of...Simply put even if the bullet fails it will kill if put in the right place on deer size animals....Nothing works in the wrong spot.....

I can't tell you about performance on game. I bought my first 30-06 about 20 yrs ago. A savage 110. The first box of ammo was corloks 165grs. A nice 1+ in group at 100y. A bout a few more boxes. About 10 years later I ran out of that ammo and bought a new box of corloks. Couldn't keep'm on paper. Never tryed'm on game.

The Corelockts did go through a transformation years ago and their jackets are thinner today. Having said that, I can post two instances of succesful Core Lockt performance this year both with a 7mm Rem Mag shooting 150gr Factory CLs. The first was a 180lb boar hog, at 80 yards facing me with a slight quartering. Bullet entered right on the shoulder, angled through the chest cavity and recovered in the skin just in front of the off side ham. Recovered bullet weighed 122grains.The boar dropped on the spot.

The second shot was my son's first buck a perfect double shoulder shot on the 8 pointer at 100 yards. Broke both shoulders and kept going. Deer dropped and tried to run but couldn't make much progress with both shoulders shot. I think they are the equal of Hornady Interlocks which I also use. I think they are great bullets for general hunting and they ae available at ANY Wal-Mart nation wide. Now on a "money" hunt for elk or larger and of course Africa, then A Frames it is! jorge