Many cast rifle bullet designs are intended for a specific purpose and to fit certain sized chamber throats, leade angles and cartridge neck lengths. That can limit their usefulness in some cartridges and even rifles, but over the years, I’ve shot RCBS Silhouette rifle bullets in an assortment of 7mm and .30-caliber cartridges, and the bullets have fit and shot well in all of them. According to Kent Sakamoto, RCBS senior product manager, the RCBS SILH bullet designs are an adaptation of the original bore-riding bullet designs from the 1970s by making the nose more rounded versus the original conical design. RCBS engineer Ken Alexander designed the SILH rifle bullets. Larry Meyer, also of RCBS, had some modified designs made for his guns to shoot in competition.

Moulds for RCBS SILH bullets include the 6.5-140-SILH, 7mm-145-SILH, 308-165-SILH and 308-200-SILH. These four bullets are designed with a short, full-diameter body and a long, forward parallel that fits between the rifling lands. That shape allows the bullets to fit in chambers with short throats, while also supporting the front of the bullet between the rifling lands to ensure the bullet is aligned with the bore on chambering and most of its length is supported as the bullet goes down the bore.

The SILH’s short, full-diameter body also permits seating the base well within the neck of a cartridge with an abridged neck, like the .300 Savage, .300 Winchester Short Magnum and .300 Winchester Magnum. A cast bullet will shoot accurately with its base and body seated below the neck. On firing, however, the base of the bullet below the neck may be distorted before the bullet moves forward into the chamber neck and throat. Powder gases may also scour lead from the sides of a bullet, preventing it from sealing off in the chamber throat and bore, causing leading in the rifling. So it is easier and less aggravating to choose a bullet that can be seated with its base enclosed and protected in the case neck.

The .300 Savage has a very short neck at .2207 inch in length, but with the 308-165-SILH bullet seated for a cartridge length of 2.60 inches, the bullet’s base is even with the bottom of the .300’s neck. When purchasing a Savage 99 .300 Savage years ago, I wanted an inexpensive load to practice with the rifle. The 308-165-SILH bullet was paired with 28.0 grains of IMR-4895. Experimenting started and stopped with that combination, as my notes state it was a “great load.”

The .300 Winchester Magnum has a similarly short neck. With a cartridge length of 3.305 inches, only the gas-check capped base of the 308-165-SILH bullet extends below the bottom of the case neck. With velocities between 1,800 and 1,900 fps, groups were just over an inch at 100 yards.

In contrast, other cast bullets that have long, full-diameter bodies must be seated well below the neck of .300 magnum cases for their front driving bands to sit next to the start of the rifling. They failed to shoot nearly as well as the SILH bullets.

The SILH bullets have only one full lubrication groove. When I first shot 308-165-SILH bullets from a .30-06 and 7mm-145-SILH bullets from a 7mm-08 Remington, I wondered if one groove held enough lubrication to last the length of the barrel. However, a look at the muzzle of the rifles’ barrels showed black streaks on them after firing a few rounds. Those lines were excess lubrication coming out the ends of the rifling grooves. In the years since, Silhouette bullets have left these black lines, no matter if the bullets were traveling 1,600 or 2,100 fps.

Persnickety cast bullet shooters go on about the need for a bullet to tightly fit in the chamber throat to provide the best accuracy. They say the only way to get that “glove-fit” is to make a chamber cast and size a bullet to fit. The chambers in today’s rifles, though, are uniform. I size 7mm-145-SILH bullets in a .285-inch sizing die, and at that diameter they have fit tightly in the throats of six different 7mm-08 rifles with a cartridge length of 2.724 inches. The cartridges require a bit of downward force on the bolt handle to chamber, but they easily extract without pulling the bullets from the cases. To provide that close fit, just experiment with bullet seating depth to position the front of the full-diameter of the bullet in the throat at the start of the rifling.

The front of the bullet between the rifling lands is the second essential fit, because land-to-land fit with cast bullets carries the same importance as groove-to-groove fit with jacketed bullets. This fit is especially evident with the SILH bullets. Two-thirds of the length of the 308-165-SILH bullet is supported between the lands.

If the diameter of the bore-riding portion of the bullet is too wide, a bullet may not fit between the lands. This can cause a cartridge to fail to chamber or chamber excessively hard. If the diameter is too narrow, then accuracy may suffer. That has never been a problem with the SILH bullets. Cast of Linotype, for which the SILH moulds are intended, the front parallel of 7mm-145-SILH bullets measures .2785 inch in diameter. That is a snug fit in the rifling ahead of the chambers in my 7mm-08 and 7mm magnum rifles. The forward diameter of these bullets measures right at .2780 inch as cast of wheelweights. That diameter still provides a slip fit between the lands. Bullets cast from both alloys shoot into an inch, and often less, at 100 yards.

Over the years a minimum amount of fuss has been required to cast and load RCBS SILH rifle bullets to make them shoot accurately from a variety of cartridges. The bullets certainly contain nearly unlimited potential accuracy with their bases protected inside case necks, a tight fit of the body in a chamber and the long nose braced between the rifling lands. Just recently my son shot a Mossberg .308 Winchester at a 100-yard target. He fired six 308-165-SILH bullets into slightly less than 2 inches – from the sitting position.