Winchester's USA JHP ammunition: Winchester breaks new ground with its USA brand of personal protection hollowpoints

Guns Magazine, August, 2002 by Charles E. Petty

One of the very best bargains around is the ammo that comes in the plain red, yellow and white boxes. Examples include Federal's American Eagle, Remington's Rem-UMC and Winchester's USA. All of these loads are characterized by plain packaging and basic bullets of lead or full-metal-jacket construction.

Although they sell for a lot less than premium loads from the same company, the bargain loads are made on the same machinery and the same components. Some shooters have argued that manufacturers use cheap or rejected components. But we all that in this age of product liability, no manufacturer can afford to use anything other than first-quality materials. The packaging is obviously less fancy, but full-metal jacket bullets are pretty much the same whether they go in brand-name or generic boxes.

Winchester's move to put hollowpoint bullets into generic packaging is actually a pretty big deal. The relatively new study of bullet performance in defensive ammo has brought us a whole new line of premium bullets, such as the SXT, Hydra-shok, Gold Dot and Golden Saber, and these loads command a significantly higher price. More than a few folks think that because these bullets cost more, they must be better. When selecting defensive ammunition, most of us rely on the premium loads and focus all our attention on them to the exclusion of the standard ammo.

Putting It To The Test

With our newfound awareness of bullet performance also comes a certain, level of skepticism about lesser ammo. Is it possible for the generic hollowpoints to perform as well as the more expensive stuff? Actually that's easily answered. All we need to do is check velocity, accuracy and expansion. Over the years, I've found that shooting a bullet into water is an informative and expedient medium. After all, tissue is mostly water anyhow. Water is a tougher test medium than gelatin, so I generally see a degree of expansion that's slightly greater than I would see when using 10-percent gelatin. Gelatin is expensive, and water testing costs virtually nothing; you don't have to cook or mold anything. If a bullet doesn't expand in water, you can bet it won't in anything else. Conversely, the expansion measured in water is the most you'd likely see. In my experience, the difference between water and gelatin is not usually very large, although no test can guarantee that any bullet will expand in tissue.

Winchester's new USA JHP loads are offered in .38 Special, P, 9mm Luger, .357 SIG, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. Bullet weights and velocities are the standard stuff. No difficult choices to make as to speed or weight. When I first heard about these loads, I must say it didn't strike me as a big deal. But after I shot them and studied the price list, my opinion quickly changed. This ammunition is a good value, and it also performs extremely well.

Let's look at the test results. Test firearms with barrel lengths in parentheses were: SIG P-228 9mm (3.8 inch), S&W 686 .38 Special (4 inch), SW 99 .40 S&W (4 inch) anti Kimber Super Match .45 ACP (5 inch). The .357 SIG load was not available in time for inclusion in these tests.

Velocity is the instrumental average of 10 shots at 15 feet as measured with a PACT 'Professional chronograph. Accuracy results are five-shot groups at 25 yards from a benchrest. Expansion is the average diameter of three rounds fired into water.

The velocities are absolutely appropriate for these defensive loads given the particular test weapons, and the expansion results are exceptionally good. For .45 and .40 loads, expansion to .7 inch is very good; for the 9mm, expansion over .6 inch is great. The .38 Special results may seem disappointing, but they really aren't bad for the type of bullet, a semi-jacketed hollowpoint. When I saw the expansion, I shot a few rounds of other ammunition loaded with the same type bullet as well as the famous 158-grain LHP P. The generic compared very favorably to those, so I guess that's just what we're going to get for the .38.

Cost

I'm sure you know that the price of ammunition is subject to all sorts of variables, so if I put a dollar value on a box of ammo, it may not relate to anything you'd see in your local retailer. But a study of suggested retail prices from Winchester's catalog is informative. When I compared the USA hollowpoints to the original USA generic ammo, I found a cost increase of only around $2 more for the JHP loads. But the real news came when I compared the USA JHP loads to Winchester's premium line of Supreme ammunition. The generic comes is in 50-round boxes while the Supreme is packaged in 20-round boxes. And retail prices are almost the same for the two. In other words, you can get 50 rounds of the generic ammo for about what you'd pay for 20 of the others. Frankly, it's hard to imagine a shooter who wouldn't appreciate that!

What This All Means

In the late 1980s, we saw intense research into bullet performance that led to the development of the various premium bullets. Engineers quickly figured out how to get bullets to do what they wanted them to: Make them this way and you can get great expansion and less penetration... Make them that way and you can control expansion to get more penetration.