Bill Gabbard
The crew at Remington is at it again! It wasn’t that long ago that they introduced the new Core-Lokt Tipped ammo, and the response was great enough that they have taken the famed Core-Lokt line another step forward. New for this year they have released a new Core-Lokt line featuring monolithic bullets - Core-Lokt Copper. The new bullet is solid copper; there is no lead core. Some folks may think that this is so the new ammo can be used in California, because of their ban on lead bullets. If you do a little research, you will find out that many of the premium bullets that we old handloaders have been using for years are solid copper. The new bullet has a hollow point to insure consistent opening upon impact. Since there is no lead core, there should be near 90% or better weight retention.
The new line of ammo is available in several calibers including 308 Winchester with 150 gr, 300 Blackout with 120 gr, and 300 Winchester Magnum featuring 180 gr bullet. They are also available in 270 Winchester with 130 gr and 243 Winchester with 85 gr bullets.
Remington sent us a couple of boxes of 243 and one box of 308. I put together a proven selection of rifles in 243 and 308 to give the new ammo a test run. If you have read many of my articles you know that I am a self-confessed accuracy nut, and no matter how good a bullet is designed, how fast it is loaded or how great it looks, if you can’t hit the target it doesn’t matter! For the 243 portion of the test, I borrowed my Granddaughter Maddi’s Remington 700 topped with a Weaver 4X16 and pulled my old Sako Forester L579 wearing an older Leupold VX II in 2x7. For the 308, I used two of the rifles that we had used in the recent “Loading for the 308” article - my friend Dustin Cooper’s Savage Model 10 FCP-SR equipped with a Nikon 4x16, and my Bergara B-14 with a Vortex Viper 6x24. Each of these rifles has passed the accuracy test by shooting groups of less than one-half inch in the past.
With the limited amount of ammunition I had, I couldn’t go through the process of shooting as many groups as I would like with each rifle and coming up with best groups, worst groups and averages. I started with clean barrels and fired a couple of fouling shots through each rifle and then shot two groups with three shots each.
First up was the 243 ammo. I shot two groups with Maddi’s little Remington 700, which she shoots half inch groups with using a load that I built for her. The first group was 1.5 inches. The second was a much more impressive 0.518. Next up for the 243 ammo I brought out the 1971 vintage Sako Forester equipped with an older Leupold VX-II 2x7. The old Sako, which usually likes lighter bullets absolutely loved the 85 gr copper bullets! The first group was 0.530 and it backed that up by shooting the best group of the test with a 0.190 group! Impressive performance for the 243 ammo. Three of four groups under one inch with two different rifles from the same box of factory ammo!
Next, I went to work with the 308. I really expected Dustin’s Savage with its heavy fluted barrel to do better than it did. When we were doing initial load development for this rifle it showed a distinct preference for heavier bullets. It showed the same tendency when we used it in the “Loading for the 308” article. It proved us right by shooting a 1.60-inch group backed up by a 1.53-inch group with the 150 gr loads. It left me wondering if Remington loaded the heavier 180 gr bullet that they use in the 300 Win Mag how would the Savage like it. The Bergara B-14 showed me that there was nothing wrong with the ammo by shooting a 0.778-inch group backed up by a 0.817-inch group.
I have always believed that if you shoot factory ammo, you should try as many different types as possible to find what your rifle likes best. After a limited test, with three out of four bone stock factory rifles producing groups of less than an inch and one of them shooting well under a quarter inch group. I think it would be worth your time to try a box of Remington’s new Core-Lokt Copper ammo.
