Coming this year to a dealer near you: Browning Ammunition. What? No. The ammo stays a nice, constant, shiny color. Browning is just the familiar name on the box. Well, not familiar at all for making ammunition. Winchester, on the other hand, is far from new to gun food, which is why Browning chose to partner with them in this endeavor. Over the course of 2016, Browning Ammunition will release proprietary loads for pistols, rifles, and shotguns . . .
At Range Day I snagged a Belgian Browning Hi-Power and shot a magazine worth of the BXP Personal Defense 9mm — photo of the box above — through it. This is a 147 grain load with what Browning is calling the X-POINT bullet.
It’s a patented (a patent owned by Winchester’s parent company) hollow point self-defense round that will be offered in .380 ACP, 9mm Luger, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP this year.
It was mild on recoil and blast.
Like Winchester has done with its Train and Defend series, Browning is releasing target ammunition that is a ballistic match for the self-defense fodder. In Browning’s case it’s called the BPT, or Browning Performance Target. They’re FMJ loads with the same bullet weight, powder charge, and bullet profile (flat points designed to match the X-POINTs shape) as the HPs, with the same, nickel-plated cases.
Rifle rounds will be available this year for .243 Win, .270 Win, .308 Win, .30-06 Springfield, and .300 Win Mag. Projectiles will come in at least two flavors: rapid expansion for deer and controlled expansion for larger and/or tougher game.
For both rifles and pistols, Browning will be making two .22 LR loads. They’re both loaded hot, with either a 37 grain fragmenting bullet or a 40 grain hollow point. The 40-grainer is actually the stronger load, with a stated muzzle velocity of 1,435 FPS.
On the shotgun front, there’s no shortage of options for target shooting and bird hunting in 12, 16, and 20 gauge.
If they can get 1450fps with 1 1/4oz steel shot in a 3″ shell…. As they say in the old country… You sir have something. That would be market leading if it patterns.
neat looking hollowpoint. where’s shootingthebull?
+1, and it performs similar to the defend HP, with that pretty expansion, they’ll have a winner here.
Has he posted anything on youtube in a while? I haven’t noticed…
He has not posted anything in several months. STB410 please come back. I would love if he did a series on .38 out of 2 inch barrels.
Definitely welcome new entrants to the ammo market. There will be a learning curve for Browning, as with any new product line. I expect they’ll put serious resources in support of this initiative, though, commensurate with the investment they’re making. I’ll give their ammo a try.
Actually I don’t think there will be much of a learning curve, as Winchester is behind the wheel. These are supposed to be separate, unique loads and projectiles just for the Browning brand, but it’s my understanding that Winchester is driving development, manufacturing, and possibly even sales and marketing of it.
Maybe. Joint ventures can present challenges of their own, just running the operation, sometimes even more so when parties consider the underlying endeavour to be old hat and get surprised by what’s different. Just never know. I wish them well and expect they’ll pull it off.
My P6 likes the heavier 9mms. If these expand well and consistently, I might just replace the Federals that I can’t locate anymore.
This got me to wondering one thing. If Winchester is making the Browning ammo, does Sig have another company manufacturing their new line up, or have they expanded to make it themselves.
My understanding is SIG is just branding it with their name, another company manufactures it.
I bought Browning .308 and 30’06 in the early ’80’s. The brass is still in my reloading mix, in the misc. head stamp group. Nothing new except to those whipper-snappers born after then.
I’ve got several boxes of Browning labeled .357 mag in my collection, so I’m thinking that Browning has done all of this before. My ammo came into my possession with a pistol all in one deal in the very early 1980’s.
I hope there’s some substance behind the claims for this new JHP design and look forward to seeing independent test results. It seems there’s been a lot of products released over the past years with wild bullet designs, lurid packaging / ads, and price tags to match that ultimately don’t perform any better than (or are worse than) established ammunition. I don’t think Browning would want their name on something like that, which is encouraging.
this is in the new cabela’s catalog. 50rds for 14.99 in target 9mm is competitive.
I think Browning owns Winchester
Scott, FNH of Belgium owns Browning and Winchester guns. Olin bought Winchester in the 1930’s; they have licensed the Winchester name to FNH for the manufacture of the guns. Olin makes Winchester ammunition as they have for decades. Browning and Winchester have customer support and marketing functions in Utah (and they’re nice folks, too).
I picked up some today at LGS that was $12.99 for the 147 grain. For that price I definitely thought I would give it a try.
FN Herstal or Herstal Group owns both the Browning and Winchester brands.
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