BULLET BULLETIN: A TIP OF THE HAT TO NEW FAMILY MEMBER

With us since 1939, the Core-Lokt has received a facelift in the guise of the Core-Lokt Tipped line of bullets.

STORY BY PHIL MASSARO • PHOTOS BY MASSARO MEDIA GROUP

Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving – might be a shopper’s holiday, but to my family and friends, it is a day o work solely dedicated to deer hunting. Black Friday of 2006 dawned with me sitting in one of my favorite deer haunts: a finger of land adjoining a hogsback, where the hardwoods drift downslope into the brushy swamp. I’d taken a good number of bucks and does from that general area, and I was feeling lucky that morning.

But with the exception of a spastic gray squirrel, there was nothing moving. And I mean nothing. With temps starting in the low 30s at dawn, and only barely cracking the 40-degree mark by 11:30 a.m., my dad had seen enough, and messaged me that he was leaving for lunch. I told him I intended to stay for the day. It wasn’t 10 minutes later that I heard his shrill whistle, a couple hundred yards over the hogsback. Looking in that direction, I saw a doe crest the ridge and immediately knew Dad had jumped deer on his way back to his truck. Another doe appeared, a bit more motivated than the first, and the buck followed.

In the noon light, pu ng like a thoroughbred in the home stretch, came the mature eight-point buck with really vibrant antlers. I swung the Winchester Model 70 – a Classic Stainless version, chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum – and broke the crisp trigger. No reaction from the running buck whatsoever. I sent

The Remington Core-Lokt in .30-30 Winchester, shown here in roundnose hollowpoint and roundnose softpoint.

(REMINGTON) How many hunters have gone afield armed with Remington CoreLokt ammunition? Generations have relied on the simple yet effective

softpoint. (REMINGTON) a second at him, but it was hasty and didn’t feel anywhere as good as the first.

My phone rang shortly after the last shot stopped ringing in my ears. It was Dad, wondering if the buck was down. “I’m certain I hit him with the first shot, but he didn’t go down,” I answered. He told me to stay put, and that he’d circle around toward that swamp to see if he could find blood.

The phone rang again just a few minutes later. “Found him,” Dad said. “Looks like the Manson Family came over; there’s a blood trail a foot wide.”

There were two bullet holes, 3 inches apart, with one through the heart. The bullet? A 180-grain Remington Core-Lokt, one of America’s classic softpoint bullets.

“THE DEADLIEST MUSHROOM in the woods.” Such was the advertising slogan for the Remington Core-Lokt, a bullet that might be considered Grandpa’s technology today, but remains a highly e ective choice for the deer hunter. It is a cup-and-core design, with the copper jacket “lokt” into the lead core via a cannelure or crimping groove.

The Remington Core-Lokt Tipped is the latest iteration of the Remington softpoint, offered as an alternative to the classic design, not to replace it.

The 10MM cartridge is more than 30 years old, but its popularity has not waned. It’s one of the top three self-defense cartridg-es in America, as well as hunting. But most 10MM loads are designed for personal protection using bullets weighing between 100 and 220 grains. ey work well, with a very deep wound and penetration channels. Underwood Ammunition is well-known for innovative ammunition offerings. In 2022, Underwood is featuring a lightweight, high-velocity round for 10MM, for hunting. is Xtreme Hunter load features a 150-grain solid-copper bullet that will penetrate around 25 inches. e Xtreme Hunt-er is designed with wider flutes than the Xtreme Penetrator to slow down faster and to perform a massive energy dump faster, close to 700 pounds of energy while hunting. e Xtreme Hunter has Underwood Ammo’s trademark nickel plated brass, along with state of the art 100% copper projectile, with Underwood’s famous flutes.

The Remington Core-Lokt pointed softpoint, shown here in .300 Winchester Magnum.

(REMINGTON) This reduces the chance of jacket/ core separation, and slows expansion to increase penetration. I’ve used the Core-Lokt in a good number of di erent cartridges, and in addition to the Black Friday buck, I’ve used it to take my fair share of deer in my native New York. This includes my very first deer – a spike taken cleanly with my Winchester 94 .30-30 lever gun – and a dozen or more with the 165-grain CoreLokt flat-based spitzer from my .308 Winchester.

Introduced in 1939, the Remington Core-Lokt o ered a solution to a problem that most hunters in the modern era have yet to experience: true bullet failure. The velocity increases brought on by the use of smokeless powder at the end of the 19th century showed the limits of pure lead bullets, as they would smear down the barrel, creating all sorts of accuracy and fouling issues. Using a jacket of copper or copper alloy – harder than lead, yet still soft enough to allow the rifling to engrave the bullet – solved the velocity issue, all the while keeping things relatively clean.

Yet, swaging a lead core and copper jacket doesn’t guarantee that the bullet will hold together in the terminal phase. Quite often, and especially when hitting big bones, the copper jacket and lead core would separate, resulting in superficial wounds and lost game animals. Remington used a cannelure, or crimping groove, to mechanically lock the jacket to the core and thus greatly enhance bullet stability during the terminal phase, i.e. when the bullet strikes flesh and bone. Again, this may easily be taken for granted in the modern era of chemically bonded and monometal designs, but consider the fact that bullet failure was the impetus for guys like John Nosler to design his revolutionary Partition bullet.

For over 80 years, the Core-Lokt has been filling freezers and working wonderfully on deer, black bear, hogs and similar game. Is it a dangerous game bullet? Well, it has been used in that capacity, but I’d much prefer one of the premium designs for that job. But it is a sound choice for the deer woods.

BY NOW, I’M sure you’re aware of the financial debacle that Remington experienced over the last couple of years, resulting in the bankruptcy and breaking up of the Freedom Group, which owned Remington and a good number of other brands. As a result, Remington was divided into two separate entities: the firearms division,

Remington continues to offer factory-loaded ammunition for the cartridges it brought to light, like the .35 Whelen shown here.

(REMINGTON)

The 150-grain Core-Lokt Tipped in the .30-06 Springfield, a perfect choice for those who hunt deer at longer ranges.

The 130-grain expanded Core-Lokt Tipped in .270 Winchester; note the large diameter of the upset bullets. (REMINGTON) which remains in Ilion, New York, and the ammunition and accessories division. The latter was purchased by Vista Outdoor, which also owns Federal Premium, CCI, Speer, Bushnell and more. The ammunition is still manufactured in the same Lonoke, Arkansas, plant that Remington has occupied for the last half-century, and the new management plans to o er the same great ammo that Remington lovers have grown accustomed to. However, the Core-Lokt brand has a new family member.

Remington’s new Core-Lokt Tipped is the younger brother of the classic design, equipped with a polymer tip – it’s green, of course – to improve the ballistic coe cient and to initiate expansion. Couple the proven polymertip concept with a boattail design, and you’ve got a Remington bullet with the same terminal characteristics

A younger version of our Bullet Bulletin columnist, photographed with a New York whitetail buck taken with his .300 Winchester and a 180-grain Core-Lokt bullet. Author Phil Massaro has long relied on the Remington Core-Lokt component bullets to feed his .308 Winchester rifles.

of the original Core-Lokt, yet with a conformation better suited to Western or mountain hunting, where longer shots are the norm. With the sleeker ogive and boattail, the center of gravity has moved slightly rearward, but all reports indicate that this increases accuracy. I found the new Core-Lokt Tipped to be plenty accurate, with my .308 Winchester printing three-shot

Unfired and recovered Core-Lokt Tipped bullets; note the boattail and pronounced crimping groove. groups just under an inch with the 165-grain load at 2,700 feet per second.

Chatting with Remington’s Joel Hodgdon, he was extremely animated about the Core-Lokt Tipped, having used it last season to take whitetail deer, feral hogs and even a bobcat. He indicated that the company has every intention of continuing to produce the original design that has been pleasing hunters for generations, but was excited to see the Core-Lokt family expand, while keeping the same principle that was released back in ’39. I can’t disagree with him at all.

I handloaded Core-Lokt bullets for deer hunting for a good number of years, and searching the Remington website, I see that the component bullets are listed there but are currently unavailable. Hopefully that will change soon, as the Core-Lokt represents a good value for the hunter on a budget; the handloader can fill the freezer for a fraction of the cost of factory stu .

Big Green currently o ers the Core-Lokt in all the usual suspects, in addition to some cartridges that can be di cult to feed, like the .32 Winchester Special, 7x64 Brenneke, .35 Whelen, .264 Winchester Magnum, .338 Remington Ultra Magnum, and .250 Savage.

The new Core-Lokt Tipped ammunition is currently o ered in .243 Winchester (95 grains), 6.5 Creedmoor (129 grains), .270 Winchester (130 grains), .280 Remington (140 grains), 7mm Remington Magnum (150 grains), .308 Winchester (150, 165 and 180 grains), .30-06 Springfield (150, 165 and 180 grains), .300 WSM (150 grains), and .300 Winchester Magnum (180 grains). All are loaded in brass R-P cases, and primed with the appropriate Remington primers.

Hop on over to remington.com to shop around for your favorite cartridge, and maybe you’ll enjoy taking a classic design into the deer woods this year, or maybe you’ll give the new Core-Lokt Tipped an audition. I’m not quite so sure the deer will be equally excited, though. 