I have two boxes of 300gr Winchester Sliver tips,boxes look very old.I plan to use them on pigs and ferals.But out of interest has anyone used the Sliver tip bullet in Africa and/or any other big game??

Back in the early 90's my brother used them, I don't recall him complaining.

Sent you a pm with question?

quote:

Originally posted by TOP_PREDATOR:
... out of interest has anyone used the Sliver tip bullet in Africa and/or any other big game??

Peter Hathaway Capstick used them frequently on the hunts he made and wrote of.
Of course his results with them could have been works of fiction.

quote:

Originally posted by TOP_PREDATOR:
I have two boxes of 300gr Winchester Sliver tips,boxes look very old.I plan to use them on pigs and ferals.But out of interest has anyone used the Sliver tip bullet in Africa and/or any other big game??

I shot them some back in the '60's and early '70's and found them very fragile. I don't know that I ever lost any game, but never recovered anything but fragments. I thoughts the 270 Win SP held together a lot better. I hopped one of them up out of a .378 and on a wolf at a 100 yds the skin on the off side held a lot of fragments, but nothing exited.

They have a poor reputation on African game, apparently, but may work for your application.

When in doubt, shoot behind the shoulder, and they should work.

George

The old timers used them with fair success and then they went on to have a terrible reputation.

The reason is that the older ones had a thicker silver cap of nickel. This was then replaced with a thinner aluminum cap, making the bullet more fragile.

I guess it was never a 'premium' like we know today but good for its time when it had the thicker nickel cap.

quote:

Originally posted by kayaker:
The old timers used them with fair success and then they went on to have a terrible reputation.

The reason is that the older ones had a thicker silver cap of nickel. This was then replaced with a thinner aluminum cap, making the bullet more fragile.

I guess it was never a 'premium' like we know today but good for its time when it had the thicker nickel cap.

I think that's a pretty accurate assesment

Depending on how old your boxes are you may find a collector who is interested enough to cause one to reconsider shooting them up. Especially if the box is the old Win box with the bear on the front, and in small print on the lower left side " silver colored jacket composed of copper, nickel, and zinc." You might could get $2-300.00 per box if they are in excellent condition.

Bad reputation on thicker skinned critters. No go to Africa in my book, even on plains game. Oh, I don't know, I might take them to shoot baboons.

I bought and shot Winchester Silver Tips about 25 years ago in my 30/06. They were 220 gr. bullets. I have never heard of them for the 375 H&H?

I shot those silver tip bullets about 25 years ago with my 30/06 220 gr bullets. I Didn't know
They were still around. Nothing bad to say about the Silver tip bullets.

In .375, they were reputed to be good lion, leopard and light to medium PG bullets, but not good for heavier game. Never used them myself.

There were two brands of Silvertips.

The original which has a nickle silver tip, is more of a RN design than the later onbe which used Aluminum and was more pointed.

You can probably tell which you have by markings on box.

The original was very fragile and had a conventional jacket.

The later had a very thick jacket and was a decent (conventional) bullet.

If you find any old yellow box 270 gr Power Point they are very strong for a conventional bullet. 0.49 or more thick brass jacket.

Andy

Some of the very early bullets were quite good, but today the simply suck!

I see little reason to use any conventional bullet( meaning those that control expansion by the contour of the jacket) on big game today, they are yesterdays bullets...

Today we have reasonably priced properly constructed bullets like Nosler, woodleigh, GS Customs, Swift, Barnes X, and a host of others, that are premiums or super premiums and they never fail short of a crack in the jacket or some production mishap..Says wonders for todays bullet makers.

They sure as heck don't work for buffalo- see quite a few people arriving with them...don't even work well for cow buffalo,

Superb leopard bullet

Noted Portuguese PH and author Jose Pardal lauded them in his book, "Cambaco." In fact, he preferred them over the Kynoch fodder at the time and has two entire pages in color of pictures of recovered bullets. My uncle used them in Angola & Mozambique in a 270 to kill PG and a lion (yikes!) with the Silvertip. With today's Super Premiums, I'd relegate them for target practice or like you intend feral hogs. jorge

I bought about 1500 back in 97 and with 79 grains of reloader 19 have taken without the slightest trouble, the following: Elk, wt deer, mule deer, black bear, brown bear, polar bear, musk ox, seal, nyala, gemsbok, blue wildebeest, kudu, cape eland, african wildcat, african porcupine, bush pig, bushbuck, baboon, and countless ground squirrels.

The 300 grain silvertip in 375 can't be that crappy, can it?

I neck shot an 80 pound doe whitetail with one a few years ago and from the looks of the wound I wouldn't use one on anything I needed very much penetration on. The bullet seemed very explosive.

Perry