My experience with Silvertips from the 60s and 70s was mostly very poor. Oddly, they were quite accurate in the rifles I tried them in, but they would blow up violently on impact. The 2 that seemed OK were the 300 Grain in the 375H&H and the 170 grain in the 30-30. But I only killed 2 deer with the 30-30s so that not a very broad test and I only killed one bull and one cow elk with the 375s. Again not that much of a test, but those 4 kills were quite good and I got exits on 3 of them. The cow elk was shot facing me and I didn't recover the bullet but there was no exit, so it was somewhere in the guts. I didn't find it. She dropped after turning to run but only went about 15 feet.
The ones that were bad were the 100 grain in 257 Roberts, the 130 grain 270 Winchester, the 150 grain 300 Savage. the 150 grain 30-06 and the 180 grain 30-06. All blew up badly
The Corelokts however were all good until Remington started to make the jackets thinner. The later ones were not up to the old standards. At what time exactly Remington started to make them with thinner jackets I am not sure. Mule Deer may know that answer to that question.
I used a lot of them in the very late 60s through the early 80s and all were made in the period of time from 1978 and backwards. The oldest ones were factory loaded 300 Savage ammo my Dad bought in the mid 50s around the time I was born. When I was 8 - 9 I was using that ammo. Nearly all the rest were handloads. The Core Lokts I have used were:
257 Roberts, 25-06, both the 120 grain.
270 Winchester in both 130 and 150 grain.
7X57 and 7MM Rem mag 150 grain
300 Savage. 308, 30-06, in 150 and 180 grains.
300 H&H, 308 Norma in 180 and 220 grains.
8X57 175 Grain
35 cal 200 grain in the 35 Remington,
270 grain in the 375H&H.
The old thick jacketed Core-Lokts made in the 50s through the 70s were excellent.
So to me the answer would be Core_lokts but the new ones are not the same as what I used, so my high praise my not be merited anymore.
Last edited by szihn; 01/31/23.
