Remington Core Lokt Ultra
A couple of years ago Remington introduced its own bonded-core bullet called the Core Lokt Ultra. The bullet has a thicker jacket in the midsection and features a cannelure. Under high impact velocity at close range, the bullet turned almost inside-out, expanding down to the base with a very large frontal diameter. However, since the core is bonded to the jacket, the bullet retains a fair amount of weight. As with most bullets tested, the Core Lokt Ultra expanded beautifully at a simulated 400-yard velocity.

Sierra Pro Hunter, Game King
Sierra sticks by its conventional old-line bullets: the flat-based Pro Hunter and Game King boattail. Thousands of game animals have been taken with these old reliables with a reputation for accuracy. I shot many head of elk with a 180-grain Sierra flat-base spitzer from a .300 Win. Mag. before someone told me I needed a premium bullet to do the job. I have learned that while other bullets may penetrate deeper, lung-shot elk do not necessarily expire more decisively. In my testing, two Pro-Hunter bullets shed jackets at a simulated 400-yard impact velocity.

Speer Trophy Bonded
This non-boattail design with a small flat at the tip has an exceedingly thick and solid base--the thickest of all the lead-cored bullets--extending for a third of the bullet's length. Forward of the solid base are thick jacket walls that taper toward the front of the bullet. There is a "T" impressed into the base of each bullet.

The blunt tip of the Trophy Bonded bullet tends to make it shorter, but the thick base tends to make it longer for a given weight because there is not as much room for a large and more dense lead core inside. So while they're shorter than any of the long plastic-tipped bullets, they're longer than other blunt-tipped bullets.

The solid base causes the bullet to retain a good portion of shank during expansion, even under exceedingly high impact velocity. In my tests it retained a greater shank length under high impact velocity than any other bullet with a forward lead core. The Trophy Bonded bullet penetrates well with a good frontal diameter and retains a high percentage of weight.

Swift A-Frame
This is the bullet that popularized core bonding. It is relatively blunt-tipped and flat-based with a copper "jacket." I use that term in quotes because it is not a jacket in the traditional sense. It has a cross-member with two lead cores--one forward and one rearward. It has exceedingly thick jacket walls in the forward section with thinner walls in the base--at least in the .30 caliber 180-grain version.

There is a circumferential groove on the outside of the bullet over the cross member, and the bullet's jacket base is crimped over the base core. The A-Frame produced classic mushrooming in every test. Under extremely high impact velocity, the retained shank of the bullet that's rearward of the cross member bulges outward. The bulge serves to support the flaring and rearward-curling petals, maintaining a good-size frontal diameter. As a result of this design, the bullet retained the greatest weight under high impact velocity of any bullet in the test.

Swift Scirocco
This bullet set a new standard in bonded bullet technology. It was the first bullet to combine the game-taking advantages of core bonding with VLD technology for a high ballistic coefficient. The Scirocco in all caliber and weight configurations produces some of the highest ballistic coefficients of all hunting bullets on the market.

The bullet has an extremely thick base and base-wall section and thinner jacket walls forward. The forward portion of the lead core is much thicker than the rear section, and the nose is capped with a black plastic tip with an air cavity beneath it. The bullet produces positive upset even under low-velocity impact. At high velocity, the bullet penetrates well and expands almost to the boattail with a high portion of retained weight.