Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

I've been shooting 165 grain Winchester Soft Point ammo in my gun and have liked it a fair amount but never gotten it to group exactly like I wanted. Close usually but not exactly like I wanted.

Anyway I tried some Winchester 150 grain Silver Tips as I accidentally bought the wrong thing. The biggest downside to these is they are $23 a box instead of $15 a box. Anyway I kept hearing my buddies saying how they were crap and they didn't like them. Well I tried them and I hit 6 times cutting one hole in another in about a 1" hole with 6 shots in it. That impressed me and was way better than what I've done before. I've done that before with maybe 1 hole then another hitting right there with it but not 6. I really liked this but they all had me convinced that they are too soft.

Then there are the power points which I'm not sure what the difference is between those and the soft points they are in 150 grain also.

Which should I choose? I'm hunting white tail dear and maybe black bear. I want something with plenty of knockdown power. Will the Silver Tips be fine for that? I don't want to miss a dear from using ammo that wont take him down. What about for the bear? Should I just stick with those or should I start trying the Power points in 150 grain?

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Your buddies are full of it. I wouldn't worry a bit. I'd say the extra 8 bucks saved you from buying 3 or 4 other brands that might not shoot as well. Sell them the leftover 165's and be done with it.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

You should be perfectly fine with the silvertips.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Your buddies don't know jack. The silver tips are great for deer. Your friends probably think that deer wear bulletproof vest too. Deer are very easy to kill. Put the bullet were it should go and watch your deer crumble. People spend hundreds of dollars and hours of time to find what you found by mistake.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Winchester Silvertips were marketed as a controlled expansion bullet therefore making them somewhat tougher than the regular pp or sp's. In all honesty though, any standard construction bullet from an 06 or 308 will most definitely take any deer as long as the shot is placed properly. That being said my 06 likes the 180's.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

I use Silvertips. They work just fine.

T

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

I use the silvertips and they are DEVASTATING on deer. Every gun likes different ammo and your friend's rifles prolly don't like silvertips.

First, when it comes to "knowing things", friends can hurt you more than help you. If you do your own research, you will be surprised how much other information you learn along the waythat you didn'texpect to learn.

Secondly, accuracy is determined by so much more than a name on a bullet. It involves velocity, rotational rates, trajectory paths, weight ratios and distribution, cartridge design, etc. Bullet making/marketing is a very competitive field and engineers put a lot of effort into designing good quality bullets and cartridges, so its kind of silly to listen to a friend make such a broad statement about a bullet type when im sure the only experience he has with that bullet type is probably limited toone rifle. Im not saying that the bullet didnt perform poorly in his rifle, but you have to consider the probable fact that he has only used that type of round in only one of his rifles before deciding to tell people it wasnt a good round. Afterall, the silvertips are an extremely popular round and its for a reason, it's because they work.

If your rifle shoots them that well, then like mentioned above, you lucked out and saved a lot of money that most people spend looking for hte type of round that suits their rifle best. You should be happy and thrilled with your find so go out and shoot. Ask your buddy to come out and shoot with you, and after your grouping leaves his in the smoke, let him know what "crappy bullet" you are using. :)

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Ruger's right, deer are easy to kill...ANY hunting bullet will kill deer from any weapon 22 caliber and larger, given that you can hit where you aim.

$8 is a small price to pay when you consider that you knowto the inch where your bullet will impact.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

I tried Winchester silvertips and Remington Core-Lokt in my .308 and it didn't seem to group well, with the Core-Lokt's being the worst. Don't know why...

Then I tried Federal Premium Vital-Shok 165gr and haven't looked back. My Savage .308 absolutely loves Federal ammo. [8D]

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Now I can't get any of them to group together at all. I tried 165 grain soft points, 150 grain power points, and some more 150 grain soft tips. I've shot a ton of bullets as in 3-4 boxes trying to sight this thing in. I'm wondering if the scopes is bad. I had this Leupold scope and it makes it even worse when I think how much it cost me vs the $30 Tasco on my $150 muzzle loader that was grouping in the bulls eye about 1/2" groups. This rifle would hit the bullseye once or twice then would hit 3" high then 3" low then even with the bulls eye and to the left. I can't figure out what's going on. I'm using a sight vise to hold the gun but it still shakes some but I'm not sure that it does that much. I was shooting at 50 yards when I got it grouped like that and trying to do 100 yards now but I'm not understanding what's going on here.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Whoa horsey.....relax man. Just check your scope mounts and rings, make sure everything is snug. You might be gettting a little flinchy. 4 boxes of 30-06 (I assume its 30-06) will make anyone tired. How much have you tried to move the scope adjustments? Some people will try to adjust after one shot. Dont do it. If you're shooting groups, get the thing set up, relax squeeze the trigger, let the gun cool a bit, shot it again. You're all hyped up. Im not sure about the sight vice. I use 2 sand bags, 1 under the forearm, one under the butt of the stock. Once you get it set, its easy to repeat. Leupolds generally are pretty tough scopes.

Here's a little story of my Winchester Model 70 in 270 to calm you down.Did a "deep clean" before my sight in for the season. Dont really need it, but I love the smell of Hoppes #9. Took the dang thing completley apart. Get it all back together, shoot some groups, about 1.25" to 1.5". I know the gun is sub MOA, so I figured I was just a little rusty. Didnt really care because the groups were fine. Hunted all season, shot a deer, hunted some more and so on..... So I decided to do a little clean up before putting her away for a "long winters nap". Then I hear it, the mojo death rattle. I thought what the heck is rattling?So I start tapping on different parts of the gun and getto the scope. I tap the scope and it sounds like the lenses are broken, but they look fine when I look thought it. Then, I realized what was making the noise, the top rings of the scope mounts (Talley one piece aluminum). To my shock and horror, Ifound that all the screwswere loose except for one, which was finger tight only!!!! I never finished mounting thescope! I tightened one screw with my fingersso I could set the eye relief and square the cross hairs and never bothered totighten anything else!!

So I dug through my shooting bag and found my old sight in target and thought "Imagine how good this sucker will be with ALL the screws tight!!

Now off to sleep, and quit worrying...................zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

I shot two boxes yesterday and 1 box the day before then about 1 and a half boxes today. They aren't all at one time. Today I tried to shoot 2-3 shots then let it cool for 10-30 mintues but that takes forever. Takes me all day to get some shots in. After 2-3 shots it seems to shoot randomly but has always been good for the first 2-3 shots until it gets hot.

Haha cool story.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Letting the rifle cool is super important. Yeah, it takes a log time but its neccesarry we all have to do it. I put a 15 min. break between each 3 shot group. The most important thing is to calm down and have confidence. If you think the group will be bad it will be bad. It may be that you are not a 100 yard MOA shooter and 1'' at 50 yards should be 2'' at 100 yards anyway. Check your scope first then let someone else shot your rifle. Once again if you think your shot won't hit the bullzeye it won't.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

did you get your problem resolved? If not I got something for you to check put your gun into your gun vise to shoot, now can you slide a dollar between the stock and barrell the barrell might be getting hot and touching your stock throwing you off. The vise could be squeezing the stock into the barrell or close to it.
chris

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

I don't know how anyone can answer this without even knowing what cartridge they are coming out of??? 308 Win? 30-06? One of the 300 Mags??

If any of these are pushed too fast they are soft... But, if they are going at a reasonable velocity, they work pretty good on deer...

DM

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Yeah. I got it resolved. The vise I have isn't the best so it was still allowing me to move some. A buddy has one that's a way better setup so I used his. The only problem there is his 100 yard target was destroyed by the wind so we had to shoot at 50 yards. The first time I sighted it in dead on at 50 yards. As in it was cutting out the little bullseye every shot as long as I didn't pull. Then I dropped the gun that night. Well, it fell over when leaning up against something and I went to shoot it and it was 4" or so high. I brought it back down so it was right under 1" high. I figure this will be better at 100 yards as I plan to shoot around 100 yards or so with it. So I figure right under 1" high at 50 should be good at 100. I would like to someday check it at 100 yards I just didn't have a target that far out then. Anyway it's shooting really tight groups again. I really really like these Silvertips. I bought all 3 boxes a local gun shop had. I shot one sighting it in so have 2 boxes left.


The gun is a Browning BAR 30-06. The bullets are 30-06 150 Grain Silvertips.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Did you ever change out the Leupold for the Burris?

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

The Win. Power Point IS a softpoint, pure & simple. As for Silvertips, if you are referring to what Win. calls a "Ballistic Silvertip", these bullets are identical to the Nosler Ballistic Tip except for the COLOR of the plastic tip used.

If you are referring to the classic Win. Silvertip bullet, these are sort ofa "controlled expansion" softpoint type, with an aluminum covering over the lead at the front end. This covering more or lessdelays the start of the expansion until the bullet has penetrated a little way into the target animal.

For deer hunting, it does not matter much which bullet you choose, so select the one that shoots most accurately in your rifle.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

Nope. After going through all that to get the Leupold sighted in I decided I'd leave it on for right now unless I drop it and knock it off or something then if it's way off I may just put the Burris on. If not I may switch them out next year before hunting season. I was tired of messing with it for right now so didn't want to sight another scope in.

Right now I have the Burris sitting in a box. I may switch it out next year or even this year if something happens but I hate to do it when the Leupold is sighted in. Or if I get a new rifle or anything I may just put it on that. Not really sure but right now the plans are as stated above to just have it for a spare this year and maybe put it on next year and see how I like it.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

It's the classic Winchester Silvertip. Not the Ballistic Silvertip. I looked at those but have heard people say they don't like Ballistic bullets so I haven't tried them yet. Plus they are a lot more than these Silvertips that group amazingly.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

I have used the Winchester Ballistic Silvertip in my Sako 300wsm and that gun just loves them.

RE: Winchester Power Point vs Silver Tip vs Soft Point Ammo
 

The Win.Ballistic Silvertips with the polycarbonate coating ? They have proven to be incredible out of my 7mmRM Vanguard. I shoot 150gr.'s for everything here. I have consistently shot ragged, one hole groups at 100 yds. and sub MOA groups at 200 yds. I've consistently hit bullseyes (or near) with them out to 600yds.! They run me $38.95. The confidence they give me in the field is priceless !

Iv'e been taking Whitetail Deer for the last 30 Yrs with nothing but Win PP 130 gr. ammo in my Ruger M77 270 WIN. Rifle One shot Shoulder shots. Maybe they run no further than a few yards & that's it. I love this ammo & never thought of using any thin else. Like they say " If it's not Broke why fix it.?"