Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Win Silvertip

Anyone know anything about these bullets? I don't plan to use them on anything exciting just curious about their history / performance.

Thanks,
Andy

Just plain old good deer Bullets in my opinion. We used the 150-180’s growing up and never had an issue that I remember. From a 300 Savage, 308 and 30-06. They just stacked deer without issues.

they will kill deer just fine. If you are concerned, please let me take them off your hands.

they will kill deer just fine. If you are concerned, please let me take them off your hands.

Better watch what you post handy Andy someone in that liberal state will sic the cops on you for having an arsenal.

I used some in my 30-06 back in the mid 80's. Same 150 grain bullet shown. I thought they were pretty soft but they did kill deer no problems.

Probably true

Shot more than a few whitetail with them. They work great for that, but that is all I ever tried them on

I had an old 700 classic in 300 H&H that loves some Silvertips - pretty soft but really good deer and pig bullet if you ask me.
I bought a few hundred in zip lock baggies of the component bullets years and years ago - down to 30 or 40 left.

The 150gr Silvertip out of the -06 is an excellent deer/antelope/caribou bullet, IMO. The 180gr Silvertip in the -06 holds together better and was my bullet of choice for elk. Shot several elk with the 180 before I moved on to other cartridges.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/15718243/1

Good recent thread. Used 180 gr in '06 factory load, also 300 gr .375" in .375 R, on whitetails. No complaints.

Have some in various diameters: .257" - .375". Bronze points, too.

Besides me, does the question make anyone feel old?

This was the preferred round for decades out of the family Mod 722 in 308.

To join in the feeling of old, I always thought that they looked "snazzy".

Not to mention they're good for vampires, too!

In my research for the article on the rifles of the two famous brown bear guides from Kodiak Island, Bill Pinnell and Morris Talifson, I was able to interview one of the guides who worked for them. This assistant guide was also a gun guy who knew guns and loads. He told me that they started out using Silvertips in their 2 .375s but ended up switching to CoreLokts because the Silvertips would not hold together. They supposedly sent some samples, or parts of bullets into Winchester. In one of the pictures of Morris's M70, there is an old weathered box of Corelokts alongside the rifle. For those not familiar with Pinnell and Talifson, they outfitted on the south end of Kodiak island from 1949 thru sometime in the 90s, almost always using their old M70s in .375. At one time approx. 40% of all the browns listed in B&C were taken by their hunters. So you could say they had a bit of experience. Don't know about other calibers of Silvertips, but at least in .375 H&H on brown bears they left something to be desired as far as holding together.

Back in the late 90's one of the 3 big outdoor mags sent a writer up to alaska to interview bill pinnell about brown bear hunting. One of the questions he was asked was "with all the various professional.people invading alaska bear country doing there jobs what did.he think about carrying a 44 mag for bear protection?". BP replied." IT'S alright as long as you save the last shot for yourself"
Allways thought that was a great answer

That's one of the two .30-caliber, 150-grain factory loads I've used that failed to penetrate the shoulders of relatively small deer.

In my Silvertip instance, the deer was a forkhorn mule deer buck, quartering toward me at around 200 yards. I aimed at the shoulder, and at the shot the deer ran, limping, over a low hill right behind him before I could shoot again. I found blood where he'd stood, and followed the trail half a mile through the rolling sagebrush hills on the other side of the hill, eventually spotting him standing broadside, with broken leg curled up a little. Put another shot behind the same shoulder, and he folded up. Found the empty, flattened jacket against the ribs just behind the broken shoulder. Never found any core except fragments.

Have seen other Silvertips work very well. In fact, a friend preferred 130s in the .270 for elk, and had a bunch of perfectly mushroomed bullets extracted from dead elk. On the other hand, a world-wide hunter I knew had a bunch of 300-grain .375's blow up on the wet hair of a huge Kodiak Island brown bear he finally killed when one slipped between the ribs. He didn't know exactly how many times he shot, but remembered refilling the magazine of his pre-'64 .375 H&H twice.

All of which makes me suspect that Winchester varied the construction of the Silvertip considerably over the decades.

And, of course, like most bullet makers, did not bother to let people know when they changed things or, if they did, how to tell which variant you had.

Yeas ago (Late 60s and early 70s) I used some of those from a 30-06 and a 300 Savage, and I also used some 130 grain 270s. VERY BAD blow-ups.


But,,,, with the 170 grain 30-30 and the 300 grain 375H&H I had good results.

Saw a picture of the not-so-good STs and the redesigned versions in .375". Wish I could remember where, was many years ago. Anyway, could tell them apart. Have about 150 of the good ones left.