Can any of you gun writers who are knowledgeable explain why Winchester has suddenly minimized production of the old Silvertip bullet (not the nosler version, the old one). Was this a decent hunting bullet? If so, I see Corelock still around, and was wondering why Winchester stopped making this bullet as it did seem to have it's loyal followers. My father in Law swears by this bullet. Comments?

Can't answer your question as to "Why?", but have loaded and shot several thousand of them in 270 Winchester and killed everything from sheep to bears and huge bull moose.

Sure never had any problem with them. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The thin tin "silver" jacket covering the nose over the lead core fit down underneath the nose of the copper jacket is more costly and time consuming to manufacture than the plastic tipped bullets of today and offered no real advantage except to look kinda cool. Supposedly prevented the nose from being battered up in the magazine and was supposed to make it a little tougher. I shot my first deer with a 180gr silvertip out of my grandfathers 300H&H at about 50 yds, the thing blew his ribs all to hell and only a few bits of shrapnel penetrated his lung on one side. I had a long tracking job that day. It was just a little forkhorn buck. Couldn't believe it, lost my confidence in them right there. On the other hand my grandfather used the same bullet for years with the same rifle for moose, deer and bears and never had anything like that happen.

bushrat,



Interesting that you mention the 180 Silvertip in the 300 H&H. I was just going thru my thirty year old collection of recovered bullets fired into water filled cartons and that bullet really blew up at close range.



I would have to go back and look at the data but it was very disapointing.

Never used them except they were the only thing available for my 358Win.
200gr. silver tips. Didn't shoot worth a damn through my Savage 99, used them for practice then reloaded with a much more accurate bullet.

I'm sorry to correct you guys, but actually, due to all the werewolves having been shot out, there is no longer any need for silver bullets.

L.W.

The old Silvertip was, in some models and some calibers, very reliable. In others it was a catastrophe. You never knew until you shot something.

I have a friend who's shot dozens of elk with 130 Silvertips in the .270. His father bought 1000 of them way back when and they're very reliable: expand and penetrate just like Nosler Partitions.

At other times other makes/calibers of Silvertips have come apart like varmint bullets. Another friend had to shoot a brown bear 11 times before it quit, mostly because very few bullets even made it through the wet hair on the big bruin. This with 300-grain .375's! I personally had a 150-grain ST from a .30-06 come apart on the shoulder of a forkhorn mule deer back in the 1980's, a little buck that wouldn't have drssed much over 100 pounds.

I believe Winchester eventually recognized the erratic reputation the bullet had and moved on to better things.

JB

mule_deer,

There was always something magical about those silver tip'd bullets. When I turned 12, I started deer hunting where I grew up in Pa.. My father bought me an '06 and the load I used, as did most everyone else that we hunted with, was that yellow WInchester box with the magic words "Silvertip" on it.

Hell, I thought that was all there was !!

That 30 cal. 180 Silvertip was a lightening bolt on Pa. deer !!

I actually tried to find some to handload in my fathers Pre-64 Mod 70 '06, just for nastalgia, but couldn't find any.

You of course are right in your assesment of Winchesters decision on ending the "Silvertip" line. There will always be a fond spot in my childhood memory for that magic silvertip'd bullet.

Tony

That 200 gr Silvertip bullet for the .358 Winchester was always a favorite of mine. I have shot dozens of deer and more with it and always got penetration. It's the only load that a deer never got up after falling unlike all the other cartridges which includes the 7mm RM and 30-06.

It was as accurate as other bullets in my two 99f's and M70. I would still be loading them if I could get them but Winchester dropped selling them as components quite a while ago now.

However Ray Atkinson says that the Silver Tips in the .358 are "As soft as butter" He and I disagree on this.

But while looking thru my collection of bullets recovered from shooting into water filled cartons I found a 250 gr Silvertip fired as a factory load in the 358. That bullet lost a lot of metal and expanded to about 8/10 of an inch. Since it starts out at only about 2200 fps. it seems that Ray is right on the 250 as one would want that one for heavy game.

Like a poster above I too have many good memories of bucks falling dead and staying there when hit by just one Silvertip.

Like anything else it has to be done right. Many good ideas out there it's the doing them that's the real achievment.

My Silver Tip story is from long ago and 1 head of game, I got a 300 Weatherby back in 1969 and I bought a bunch of 180 gr Silver Tips because they were suppose to be pretty good, they were cheap compared to Noslers at the time, and I was broke because I bought the rifle. They shot ok as I recall, and the one head of game I shot with it, A moose in Newfoundland, in 1970 died, we found that the bullet sort of broke up on a rib. pieces of it put a hole in the heart, not a big hole but big enough. Ran a bit, and no blood trail. After that I shot nothing but 200 gr. Nosler Partitions. I learned something of value from that, while those silver tips were a bargin at the time, they almost prove to be to expensive. I would have been way better off with two boxes of Noslers at the time than those 500 sliver tips I bought for just about the same money. I was thinking about per shot costs rather than what a Moose Hunt cost back then. You live and you learn. They may have been fine out of a 308 or 30-06. Learned another thing to about High Velocity too.

I've been using the 150 gr in .300 Savage in my M99 G for years and they've never let me down. Maybe the don't blow up because they're not being pushed as fast as they would be in a 30-06 or a .308.

I bought a bunch of old 270 130gr SilverTips a few years ago. They work great on deer for me.

"... due to all the werewolves having been shot out, there is no longer any need for silver-bullets."

I'm afraid I must reject that conclusion ....

... Silver Bullet

(Alex, I'd like out-of-production bullets, for 200)

hicountry ... Your post also made me take a brief nostalgic drive down memory lane, because my dad used to load those silver-tips in all the 30-cals we shot. So I wandered down to the reloading-dungeon and found two full boxes (50 each), labeled:

30-06 Springfield 180-gr Silvertip Bullets
Western Cartridge Co.
Div. of Olin Industries In.c
East Alton Ill. USA

Same lot # 95DF51
(I weighed 5 on the Dillion electronic and they averaged 180.1 grs )

(hicountry) ... You have first choice if you would like these. PM me an offer for the pair of boxes and you could soon be makin re-loading memories.

... Silver Bullet

(Barnes-TSX ... when only through-n-through will do)

I've revived this old one because I plan to try these in my 300 Savage. IMO "skidrow" is right about them being velocity sensitive and "mule deer" recalls that some worked well in some cartridges and some didnt. I've read many stories about good performance with 130 gr. 270 on elk and many stories about bad performance in 30 cal. My take is that these were intended to give improved long range performance to standard calibers. They were touted for their ballistic performance beyond 200 yards and as everyone now recognizes they were the first "ballistic tip" bullet. W-W ballistic tables promised at least a hundred fps more retained velocity over PowerPoint performance at 300 yards. However, not long after Silvertips arrived, magnums came on the scene and changed the whole formula. The weakness of the Silvertip (too much expansion at close range/hi velocity) would only be exacerbated by magnum velocities, effectively enlarging the Silvertips failure envelope and as JB said, the two combined could make close shots a disaster. With the exception of the 130/270, slow velocities seem to have been best for them and you hear many more success stories with Silvertips in 30-30, 30-40, 300 Sav and 358 Win. I've also read good things about the 100gr. 250 Sav Silvertip load. A 160 or 175 .284 Silvertip would probably make a very good 7x57 bullet except they never made a 7mm version; they damn sure made that 130gr./.270 bullet work though. I think Magnums brought the Silvertip experiment to a close but like the Remington Bronze Point, there are a few loadings that did work very well.

I have a box of 140gr 270's and have been reluctant to try them because of this reputation

They were a great bullet in the 130 grain loading for the 270. The 30 calibers were great in the 300 Savage and the 30/40 Krag but not so great in the 300 Mag. I still have a couple of boxes which I use in the 30/40 and they work fine. The truth is, almost any cup and core bullet works great at 30/40 velocities (180's at 2450). GD

Have them in several diameters. They behaved as expected of a cup/core having alot of exposed lead. Neither blow-ups nor failures to open on deer out back using the 180 gr .308" at 2650 fps MV and 300 gr .375" at 2550 fps MV.

Plus they look cool, especially the 250 gr .338s and 300 gr .375s.

My perceptions of the Silvertips differ a little from most fellows. I worked a Fish and Game check station for a couple years way back when in the '60's...so heard lots of stories, same day they happened, and personally examined the carcasses. Keep in mind, this is steep timber country so shots are generally under 150 yards. Silvertips did very well in the 30-30's, very well in the 30-40's, moving up to the .300 Savage occasionally you would hear some complaints, same with the 'new' .308 but when you got up to the '06 and 150 gr bullet...I saw some spectacular surface wounds, and ruined meat...other than the fact the deer was dead, you could call it a bullet failure. The .270 was never very popular here for some reason, so I cannot comment. But my conclusion of the .30 cal Silvertips was as velocity went up, controlled expansion went down.

I bought a half a case of the 180gr 30/06 factory load when I bought my first 30/06. They were pretty erratic on game. I had two from the same box behave 180deg apart in one week.

The first one I shot up the ass of the biggest whitetail buck I’ve ever killed. It penetrated stem to stern and left a 3/4” exit hole at the base of his neck. Two days later I shot a large pig right in the shoulder from approximately the same range, 150-175 yards. It completely flattened and failed to break the shoulder blade.

I decided after that I wasn’t shooting any more game with them, in fact that’s what started me reloading. Shot a coyote with one I had left and it literally cut him 90 percent in half!

Years ago I showed up at deer camp one year with a box of them for my 30-06. My grandfather all but threw them in the outhouse. Claimed they were the worst bullet ever made and "just poked pencil holes in deer". He and his pards apparently had some bad experiences back in the 40s-50s. Worked fine for me on a few MI bucks.

The 170 gr. silvertip was my favorite .30-30 load for years. Killed a lot of deer with it. Always gave good performance.

Some of the conflicting results can be the fact that there were 2 original silvertips. The originals starting being produced from the 1930's is completely different than modern silvertips. Original silvertips had a hard Nickle silver cap that extended all the way to the base. These bullets had a reputation as being hard and giving deep pentation. These bullets have a bight silver appearance. The newer bullets have a very thin aluminum cap that extends just enough to get the nose of the bullet jacket to crimp around it. These are the blow up bullets of such renown. I saw one blow up on the ribs of a distant elk. In the archive of the International Ammunition forum is sectioned bullets of both types. Check it out and the difference are apparent.

This makes what my grandfather talked about make sense then..

Do you happen to know the time frame as to when the change in construction was made? thanks

Also makes one wonder if the touted 130/270 bullets with the aluminum caps were somehow designed differently.

The change over was never published anywhere I have seen. I have researched this quite often over the years. My best guess is around the mid fifties. I feel the uncommon calibers were still available till stock on hand was used up. I researched by checking old ammo still in original boxes. I have some 250 Savages in yellow boxes that have the old style and yellow boxes with newer style bullets. Yellow boxes were produced from 1957 till @1970 IIRC. Remington Cor-Lokt are easier to determine the change over from a slightly controlled expansion bullet to a standard cup and core. This happened in the mid 60's. Again I would assume the popular calibers and weights were the first to get the change over with the less common remaining till old stocks were used up.

I had one blow up on the left front shoulder of a 8 point Michigan whitetail at 50 yards. Fired from a 1899 Savage in 303 Savage. Made a big mess of the front shoulder, no penetration. Last Silvertip I used on deer. Started Handloading after that, excellent results with 150 grain Hornady round nose out of the same gun.

I haven't read any of Bob Hagel's books in years, but he knew what he was talking about when it came to game bullets. His remarks on the Silvertip are pretty scathing.

Loved them in my 30-30.

I bought 500 of the 190 grain STs that were loaded in the 303 Savage, way back when Winchester/Western loaded that bullet in factory loads and sold them as components.

LOL.

They were allays my favorite 30-30 Load when I was a kiddo.

Looks sold the Sliver tip more than anything else. Rio7

Y33611,

IMO "skidrow" is right about them being velocity sensitive and "mule deer" recalls that some worked well in some cartridges and some didn't. I've read many stories about good performance with 130 gr. 270 on elk and many stories about bad performance in 30 cal.

I quit using them many years ago, because of this variation in performance--and not just in my personal experience but many other hunters I knew, in cartridges from the .270 Winchester to .375 H&H. Have described many of these examples in various articles and books, and these days am very puzzled why anybody would choose to use them in anything except in low-velocity rounds like the .30-30.

Yep. Sold me when I was a kid. 🤠

I like the looks of them, but they are basically a power point with a shiny tip...

Uh, no, not nearly.

I have a box and a half of them in 180gr 30-06 that I bought 16 years ago. Took a fork horned buck with one. In the ribs out the other side. Maybe I’ll keep them for nostalgia.

They weren’t worth a chit 17 years ago and haven’t improved since. RIP

Not really huh? The power point is obviously better..

I've got a couple dozen boxes of 100 grain 250-3000 and 257 Roberts white box factory loads from the early 1980's. Somehow the Outdoor Recreation Center at Fort Riley had a lot of ammo that nobody wanted and they closed it out for about $3 per box of 20. I was loading my own, so I bought it for that rainy day that has yet to arrive.

When I got my 700 Classic in 250 Savage I picked up some 100 grain Silvertip ammo. I hope yours is better than what I got.

[quote=mathman]When I got my 700 Classic in 250 Savage I picked up some 100 grain Silvertip ammo. I hope yours is better than what I got.[/quote

I've had it since 1980 or 1981, so I might get around to shooting it sometime during the next 40 years.]

As cup/cores go they're pretty much the opposite of a Hornady RP. PowerPoints have far less exposed (OK, covered) Pb. So don't know why anyone would be surprised by the ST's rapid expansion at low-velocities.

Someone might prefer heavy for caliber bullets on lightly constructed animals. Example, 180 gr ST in .300 Savage. Some like to reduce MV for beginners or kids. Old STs are fine in such applications. Kinda like flat points designed for old lever guns.

We're smart enough not to load 250 gr .338 TSXs to 2000 fps and expect pulped lungs on ribcage hits, right?

Far be it from bullet manufacturers to ever let the public in on changes they make in their bullets (unless they feel that they can ballyyhoo some alteration to their advantage).

My dad used them on elk out of a 30-06 in the 60s and 70s. The elk he shot died within sight. He used core-lokts on deer.

I have about four boxes of carefully hoarded Winchester .303 Savage ammo with the 190 grain round-nose Silvertips. They shoot well in my 99 Savage and have killed deer and three caribou for my brother and me. One of the 'bou was the biggest either of us ever shot. It was about 150 yards out and heading at a pretty good clip over the hilltop where it would soon be out of sight. It was just like when we were kids, I put my hand on top of a boulder for him to rest the rifle on (my brother lost the use of his left arm to polio when we were quite young), reached around under my head to plug my ear on the side toward the muzzle of the rifle and wondered what was taking him so long to shoot. The big bull was right at the peak of the hill when he fired. At the impact, the 'bou reared up on his hind legs and went over backwards, tumbling down the hill to our silent prayers that he wouldn't wreck that big, double-shove rack with big backstickers, the whole works. The rack survived intact and now rules over all the other antlered stuff hanging on the walls of the "club room" at the horse barn. Anyway, I like those 190 grain Silvertips in the .303 Savage.

In a rare instance of my using factory ammo I bought a box one year mostly for brass but they hit to point of aim as my rifle being sighted in for 150 grain Speers pushed to 2900 fps. This being the 150 grain Silvertips shot in my 30-06. I took a steep downhill shot on a pretty nice mule deer and the bullet broke up completely on it shoulder blade. after a long follow up I got another shot and this time broke the bucks neck. Those were the last Silvertips that I ever bought.

it is interesting to read the comments that are all over the place on how the bullets preformed.

My experience was always good with the 308 dia 180 gr. fired from a 30-06. It must have been that the ones I used were early 1950 vintage and where the deer were shot.

I cannot remember a failure or a blow-up on any animal I took.

Along about 1955 I switched to a 300 Sav. I continued to use the 180 gr. I killed several black bear. All killed wit one shot.

When I started reloading I started using other brands of bullets.

I got eight boxes of that stuff when I got my Model 54 .250 Savage. It shot pretty well with three shots going in 1 - 1.25 inch at 100m. I used it up on kangaroos, foxes, a couple of pigs and targets.

My Dad killed a nice 5x5 bull elk, and a 50"ish bull moose, in northern British Columbia back in 1983 shooting a 30-06 Remington 700 ADL with Winchester factory 180 grain Silvertips. He had access to a friends shooting range that could go out to around 400 yards or so, so my Dad practiced quite a bit prior to leaving for the hunt they were going on.

He shot the moose at an extended range (300-400 yards) 4 times, all the while the guide was hollering "keep shooting, you're missing him!". He shot twice while the bull was walking uphill, then twice more after it turned and started walking downhill. After the 4th shot, the bull stopped and just stood there for a moment, then fell over. When they got to it, and started skinning it, there were 2 bullets holes on one side, 2 bullets holes on the other, and 4 bullets inside the chest cavity.

While I do not remember all the complete details (I was 14 years old at the time, too many year, too many beers!), I do remember my Dad saying how shot up the lungs were in that moose.

He killed the bull elk with one shot at around 200 yards, something that the guide said that he had never seen before.

A funny aside about the guide...my Dad smoked a pipe at the time, and it was snowing while they were out hunting, and the guide saw my Dad smoking his pipe upside down so that the snowflakes wouldn't extinguish his pipe tobacco. The guide thought that was the craziest thing that he had ever saw!

Was a favored whitetail killer here in NYS. Especially the 308 and 30 30 150 grainers.

Lots more great stories shared, which of course is the 24 hour campfire's raison d'etre. If in my first statement reviving the old thread I misrepresented the opinions of previous posters I apologize. I just wanted to summarize that there had been varied results reported when these bullets were widely in use and to see what other remembered experiences there were out there with this bullet in 300 Sav specifically. It's a handloading option I'm considering (30 cal) due to scarcity of components. I discern that 300 Sav/30-40 Krag type velocities are probably the top end of its efficacy envelope. I should also say that I'm an Eastern deer hunter exclusively so what I consider adequate might puzzle those of you who live in the west.

This. My favorite 99F in 300 Sav loves the 180 grain, whether it is 25 yards of 250 yards.

Wow! Danged nice bucks!

Yes sir, that is what my grandfather fed his old 300 Savage, 180 grain ST’s. He never complained. Elk, moose, bear and piles of bucks.

Dad has shot many a deer from a Vanguard Carbine 30-06. 180 grain Silver Tips would leave an exit would in the rib cage I could put my fist through. He now uses the Deer Season XT since the ST’s can’t be found.

My father had Silver tip 30-06 ammo in the attic from the 1940s.

Yes, nice bucks and a very nice Savage there diamondjim. Thanks for sharing the photos. I think the 180s in 300 Sav at 2400+/- from the factory were ideal. I have 150s and will try backing it down a little, in the 2500s if accuracy holds up at lower velocity, at least not exceeding 2600. My powder will be W748, probably 41 or 41.5 grains but TBD by upcoming range trials.

The "old school" 130g .270 Win. Silver Tips shoot Right at 1/2" in my Sako AV Classic Hunter. I have a few boxes that I've hoarded. Also have 200 of the 130g ST's as loose bullets. When the loaded ammo starts to run low I'm going to see about duplicating that load. Only info lacking is the charge weight of 760/414. I've killed a few truck loads of deer with that rifle/ammo combination.

A guy had 3 boxes of 250 gr silvertips .338 here at the colo prgs show I passed on them at $50/box. Mb

I have a couple of hundred 170 grain 30/30 Silver Tips left of a Midway order from 20+ years ago. My Winchester 64-A likes them better than any other bullets.
I’m thinking of working up a 30/30 level load for a 30/06 for mid-range deer load too.

Worst bullet failure I’ve ever experienced was with one in a 7mm REM Mag. Small buck deer, hit him square on the shoulder as he ran past me. Bullet blew up on impact. I think the deer died of shock because there was zero penetration. Never used them again and went to Noslers after that experience. That was back in the mid 80’s.

Actual Silvertips were never made in 7mm caliber, only the misnamed ballistic silvertips, which are/were nothing more than a nosler ballistic tip.

Thnx for that.

Jerry

https://www.k-bid.com/auction/33290/item/16

I’ve seen these in the wild myself but never fired one of them.

I know if I happened to run across them, I'd for sure give them a good home.