Old Sierra Bullets

Yesterdays post about those old Sierra Bullets gendered a few comments, and I find it interesting that someone other than me cares about such things.

Anonymous writes:

PawPaw, I Googled "sierra harris machine co" and found this from a 2009 post on handloadersbench.com.

Harris Machine Co. began manufacturing Sierra Bullets in 1947 in Riviera, Ca. In 1952 they became an independent co, Sierra Bullets Inc., and sold by Harris. They were in Whittier Ca.from 1952 or 53 until 1963 when they moved to Santa Fe Springs, Ca.

Interesting. I also googled and found that thread. If Sierra was spun off of Harris Machine Co in 1952, that makes those bullets older than PawPaw, who was born in 1953. The other three boxes are marked "Whittier, CA", so if they moved from Whittier in 1963, those bullets are almost 50 years old. Great stuff.

I'd bet that they were probably intended for the .250 Savage, which was at the height of it's popularity back then. I remember an old article that I read as a kid, where either Jeff Cooper or Elmer Keith was talking about the .250 Savage and said that they believed that 87 grain bullets were just a little bit light for whitetail deer in the .250 Savage.

Another anonymous commenter writes:

late 50's, part of the reloading boom post Korean war.Early 25-06 experiments were likely done with those.Quality will be high but likely thicker jackets than these days. Metal drawing technology was not the same as now.

I'll take your word on the jackets and the metal drawing technology of the late '50s early '60s. I have no idea about that and no reason to dispute it. I disagree, though, that they were probably early experiments with the .25-06. The .25-06 was a very early wildcat, the brainchild of a guy named Charlie Newton. In 1912 he looked at the .30-06 cartridge and thought "What if?" Later, A.O. Neidner began producing rifles for the cartridge, using 117 grain bullets from the .25-35. That cartridge has been around for a long time.

It's one of my favorite cartridges and it's all I can do to leave a rifle in the used gun rack when I see that it's marked as a .25-06. We've got one in the family, a Ruger 77 that lives at my son's house. Very accurate rifle with 117 grain bullets. He's normally a magnum shooter, but says that the more he shoots that cartridge the more he likes it. I did the workups on that rifle with Reloder 22 powder and we're getting something north of 2900 fps with 117 Gamekings.

Just recently, I found another Ruger 77, this one an earlier model, probably made in 1970. I couldn't stand it, so it's on layaway at my favorite gun shop. Which reminds me, I need to run by there next week and give them another payment.