Bullet tip deformation under recoil - lesson learned

[Noah_McCoy]

This is taken from my copy of the Corbin “Discover Swaging” manual. Hope this gives the visual you are looking for.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

I have to ask.
What’s the dis like of the silvertips?
Here for years the rem corlock and the Winchester silvertips were the go to rounds
But it was light game deer, hog and bear.
And honestly back then the hog would more than likely be bigger than the bear

On my first African Safari (Kenya, 1974)... I had the opportunity to hunt a huge male lion over bait. I was using a .375 Holland & Holland Magnum BRNO ZKK602 loaded with 300Gr Winchester Super Speed Silver Tip soft points. I made a perfect shoulder shot, but the bullet disintegrated into pieces upon striking the great cat's ball-and-socket joint in the shoulder. It didn't even break his shoulder. Just a surface wound. Mr. Cheffings (my white hunter) had to spoor the wounded lion and finish him off during a charge on the following morning (with his .458 Winchester Magnum BSA Majestic loaded with 510Gr Winchester Super Speed soft points).

A decade later, Mr. Con Van Wyk (one of my white hunters in Rhodesia) got badly mauled by a male lion (previously wounded by a client) when a 300Gr Winchester Silver Tip soft point (fired from his .375 Holland & Holland Magnum post '64 Winchester Model 70) broke apart after striking the lion's teeth. Poor Con later told me that he would rather use a solid bullet on a lion than touch a Winchester Silver Tip again.

The earlier Winchester Silver Tips manufactured prior to 1970 were absolutely amazing. These utilized a hard yellow jacket made from a proprietary mixture of copper & nickel & zinc. Very good & consistent expansion. In 1970, Winchester (in all ill perceived attempt at cutting down manufacturing costs) altered the jacket material to pure aluminum. And just like that, bullet performance deteriorated overnight. These bullets were now coming apart whenever you were striking any form of bone on a big game animal (even a zebra's rib bones).

Back in those days, there used to a huge friendly debate amongst us hunters as to which soft point was better- Winchester Silver Tip or Remington Core Lokt ?

Nowadays, I always tell my fellow hunters this: Look which one is still being made. The Remington Core Lokt is still in production all these years later. While the Winchester Silver Tip got shelfed in 1999.

 

[Flbt]

On my first African Safari (Kenya, 1974)... I had the opportunity to hunt a huge male lion over bait. I was using a .375 Holland & Holland Magnum BRNO ZKK602 loaded with 300Gr Winchester Super Speed Silver Tip soft points. I made a perfect shoulder shot, but the bullet disintegrated into pieces upon striking the great cat's ball-and-socket joint in the shoulder. It didn't even break his shoulder. Just a surface wound. Mr. Cheffings (my white hunter) had to spoor the wounded lion and finish him off during a charge on the following morning (with his .458 Winchester Magnum BSA Majestic loaded with 510Gr Winchester Super Speed soft points).

A decade later, Mr. Con Van Wyk (one of my white hunters in Rhodesia) got badly mauled by a male lion (previously wounded by a client) when a 300Gr Winchester Silver Tip soft point (fired from his .375 Holland & Holland Magnum post '64 Winchester Model 70) broke apart after striking the lion's teeth. Poor Con later told me that he would rather use a solid bullet on a lion than touch a Winchester Silver Tip again.

The earlier Winchester Silver Tips manufactured prior to 1970 were absolutely amazing. These utilized a hard yellow jacket made from a proprietary mixture of copper & nickel & zinc. Very good & consistent expansion. In 1970, Winchester (in all ill perceived attempt at cutting down manufacturing costs) altered the jacket material to pure aluminum. And just like that, bullet performance deteriorated overnight. These bullets were now coming apart whenever you were striking any form of bone on a big game animal (even a zebra's rib bones).

Back in those days, there used to a huge friendly debate amongst us hunters as to which soft point was better- Winchester Silver Tip or Remington Core Lokt ?

Nowadays, I always tell my fellow hunters this: Look which one is still being made. The Remington Core Lokt is still in production all these years later. While the Winchester Silver Tip got shelfed in 1999.

Ok don’t blame you at all.
From what I remember the jacket looked normal with just the tip silver ( aluminum)
It’s crazy if deer rounds were made properly and 375 were not. ( or just old stock around here) I knew a lot of hunters that would only buy a box of ammo every few years.
I don’t remember practicing being that normal.
But I bet the lion bone is probably denser than bear.

 

[dlmac]

I have seen this also in factory ammo and it does not have the be the last round in the magazine. I was told that a deformed tip had less effect on accuracy than an issue with the base of the bullet...?

 

[Noah_McCoy]

I have seen this also in factory ammo and it does not have the be the last round in the magazine. I was told that a deformed tip had less effect on accuracy than an issue with the base of the bullet...?

That’s has always been what I’ve heard