Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game CoreLokt: what was your favorite?

No limits - tell us what you think.

I’m going with .308/165gr CoreLokt. Fine bullet for medium game in my opinion. Similar to a Hornady Interlock of the same weight.

Always been fond of the 150 Core-Lokt in the 308 and 30-06

These two and the 100 gr 243.

I don't know that any CoreLokt was bad, never heard any complaints. But in spite of rules to the contrary, I still have high regard for the 185 gr 8mm CL. I use it in 8mm06 and 8x57, never any drama. Seems to have a huge useful velocity window. Like Mr. Pints I also have a supply of .308, 165's....Finn Aagaard trusted them as a standard, so that was all I needed to know. There seems to be a great deal of snobbery in the bullet world, if it doesn't cost a buck or two per shot...it can't possibly be effective.

I've had the most experience with the Remington Core Lokt .308" 165 gr. in .308 Winchester. It seemed like a better bullet than the Hornady IL 165gr., accuracy was as good and it held up better when hitting heavy bone in moose or elk. The old .308" 180 RN was good one too. Especially for moose. A good bullet design, and cheap, but not available any more, at least around here.

180 grain round nose. Either in 300 savage, 308, or 30-06. Works great.

130gr 270 worked well when I was growing up. This was the only ammo my father purchased for me so I didn’t have much to compare it to when I was a kid.

Been picking these Deadly Mushrooms for many a year - 8mm .308. .35 W

As a kid one of the most popular guns up here were the 760/7600 in 30.06 and in our group the old guys all thought the 180RN was the bomb.

Props for pulling out all the stops for that photo.

Surely because if it's superior brush-busting capabilities.

Used a lot in the 223 and 30-30 as well as the 35 Whelen.

Still have some in 22 caliber 55 grain,should work for deer.

25-06 100 grain. Deadly accurate for me.

In the 1960s and 70s Remington made the Core-Lokts with very good thick jackets. They were excellent for the most part. I used them in 270 150 grain, 30 cal in 150, 180 and 220 round noses, a batch or 200 grain 35 calibers as well as .375 270 grain round nose. I also shot many of them in the 150 grain and 180 grain 30 cal spitzers.
All were good but the round noses were the best.

150 PSP and 165 PSP in 30-06

117 RN in 257 Roberts

Use the the 50 and 55 gr in 22 caliber. 117 Rni and 120 in 25 caliber. The 150 in a 270, the 140gr iand 150gr in 7mm caliber, 150,170, 180 in 30 caliber. The 250 gr in 338, 200 in 35 caliber.

A 20 box of 150 gr Rem Core-Lokts in 30-06 could be had for $9.83 at Wal-Mart 30 years ago. They were the cheapest thing they had at the time so I always stuck to them. They never let me down.

Agreed! This year’s buck succumbed to factory 180 RN in 30-06

I really liked the 30-30 170gr Core Lokt RN HP bullets

Heck, I bought a bunch at half that about 5 years ago after the season. Federal blue box too. Couldn’t make it myself that cheap.

That's a bargain!

The 130 CL out of a 270win would be my favorite. 35-40 years ago every Mom & Pop country store had the shelves stocked with Green Boxes. They were and are plenty accurate and deadly. Always a nice pretty red trail leading to a critter.
I still load and use them occasionally. My stock pile of CL’s is almost gone.

Dandy bullet!

I absolutely hated that load. I'd shoot deer right behind the shoulder and they'd run 150 yards. I was so glad when my Dad switched us over to 150 Core-Lokt and they would always be down within 50 yards

That's exactly why my dad said we had to use that trash round. He finally listened to me and switched us when he hit a good buck through the liver and it made it onto posted land where he could not get permission to pursue it

For many years I shot 180 grain flat base CL's in my 03 and then in my 721 30-06. I got a good deal on 150 and 170 grain RN CL's and have been shooting them in my 30-30's and my 30-40's.

The 200 grain 358 CLRN has always been an awesome bullet in a 35 Rem. Love that bullet and how it pounded deer.

This year the old Colonel took his bull with the 180 RNs. Worked fine.





I used the point 200 grain factory stuff in my 35 Whelen and they never made it through normal sized whitetail does or a good 8 point the first year I used that rifle. Just found shrapnel on the ribs. Maybe a bad batch but that’s what pushed me to better bullets in the Whelen.

Ordinarily though, their bullets are usually pretty serviceable.

Big fan of the 117 roundnose .257 Bob and 200grn .35 Rem factory ammo.

Don't know about "favorite", but the most blood I have ever blown out of a deer was with a 180gr CL PSP factory load out of a Ruger No. 3 .30/40 Krag. Ray Charles could have followed that very short blood trail.

I have used CoreLokts a lot in the past, but they have changed. I have experienced that they aren't as tough as they used to be. This makes no difference if used on deer are such, but if you are after elk it is my opinion there are better choices nowadays especially if you are using a high-velocity round.

Yeah, back in the day, they were often lumped into the same category with Nosler Partitions. I don't know about that, but I put them in the same league as Interlocks, which stands to reason since Hornady used to manufacture the Core-Lokts for Remington.

Great pics Scotty! You boys look pretty happy!

We were on Cloud 9

Never found a reason to use anything other than the 170 gr 30-30 factory load. I still have about 5 boxes of them on reserve.

Great post and pic Scotty. As for Remington corelocts that I've used, when I was young I burned up a lot of 220 grain 30-06 ammo. That stuff worked very well, but deer and jack rabbits and lizards are the only thing I used them on in the desert. My grandpa gave me a big ammo box full of them. Probably 50 boxes of ammo in there, so I had to shoot them up...

I've seen a lot of bad things happen in the 270 and 30/06 with Corekots.


I like them in the 35 Rem and 30/30.

On deer or bigger game?

Killed my first deer in 1976 with a .270 and the 150 grain RN core-lokt and this year got one with a .257 Roberts and the 117 grain RN core-lost. Worked fine on both😁👍

PennDog

Deer, all shoulder blow-ups.

Wow

100 gain in .243 win. Those suckers eat!

Favorite corelokt is 165 psp out of 30-06. Great deer load

Lou

I liked the 180 grain round nose in 30/06. Used it on deer, elk & black bear.

117 in the Bob and 165 in 06.

Used Core-Lokts exclusively for years in: .35 Remington, .223, 6.5X55, .243. When I got my 6.5 Creedmor, I started using Federal Fusion ammunition which is very accurate in my rifle.

About 360 yards. Cheap Rem 770 (moa), Tasco 6X scope, 150 gr Corelokts.

A guy I worked with went on a plains game hunt in South Africa about 10ish years ago. He didn’t take his own rifle, instead he rented a Blaser 30-06 from the guide. He shot 17 head of game including a 1400 pound Eland with 19 shots (no misses). What ammo? Regular old Green box Remington 165 grain Core-lokt.

Ron

Loaded the 100 gr CL for years for a friend in his Rem 788 243. He took over a hundred deer with it. He loved that bullet. Still have a box or two of them in the shop.

GreggH

I bought 140’s for my 7 mags before I started hand loading.

I have borrowed rifles on 5-6 foreign hunts. All but once the outfit had 300 Win and 180 corelokts. It works.

For decades the Core Lokts in 30-30, .35 Rem, 243, .308, and 30-06 have worked for me without issue.

I have Remington core-lokt ammo in 100gr .243, 140gr .280, 200gr 35Rem, 170gr 32win spl, 150gr and 170gr in 30/30 and more I'm sure, good bullets.

30 cal. 180 gr. Round nose core-lokt. 30-06.

165 gr. RNSP core-lokt 280 rem.

Zero bullets recovered, just good blood trails and always dead game.

I used a lot of Cor-Lokts for many years... Then I bought a Juenke machine. Easily the worst bullets on the market for jacket uniformity. And they do a lot of meat damage.

The best 120 gr psp in factory Remington ammo was a core lokt. For years it was availible as a component bullet. Same with the 130 gr ptd sp .277 bullet the worked very well...mb

180 round nose in 308 and 30-06, killed good and always had an exit wound.

220gr .30-06.

Just cause it was different.

-Jake

The 140 6.5 and 130 270s I used all sucked. Huge shallow wounds with fragments everywhere.

I shot a 100 pound buck in the neck with the 260 and it failed to break the spine, blew a 3” hole in the side of his neck though.

Chest shots with no bones hit on small deer and pigs with the offside of the rib cage looking like it had #8 shot embedded in it. Hit a shoulder and pretty much write off eating it.

35 Rem and 30/30 factory loads have been good. Of course about anything resembling a bullet will work at those speeds but they have or had them figured out.

225 Grain 338 Win mag

Hornady made those CoreLokt’s for Remington. That’s why they shoot like Interlocks & deliver the same on-game performance.

180gr 300wm. 130gr 270win. 150gr 308 win. It has worked for years. No need to change now.

Interesting! I didn’t realize that.

200 grain .358, SP and RN

That 200 RN is a beast!

Seriously! Love to have a few of those on the shelf. Not sure there is a better bullet for a 35 Rem.

Yup, exactly. I liked when you could get them as components for the 35 Rem. They were accurate for me as well.

I have had the worst luck with the cor-Lokt's. I collect spent bullets recovered from actually game. In my collection I have over 100 documented bullets and the game they took. Also have a double handful of bullets from a wild game meat processing plant that has not documentation, just spent bullets of all makes. While guiding big game hunters I got to see lots of deer, elk and antelope shot. Cor-Lokt's failed about as often a Sierra's. Broadside lung shot game isn't much of a test and often about any bullet will work. When put at difficult angles or bone is encountered I find they fail, often. Back when Remington built bullets with actual belts in from 1930's to early 1960's they were better at holding together. If you search Remington catalogs from the early 1970's you can see they no longer have a belt. Early Cor-Lokt hollowpoints of the 1960's and earlier have a great reputation and I have taken several deer and elk with them and the recovered bullets show great performance.

I emailed remington about component bullets, specifically the 30 caliber 180 grain roundnose. Their response was to keep checking for availability on line. So is it safe to assume they are going to offer them?

I bought a 1000 .277 for my 270 win about 35 yrs ago. I still have some left. I payed $73 for the box from Midway. I have shot several deer and 3 hear. I have never complained about it. I also bought some .243 REM coreloc 100 gr. for $10 a hundred about 10 yrs ago . I should have bought 1000 I only shot one deer with them though and it died pretty quick . I was surprise of the damage it did to the shoulder , went out the guts and ruined the lungs and heart. I was very surprised.

200 grain .358 RN in the .35 Remington but I'm glad to find any of the older bullets for the cartridges I shoot. I have them for .30 WCF, .32 Winchester Special, .35 Remington and .358 Winchester, and a small supply for the .348 Winchester. I think but am not sure that I also have some in 6.5 mm hid out somewhere. Got this December 26 with a 200 grain RN in .35 Remington, deer just hate that bullet.

These are collected from dead animals correct?

On the left are both 250gr 35 Whelen one PSP and one RN….the other ones are a 308 Silvertip and a 30-06 Bronze point. I’m not sure what the bullet weights of the last 2 are since they’re just miscellaneous ones I’ve acquired over the years.

I guess the 200 gr .358 RN in factory loaded .35 Rem ammo is the only CoreLokt I have experience with. If given a choice on any bullet for the .35 Rem I'd choose it based on what I've seen it do. It seems about as good a fit to the .35 Rem for use on game as a bullet could be.

140 grain in 6.5 mm....

for a low cost hunting bullet at the time... that thing was unbelievably accurate, and was a darn unbelievable penetrating bullet, due to good sectional density...got a couple of thousand of them once on a close out for dirt cheap.... like 5 cents a bullet or so...

probably still have a thousand or so of them left...somewhere around here...

A reliable 30-06 loaded with 180gr corelokts would be sufficient for me. When I lived in Alaska I was fortunate to travel to many native villages throughout the state. In every village community store one could find corelokts in 30-06. 223 was also common.

And they’ve killed a vast qty of animals.

Heard a quote from someone that said, “Talk to the old guys, they know stuff.”

Funny you mention “brush busting.” The only real brush busting I did was with a core lokt. Not ina brush busting caliber either. I was shooting 180 core lokt factory Remington green box 300 Win Mag. Had a big fat doe at about forty yards looking directly at me behind a huge old 40+ foot blue spruce. It had all kinds of dead branches and crap around the bottom. I put the crosshairs at the base of her neck and touched off a round. She did a somersault and fell dead on her back. Not sure if I got lucky and missed ever branch but I found that bullet just under the hide near the base of the tail after it broke the pelvis. Anyway you slice it that’s great penetration.

Those and 7mm 140 grain Core-Lokt bullets are exceptional.

Taken a bunch of deer in 243 with the 100 gr. Core-Lokt. The farthest was around 330ish. Pass through’s we’re the norm. Most were DRT.

I have shot most of my game with the Remington Core-Lokt ammo and I never felt at a disadvantage. I switched to Nosler partitions for a while and they were also good on game but the Remington were always easy to find and a good price. Used 7 mag/270/300 H&H/7x57.

30-06 and 180 gr corelokt has worked for me

Can ya even find them anymore for reloads?

When I was younger I chased the speed demons and had failures with cup and core bullets blowing up at high speed. Went the premium bullet route and had failures with solid copper bullets not opening properly. Partitions worked great but tore up too much meat. Now I am older and more experienced I am back to round nose cup and core bullets at more sedate velocities and eating right up to the hole. I have found that at the ranges I take game heavy for caliber round nose bullets work just fine. Turns out those old timers knew what they were talking about after all. I now reside proudly in the Elmer Keith camp.

Any time I find old stock round nose corloc bullets anywhere I buy them up. I have a pretty good stock pile now enough to last me the rest of my hunting career. Long established out of the way gun shops always seem to have a couple of boxes in 308 or 257, 270, and surprisingly 303 round noses on their shelves.

That was always my experience with them! Accurate as well!

I don't recall having had a bad Remington Core-Lokt experience. When I was a kid, the 100 grain PCL in 243, 180 grain RNCL in 300 SAV, 308, and 30-06, 170 grain RNCLs in both 30-30 and 32 WS, and 200 grain RNCL in 35 REM were commonly seen during the ME, NH, and VT deer seasons. My friends in NH who track and shoot Remington pump guns in 30-06 are hording their supply 180 grain RNCL factory ammo.

CL’s have been evolving over the years. So one person’s experience with them may be different than another’s.
I’ve used CL’s for many years but they were an older style. I had thousands of them - mostly 30 caliber. I bought out a fellow that had a manufacture of ammunition’s license. I still have a few 170 and 150 grain RN CL’s that I use in 30-30 and 30-40 rifles.
My experience with CL’s has been excellent. Not one failure. I shot a lot of whitetail with them and only white tail, not elk or anything bigger than white tail.

I don't think I can say I had a specific favorite because my experience was that any Core-Lokt made from the early 70s and previously were very good to great. I was in love with the old Core-Lokts below.
The ones I used that set a good high bar were ;

the 25 cal 120 grain spitzers. Always used in 25-06 rifles and one friend I loaded ammo for used them in his 257 Weatherby. One of the best cup and core 25s I ever used if not the very best.
the 270 150 Grain Round Nose, Always fired from various 270 Winchester rifles. Absolutely excellent. Killed several elk and never recovered one. They drop fast and leave a lot of blood. On the ranch I killed cattle and horses with this bullet and from them I'd recover a bullet at times. They held weight super well. Broad side on horses I never recovered one but I did with a few angled shots.
the 150 RN, 180 RN and 220 grain RN 30 calibers, fired from 30-40 Krag, 300 Savage, 308 Winchesters (4 different rifles) 30-06 (3 different rifles) 300 H&H, 308 Norma, 300 Win Mag All excellent and these were far more accurate then most people expect.
the 150 and 180 grain pointed. Again very good but not as good at weight retention as the RN bullets. Probably because RNs slow down more in flight more so impacts were a bit slower and the slower speeds at impact may be the reason the weight retention was higher. Accurate but for some reason the RN bullet above were actually more accurate then the pointed CLs. (not that it mattered)
the 175 grain pointed 8MM, Used from a 100% original military GEW M98 Mauser. Only a few kills on deer and one on an old crippled horse. I recovered the bullet from the horse but not any of the deer. The one from the horse was given to the owner, but it looked perfect.
the 200 grain RN 358. Used from a Marlin 35 Remington and a Remington M141. Perfect results.
and the 270 grain RN375 Used from my 375H&H. Just a death machine. Never recovered any from anything. Boom. Dead animal. Get knife out.
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Below this are the new CoreLokts (made late 1980 and later) and what I have seen from them. Only a few were noteworthy or outstanding.


I have bought and used these which were made around the late 80s and up to about 2008, and was not as impressed with most of them as I was with the old ones.

100 Grain 25 cal from my 25-06. 4 Broke up completely all on doe antelope. Dislike them for anything larger then Coyotes. Varmint bullets. But quite accurate.
120 grain 6.5MM from my two 6.5 Swede rifles. Accurate but broke up to some extent on deer and antelope. OK but not great. Also accurate. I tend to think of them as varmint bullet that I can kill deer with if I have nothing else.
140 grain 6.5MM. In my rifles none of were very accurate, but they did very well on game. So this bullet was a love/hate relationship for me. 3 to 3.5 inch groups in my guns making them 150 yard ammo for hunting at best, but they held together very well and killed like mad. I killed deer and antelope with several and I saw 3 elk killed with them. 2 from a 6.5 Swede and one from a 260 Remington. For hunting in forests or brush they are very good, but for open areas I'd not use them.
130 grain 270s. As good as any standard cup and core 130 grain 270 I have used, but not better. More accurate then I expected with groups coming in at 3/4" and some less. I tend to use Partitions in my 270s now.
150 grain Remington 30-30. Text book expansion and excellent weight retention but every single deer I ever shot with one gave me the bullet back. No criticism at all other then I like like exits, and from what I have seen a 30-30 with a 150 grain often doesn't exit deer or antelope. I wanted to get 170s but it seems they are not for sale by Remington anymore.
30 caliber 150 grain spitzers. Better then Sierra BTs or the Burgers, equal to Hornadys and Speers but not as good as Nosler Partitions. Overall not bad, but nothing to brag about. On a scale of 1-10, for 30 cal 150 grain cup and cores I'd give them a 6.
30 caliber 180 grain spitzers This one is one of the best of the newer 180 grain cup and cores, but not as accurate of some other brands. Not bad at all but 1.3 MOA is what I have come to expect from them in most of my rifles. Other brands can shoot well under an MOA where the Core-Lokts of today do not do that for me. I still favor them over most of the 180 grain cup and core competition for hunting, because in my experience they hold together batter then the Speer Hot Core, Sierra BTs or Hornady and WAY better then the Burger. So I gladly give up a small degree of accuracy to gain a better killer.
.311" 180 grain. This one surprised me at how well it did when used from 303 Brit, 7.56 Belgian and 7.62X54R . This is a newer bullet but seemed to work far better then most of the others. The game killed with them by myself and my brother as well as a friend from Green River have been 4 antelope 6 deer and 2 elk. Only the elk gave us a bullet back and it broke a shoulder bone and still weighs 147 grains. Simply great preformance so far.

I’ve had good Luck with 140 6.5’s. Accurate in my 260 and do very well from close to 375 on whitetail. Have not recovered a bullet.
Shot a lot of the 165 308 caliber in my 06’s. Worked well on deer.
A few hundred 180 as well but only a few deer by my sil. All worked well.