Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Bullet history, bronze points and silver tips?

When I first started hunting Remington made Bronze tipped bullets, Winchester made silver tips, not to be confused with ballistic silver tips. Would someone give me the low down on these bullets? Thanks captdavid

The Remington Bronze point had a tip of I guess bronze in the same manner as the current tipped cartridges like Noslers Ballistic tips and other current tipped bullets.
The Silver tip was just a thin cap over a normal lead point in place and said to protect the point. It always worked for me and killed deer just fine. Never used the Remington bullet (Bronze Point) but IIRC it was Jack O'Connor who said they either penciled though or blew up like a bomb. Never used them that I can recall so can't say if Jack was right.
Paul B.

I have used both back in my teens. Both were "explosive" shattering in the game, but the Silver-tip was the worse of the two.
I used them in 30 cals and 270. Not what I like in either.

In the old 30-30 the 170 Gr Silver-tip did ok, and it also seemed to do fine with the 300 grain 375H&H, but I only killed 2 deer with the 170 gr silver-tips from my 30-30, and one large Idaho Elk with the 375, so my experience with those 2 bullets was very limited. Other reading this may have more info. Please chime in if you do.

I saw predictably bad results from the 130 gr 270 S.T. and the 150 and 180 gr ST from 30-06.
I killed about 6 deer with the 270 and the 130 Gr ST and about the same number of deer with the 30-06 with both 150 and 180 grain ST bullets. No good to say about them, other than they were quite accurate. In my old Winchester 270 the 130 gr STs were some of the most accurate bullet I ever shot.

The Bronze Points I used were also in 270 and 30-06. They came apart badly too, but not as violently as the S.Ts.

Both bullets were thinly jacketed and the tips are basically just "wind-screens"

I still have almost a box of 30-03 Silver Tips.Back in the 50's that is about all anyone in the PA mountains used if they had 30-30.Most were 170gr,but some preferred the 150 gr.I don't remember them being all that explosive, but it has been awhile. I left home and moved to NM in1964 ,and only got that rifle 4-5 years ago when my father passed away,along with what ammunition was in the gun cabinett

In 1966 I killed my first elk with the Rem Bronze point, .308. I don't have notes as to the weight,but I suspect the powder was 4064.
I clearly remember he hunt though.

Opening day in NE NM south of the Latir Lakes region. First light,we came upon three bull elk.Flip of the coin,I had last shot.First kill was with an .06 , next with a .270 and then me.By that time the bull was heading down to the timber as we were above timberline. He was out there quite a ways and down at a fairly steep angle.First shot took him down thru the back, liver, angle forward I found the bullet in the hide down below the front knee.Looked like it came out his chest and then into the leg. It had little deformation on the point,but other than that the only marks were the rifling. When hit,the bull went about 50 yards and stopped in a small stand of trees.I went down,within 150 yards and shot it again in the neck, .It dropped. That bullet passed thru so I never found it. 3 bulls down in the first 15 minutes of the season.

I don't remember any other kills with that bullet, but I am sure it took several deer.

Another popular bullet back then was a Norma 130 gr in 30 cal.I loaded it for my 308. It had a silver color jacket on it, but I don't recall the material and it was boat tail. It was pretty explosive on deer,but very effective

When I got my Remington 660 in 6mm, my Father bought all of the Remington and Peters 90 grain BP 244 ammo that he could find, around 40 boxes, 'cause he thought that it was the best 244/6mm factory deer load available. They worked fine until I started to load my own with 100 grain Partitions and no longer needed the factory ammo. I still have 20 or so boxes of the Peters brand ammo in a plastic tote box at the storage unit.

I have fond memories of the Silver Tip's in both the 150gr. 30.06 and 130's in the .270. My first attempt at reloading was for my Rem.M721 in 30.06. My local gun shop in those days(1962) didn't have many bullets to choose from but they had 150gr Silver Tips. So that's what I used. Besides, I liked Winchester's adds in Outdoor Life. You might say I was buying the sizzle and not the steak. Compared to today those were innocent days. I shot jack rabbits by the hundreds and dozens of deer, the Lone Ranger bullets never let me down. In my innocence, I never thought they could. You see if a deer didn't go straight down, I thought it was because I had made a less than perfect shot. Almost forgot, I have had no experience with Remington's BP.

I never used the Bronze Tip, but used the old SilverTips. I reloaded them in a 30-06. I thought they worked better as far as penatration, then say the old Fedral HI-Shoks.

I believe that it is John B. who has pointed out that there were Silver Tips and then there were Silver Tips.

Didn't Peter Hathaway Capstick write about prying the tip caps off of Winchester/Olin factory loads for shooting leopards with the 375 H&H?

I've got a couple hundred Bronze Point projectiles I bought from Midway 10-15 years ago in 150gr .308 caliber. I shot one deer with them and they seem to work just about like the early Ballistic Tips did before Nosler started contouring the jackets.

They worked fine, I used them back in the olden days

I still have a bunch of 30/30's with ST ammo.. have killed deer & antelope with them no problem. Have some to load in my .270 and various.30 cal. rifles.. More on those later.

I may be able to add some to this discussion.

As a boy being raised on an Adirondack farm I saw the Rem Bronze points. My Dad hunted with a 300 Savage and there were four 300Sav Bronze Points laying in the "Cartridge Drawer" in the kitchen where Dad kept his ammo. I used to hold these mysterious things and imagine what they could do. They had, as you said, a Ballistic Tip type pointed bronze insert. It protruded about a quarter inch from the front of the bullet - Ballistic Tip like.

My dad wasn't particularly impressed with them for deer ammo. He said that the tip would separate from the lead and pass on through the deer and sometimes you could hear them ricocheting through the brush beyond. I'm attempting to recall them and his stories from the mid to late 1940's. His stories always proved to be accurate and I have a clear visual memory of the Bronze Points.

Dad's stories about shooting deer with them tend to support the Jack O'Connor accounts about them blowing up and/or penciling through. I remember his disfavor for them emanated from the meat destruction, separation, and the bronze point "penciling through."

Jim

I've heard more than a few natives from out in bush Alaska come looking for Bronze Points because they are "bone breakers".

I shot a few deer with 180 STs in 30/06 factory loads. Had all kinds of various performances from excellent to piss poor.

In the "olden days," J O'C and Elmer Keith used to brag about the Western Tool and Copper Works bullets in their favorite caliber, '06, 270, and 7mm. It's dependability was largely due to the large amount of lead exposed, but only because of the lower velocities in those cartridges. When faster cartridges came out, the bullets "exploded" and lost the ability to penetrate.
The BP and ST were to compete them. The jacket of the BP wasn't tapered and tended to thicken when drawn, so penetrated deeply, and needed to have the bronze wedge to initiate expansion so it wouldn't "pencil through." Often it wouldn't work, so would go on through, as with large bones.
STs were the large exposed tips with an aluminum cover, to retard expansion. It was difficult to manufacture a small tipped bullet with the little cover, so as velocities went up, the ST wasn't effective, so fell to the wayside.
In the '06 180 grain, .270 150 grain, 7x57 with 175 grain, and 7mm/06 with 160 and 175 grain, there were few combination that were as good for large deer, Elk, and Moose. That is where thse cartridges got their reps.
The last to go was the .30-30 with 170 grain STs. It was never expected to go fast, therefore worked very well. It was just too expensive to produce for only one loading.
In my "collection," I still have a 1/2 box or so of 180 STs, and a few less of 150 and 180 BPs, and several boxes of loaded .30/30 170 grainers, just in case I get to go hunting deer again, and decide to carry one of the old rifles, instead of a newer magnum.
Have fun,
Gene

My dad used both of them in his 30-06 when he went out west for elk every fall. He always brought meat home. He used core lokts for deer hunting locally.

these are pretty much varmint bullets at .300 WM speeds...

Although my Father wasn't much of a game hunter, he was primarily a 'chuck shooter, Bearrr264's Father did the same thing that your Father did when I knew him. He shot 180 grain BT Remington factory loads in his elk rifle, a pre-'64 Winchester 70, and 180 grain RNCL Remington factory loads in his deer, black bear, and moose rifle, a Remington 760 with the barrel chopped off at 17".

My only experience with Silver Tips has been round nose 190's in .303 Savage. They've killed deer and caribou wonderfully for me.

When I was a kid, I had two rounds of.30-06 with 150 grain Bronze Points. I used them to kill two woodchucks. One was standing up facing me at about 20 feet. I hit it square in the center chest, it fell forward and commenced to run furiously in about a thirty foot circle, got back to where it started, realized it was dead, and collapsed. The second one was running straight away at about fifty yards when I fired. When I got up to it the head and a strip of belly skin were the only things that hadn't completely disintegrated.

As 5sdad already pointed out about one of my previous posts stating "there were Silvertips and there were Silvertips," they could act in very different ways, not just due to velocity but manufacturing differences from lot to lot. Some batches apparently had pretty thick jackets, and some did not.

Among my Montana friends is a guy who had quite a collection of perfectly mushroomed 130-grain .270 Silvertips pulled from dead deer and elk. His father had purchased a batch of 1000 many years ago and those always worked well.

At the other extreme was my late friend Walter White, who killed a brown bear with a 30+ inch skull on Kodiak Island, as I recall in the early 1950's (it's listed in the B&C records if anybody cares to look it up). He used a .375 H&H with 300-grain Silvertips and had to top off the magazine at least twice before one of the bullets got inside the big bear's chest and killed it. Luckily the bear was across a small river and couldn't charge easily.

I shot my last big game animal with Silvertips in the mid-1980's, when a 150-grain bullet from a .30-06 factory load (muzzle velocity about 2850 fps from my rifle) came apart on the shoulder of a forkhorn mule deer at about 200 yards. It broke the shoulder but the empty jacket then flattened against the deer's ribs. I had to track it for half a mile before putting another behind the shoulder, which killed the buck. Haven't used them since.

Have no experience with the Bronze Points, since nobody I ever knew used them.

One of the guys in our camp got hassled by a game warden once, back in the mid-80's, for using Bronze Points. The guy claimed they were "armor piercing ammo" due to the fact there was no lead exposed! It took a lot of convincing before the ignoramus decided not to write a ticket.

My story about the Rem Bronze Points is similar to others here. I liked the looks and the aerodynamics and they were accurate. I thot with the point protecting the tip they ought to be the cat's meow.

But then I read of their explosiveness so I never hunted them.


These WW STs I bought many yrs ago from Midway.



I have been 'told' these with the small ring in front of the cannelure were manufactured with heavier jackets for higher velocity. So far I can't verify that.



Jerry

10 Years ago in Northern Michigan I shot a Buck in the left front shoulder with a 303 Savage 190 grain factory Silver Tip. The bullet blew apart on impact, tracked the deer for a half mile until no more blood trail. Later that afternoon someone from the next camp shot the same deer. I went to look at it hanging on the buck pole. The front shoulder was a complete mess but the bullet did not penetrate into the vitals. That was the last Silver Tip I shot at a deer. Now the 303 Savage in not a high velocity round. Approx 2000 feet per second with the 190 grain bullet. The deer was at 65 yards when I pulled the trigger. I have shot other deer with the same rifle and 150 grain Hornady Round Nose hand loads that had complete penetration and dead deer. Not a Silver Tip fan, although they look kind cool in a Vintage Rifle, but I will not go back to them. Still have serveral boxes of factory rounds.

I guessing there's a reason John Nosler came out with the Partition.

Remington specifically marketed the bronze points as long range bullets that would open up reliably after velocity had dropped. Their ads always showed a smiling sheep or antelope hunter who had used them for some 400 yard shot. The idea being that the metal point drove into the lead and initiated expansion. If they hit at a high impact velocity they would open way too fast.

I can imagine Remington’s frustration when they specifically told people “use them for when you need something that opens reliably at longer range”, the implication being that they were not best used at shorter ranges, and then people complained that they opened up too fast when an animal was shot at 100 yards. Recall that the first Ballistic Tips were scorned as being too explosive until Nosler finally put a thicker jacket on the heavier ones.

I bought a bunch of 165 grain .30 caliber bronze points cheap through the classifieds here and used them for practice rounds but they grouped about as well as most any other standard bullet.

Iv killed a few deer with the 190 grain silver tip bullets, they worked very well in my 303 savage 99s! if anyone has any of the 190s and would like to sell them send me a PM!

Jim,

A Montana rancher I worked for after getting out of high school (my first full-time job) claimed that Bronze Points were favored by bear hunters, because their "tough tips" penetrated better on bears. Of course, he'd never shot any kind of bear, or any big game except antelope and deer.

In fact, he was as FOS on every rifle subject as anybody I've ever known, but was as willing to lecture anybody on any of them as a 20-year-old gun counter nitwit.

Have shot many a big whitetail with 180gr. Silvertip factory loads out of an '06. They were my dads and are in yellow and red boxes. Maybe these old bullets are tougher or I just get lucky but I have had absolutely perfect results over the years. Never had a bullet blow up even through both shoulders. Have had them lose a bunch of weight but it doesn't bother me because they have got the job done. Wouldn't use them on anything bigger than deer though. Have no experience with Bronze Points. MD knows way more about this stuff than I do though. Just my experience with old rounds.

Shot my first buck with my gramps 300H&H and 180 silvertips, came in a blue and yellow box with the angry grizzly picture on it. They were pretty old even back then, there were only 3 or 4 left in the box. I put them in my pocket and went hunting. Saw a buck maybe 40-50 yards walking broadside, shot it tight behind the shoulder thru the ribs, it went about 50 yds and laid down. Walked up and shot it in the neck, nearly decapitated it. The first shot hit a rib, fragmented and broke/smashed both ribs either side of the one it hit, there was nothing but shrapnel got to the lungs judging by the many little lacerations in an eight or ten inch diameter area behind the ribcage into the lungs.

I started shooting silver tip bullets about 1965. At first I shot just 130 270 bullets. I only recovered two, but they weighed 98 and 100 grains. both shot into deer. I also shot one moose with3006 and 180 gr silver tips. I shot it three times recovered two which averaged 71% weight retention and the 3rd was a pass thru. Broadside about 100 yards. I had an acquaintance who was a market hunter in the 1950s . He used a 3006 with 150 silvertips for elk. No comments on the results except he kept using them.

Yep, that was so everyone that uses them wont have to worry about shooting a decent group...because it aint going to happen!!!! In all fairness, they are killers and you don't really need great groups to kill deer or bear.

I will add that the tip of the bronze point bullet is not bronze...it is in fact aluminum that has been color anodized dark gold. I always thought it was funny how in the 70's Remington advertised the 130 grain 270 BP as having a MV of like 3150 or so. It did out of their 26" test barrel and Remington hadn't made a 270 with anything but a 22 inch barrel for 20 years!!!!

I think this thread shows, if nothing else, how far we've come over the years in consistent bullet performance.

I've killed some deer with Bronze Point 130s out of a .270, they were "decisively" killed, at that. Lightning bolts killed slower than those Bronze Points. I tried them after having some unhappy experiences with early Ballistic Tips and Gamekings.

I also killed a couple deer with 180gr. Bronze Points out of a .30/06, they killed quickly, too.
I've had nothing but good results from them, I was sorely disappointed when Remington quit selling them as component bullets.

I went to the ProHunter Sierras after that, with excellent results, but I really liked the Bronze Points, as the bullet noses didn't deform in the magazine of my Ruger 77s like typical softpoints did, and again, I wasn't happy with Ballistic Tips, so they were a decent alternative.

A local gunsmith hated them, but he thinks that deer require a .338, too. I didn't take much stock in his opinions.

I had very good luck with 170 Silvertips in my 30-30 back when I could find them. Even killed a Bull Moose with them.

The first time I saw the Army's M855A1 bullet I immediately thought of the Remington Bronze Points.

The first half-dozen or so Texas whitetails that I shot with the .30-06 that I bought the summer that I graduated high school were taken with W-W factory ammo and 150-grain Silver Tips. Being totally clueless about the finer points of bullet performance, I was just glad to have dead deer. I don't recall any particularly destructive aftermaths and, best I can recall, they were all one-shot kills.

When I started reloading a few years later, I used both Speer and Sierra 150-grain bullets. My experiences with those started me down the road to 30 years of shooting nothing but Partitions at big game.

I shot a few deer with the 130gr Bronze Point 270win load. I specifically remember a cloud of hair floating briefly above the animals after they dropped.

170 grain .30-30 silvertips are pure poison on deer.

I like thinking about the old boxes of factory ammo.

I grew up in a family that meat hunted, and didn't spend much time practicing or sighting in.

box of ammo lasted a longtime.

as a kid I remember wondering about the possible differences between Winchester ammo, and Western ammo. Thw W vs the X

and what about Peters vs Remington???

Yep, pretty cool, wasn't it? I shot a couple deer that must have been hit EXACTLY right, as they did everything but backflips on the way down (actually, one DID do a backflip, about 4 feet into the air, and came down facing the opposite direction she'd been traveling).

Another deer hit the ground so hard he bounced, literally. Those two deer really cemented my opinions on the Bronze Points.

I had a bunch of .270 bronze points. I sold them last summer.

Bought a XTR M70 257Rbts when the distributor I worked for got it's 1st shipmnetof the new XTR M70 Fwt's in, "to use as a sample to show dealers"...

We only carried 2 choices for Rbt's ammo, a WW White Box 100gr PSP ST & a RP 117 gr RN. My gun shot the WW ST's bigtime lots better than the RP RN's and I stayed with them until they were discontinued. The RP RN's never shot any better in my gun than about 1 1/2 to just under 2" groups, good enough for minute of deer but not a confidence builder. Even my early handloads in Hornady's would give me close to an inch groups.

The WW's were Hyper accurate, easy DRT's on WTails with good pentration. My longest kill ever was from a hip braced off hand one shot kill on a Pronghorn in Wyoming on a Weaver factory trip at 444 steps from the guides 36" inseams.

OTOH it took 5 shots to finish off my 1st wild hog, a 125/135lb'er who soaked up 2 behind the right shoulder in the crease at 60+ yards, + 2 in the briskit's cowlick at under 50 feet, and the finisher under his left eye at about 25/30 feet....using the same WW 100gr ST's I'd alway used on WtTails. After that goat ropin' I moved back to my old reliable do all 270 & 150gr Speer Hot Cores anytime hogs were on the menu.
Ron

Back in the 80's, I believe, Winchester came out with their "Supreme" factory loads that came in a black box. I started using the .30-06 loads with 180gr. Silver Tips since I was going to college and didn't have time to reload. I shot several elk with those loads and they worked very well. After graduating college, I started reloading again and bought a box of 500, 180gr. .30 cal Silver Tips from Midway. I killed probably half a dozen elk with those as well and was always impressed with their performance. Never had occasion to complain. After that, I started messing around with other cartridges and rifles, so haven't used them since the early 90's, but I would not hesitate to tote the ol' -06 with those 180gr Silver Tips for elk once again.

The biggest whitetail I have ever shot I took with a Remington bronze point - 150 grain at 2800 fps from the .308. The shot was broadside to the ribs just behind the shoulder. Deer was running full speed, at about 80 yards and it dumped him. But when I dressed the deer, I noticed that the bullet didn't even make it to the other side of the chest cavity. Lungs were mush, but no part of the bullet pierced the other side. That was the last time I used them for hunting.
I believe Remington copied the Canadian Industries Ltd. Copper Point Expanding which came out some years before. I watched my brother shoot a black bear, placing the 180 grain .303 CPE bullet in pretty much the same place as my deer. Curiously, that bullet failed to expand at all, punched a .303 size hole right through. Was a long tracking job and another shot to finish the PO'd bear.
I'm glad both bullet designs are obsolete.
CIL went on to invent the nylon insert "Sabre Tip", which was better but sill somewhat erratic, which was then copied and perfected by Norma in Sweden as their plastic point and Nosler in the USA as the Ballistic tip.

My Dad killed a lot of game back in the '60s. Rem 760 in 30-06. 150s for deer, 180s for elk, W-W Silvertips for all hunting. They were really special...made with actual silver alloy.

I was about ten years old and tagged along as Dad attempted to track a double lunged cow elk in dry dusty conditions. The foaming blood trail eventually stopped and we never did find the cow.

I suspect due to inadequate expansion.

But Dad swore by the bullets and would never use anything else. He has not been to the hills in a couple decades, but was telling me recently that the Silvertip was the only thing to use on game. He was sorely disappointed when I told him they had been discontinued long ago.

He never has believed me when I tried to explain that it was just another lead core bullet with a shiny coating over the tip.