This round was entirely covered with white’n’green corrosion so I couldn’t even read the headstamp. Vinegar soak cleared all of that. This appears to be a hunting round but it is not a soft nose. Why? Both looked like original loads to me.
.22 Savage High power. I have some with full jacket and soft points. I believe these were loaded by Savage Arms Corp.
The full metal case bullet was listed as early as 1920 in their catalog #61, but best I can tell that particular h.s. (with S.A. Corp. at 6 o’clock) shows up around 1924, in the #64 catalog - the latest illustrations I have, 1957, still show it…
I am not a hunter, and always assumed that ALL hunting ammo is of expanding type. Am I wrong?
FMC’s in smaller calibers (meaning non-dangerous game) were useful where excess tissue damage was to be avoided. Trappers and hunters supplying the fur market went for the FMC to minimize pelt damage.
Also, some was intended for law enforcement, etc.
Lots of non-expanding bullets when it comes to hunting the really big stuff – obviously that’s not the case here.
In the case of small calibers, I always understood that FMJ’s were aimed at minimizing pelt damage when shooting fur-bearers.
This might be a good place to explore terminology (or semantics?). In the early days of metal jacketed bullets they were referred to as “Metal Patch” (think of jacketed soft point) or “Full Patch” (think full metal jacket). This was the day when paper patch bullets were common.
Later the “Metal Case” and “Full Metal Case” terms came into vogue. And then, our current terms of Jacketed (soft point, HP, etc) and FMJ. Interestingly I have seen the “FMC” term used in some later catalogs - along with FMJ. I think there was some different terminology in European use?
OK, thanks everyone, I get it, it is a type of ammo used against something like foxes, so the pelt does not get an extra hole. By the way, I pulled the projectile from the 2nd soft nose round and damaged the lead nose part of it (I never used kinetic hammer on soft nose ammo). So next time I do this, I’ll put some soft paper inside the hammer cavity to preserve the pointed soft nose.
A very uncommon Savage variation of the bullet type as this bullet is solid turned steel. A few of these turned up in PA back in the early 1980’s.
The bullet has a slight exposed belt just at the base.
Vlad: FMJ in hunting is not just for keeping pelts intact. WDM Bell killed several hundred elephants with standard 7 m/m 173 gr. round nosed military bullets, and nearly all of the large caliber major game loadings by Kynoch were available in a ‘solid’ loading. Jack
Pete, this is a twist! Just a couple of ‘shots in the dark’. This h.s. was used between 1897 and 1916 and falls in the period when Savage had to make their own ammo, rather than contracting it out (1900-1927). Savage brand ammo was sold in Australia, England and Germany so maybe special for that market? Other idea is maybe for punching holes in metal fabrication?
