Silver Bear Rifle Ammo

[A.J.]

I don't know if this is discussed in here or not. I posted it in the Tikka forum, but thought I'd get a bigger audience here. I just ordered me a new Tikka T3 Lite in 30-06, and while I'm waiting for it to come in, I'm looking around for ammo for it. I plan on mainly shooting Fusion ammo through it, if the rifle likes it, but I was wanting to do some serious stocking up on cheaper ammo for "hard times". I saw a heck of a deal on Silver Bear ammo. It has the steel case and magnetic hollow point bullets. I've shot a bunch of 7.62x39 stuff through my SKS and it seems to work fine. Have any of you guys had any experience with it? As long as it gives some semblance of accuracy, is non-corrosive, and most importantly, won't harm my rifle, it will work for me for stored back emergency ammo.

[jvs]

What is a magnetic hollow-point ?

I don't know much about Silver Bear ammo, but I can tell you that I hardly ever had luck accuracy wise while using hollow point ammo, especially out of a high powered rifle.  Being a 'once and done' Steel Case, they probably aren't too well suited for anything but auto-loaders.  It sounds like it may be reboxed Military ammo.  But who knows.

Your new Tikka can be the Guinea Pig, let us know how it works out.

[greenjeans]

I have shot a few of them out of my H&R single shot. Accuracy is "so-so" and the cases would not eject by themselves, but the H&R's have that problem sometime. Probably would be okay in a bolt gun. Didn't notice that they were any dirtier than other stuff.

[MGMorden]

Is this stuff laquered like Barnaul rounds?  If so I'd pass on it.  I've tried them in my .30-06 and had them stick in the chamber (luckily it was a push-feed rifle and cycling the bolt a second time managed to pull it out).  The chamber basically gets hot and the laquer will melt a bit, making it stick (and in general gumming up the chamber).  I had bought 100 rnds of the stuff because it was cheap, but after 5 or 6 those went into my "If the sh*t hits the fan I'll use these bullets but not until" pile.

If you want some cheap practice/plinking ammo grab some Igman/Hotshot.  It's proper brass cases and the stuff doesn't shoot that badly.  Just don't try to reload them.  Their flash holes are drilled a wee bit small and I've broken a decapping pin or two on the cases.

[R.W.Dale]

(luckily it was a push-feed rifle and cycling the bolt a second time managed to pull it out).  The chamber basically gets hot and the laquer will melt a bit, making it stick

 AH yes cause the chamber on bolt action rifles gets SOOOOOO much hotter than on an full auto AK that also fires laquered ammo.


 I've fired the Acadmey brand of Barnual 30-06 with the steel laquered cases. Accuracy was so so 3 to 4 MOA (what do you expect for $6). Extraction and ejection was flawless. Something I noticed about the ammo was it's kinda a poor man's managed recoil load. The bullet is 140 grains and the velocity was only 2650 FPS making for a pretty light kicking 30-06 load that would be good for the recoil sensitive.