[Bob Wright]

Nickel plated cartridge cases originated around the early 1920s for cartridges used by police departments. At that time polie carried their extra ammo in leather cartridge loops on their belts. The leather corroded the brass cases, leaving a waxy goop called verdigis. the nickel plating eliminated that problem.

Later some high velocity ammo, especially the .38 Super, was plated to identify it from the .38 ACP rounds.

The original Silvertips from Winchester were an aluminum alloy, designed for more rapid expansion. Later softpoint cartridges had the Silvertip added to protect cartridges while in the magazine of a rifle.

Bob Wright

[Bob Wright]

And, as to silver bullets, silver melts at a much higher temperature than lead alloys. Trying to cast silver bullets in conventional molds will result in a ruined mold.

Bob Wright

[TeamTactical]

Originally Posted by Jpyle

Silver bullets are for pimps...real playas do solid 18k gold...

Lol what are the actual bullets made of. The casings do look pretty sick.

[30-30remchester]

I am a little confused. Apparently you are asking about Winchester Silvertip bullets in factory loaded handgun ammunition. As stated they aint silver but from what I have in my stockpile the bullets jacket appears to be aluminum. I have shot an antelope with a 45 ACP using 185 grain silvertiops. The expanded bullets jackets are quite soft and flexable. These bullets were designed for fast expansion at handgun velocity. These bullets were used in the famous Miami FBI shootout in the 1980's that got a number of FBI agents shot and killed. Seems the bullets failed to penatrate deep enought to stop the bad guys. On the small antelope all bullets expanded well but failed to penatrate very deep. The silvertip rifle bullets are entirely different. They were not designed as a rapid expansion bullet, but the exact opposite. They were designed as a crontrolled expansion bullet for deep penatration on big game. The early rifle bullets were tipped with a tip that resembled nicklesilver, and the tip extended to the base of the bullet. In @1950 Winchester changed the design to the cheaper to produce modern bullets with a simple aluminum alloy tip covering just the exposed lead. These bullets expand very fast and are known to blow up on tough game.

[robocop10mm]

The Winchester Silver tip line started with rifle ammo like the .30-30. They had an aluminum nose cap and worked quite well. They expanded the concept to handgun ammo. The low velocity rounds like .38 Special, .44 Special and .45 ACP used an aluminum jacketed hollow point. The aluminum allowed for more reliable expansion at the lower velocities than traditional copper jackets. The higher velocity ammo uses a nickle plated copper jacket to "look" like silver and stay in the same concept.

[TeamTactical]

Thanks for the info guys. So would you reccomend them for self defense at a max range of like 15-20 feet, as opposed to FMJ or traditional hollow points?

[SSGN_Doc]

Originally Posted by TeamTactical

Thanks for the info guys. So would you reccomend them for self defense at a max range of like 15-20 feet, as opposed to FMJ or traditional hollow points?

Yes, Silvertip rounds are a good quality defense round. The aluminum jackets deform more reliably at low velocity than copper jacketed rounds. There are a lot of more modern hollow points out there that are very high quality and provide reliable expansion now. So there is more competition in the field to give the Silvertips a run for their money, but they aren't a bad bullet.

I don't recommend FMJ rounds for defense. They usually suck, because they just poke a neat hole through people with less trauma and blood loss which are the keys to stopping attackers.

[robocop10mm]

Originally Posted by TeamTactical

Thanks for the info guys. So would you reccomend them for self defense at a max range of like 15-20 feet, as opposed to FMJ or traditional hollow points?

Winchester Silver Tips ARE conventional hollow points. They are just a different color than the others. I carry the 10mm Silvertips every day because Speer does not make a Gold Dot load in 10mm. I carried .41 Mag Silvertips every day because Speer did not make a Gold Dot in .41 Mag (they do now, but I have retired the wheel gun).

[gunnut07]

Many many many many years ago when I was but a lad of 10 or 11 years old and just starting to load on my own my dad had me load some 264 win mag cases for the Sako Finnbear and the bullets were REALLY OLD they were silver Man I wish I would have kept the box.

[robocop10mm]

The bullets you loaded in the .264 were most likely Cupro-Nickle jacketed. They look silver because of the high nickle content. Cupro-Nickle jacketed bullets are common in European loaded ammo from .25 ACP and .32 ACP up to the big rifles. I do not know why that alloy became so popular across the pond.