Winchester Deer Season Ammunition

DEER SEASON XP D E E R

Dedicated to Deer Finally, an ammunition manufacturer designed a load made specifically for use on our nation’s most popular game animal.

Is it any surprise it was Winchester?!

PAUL SHERAR

By Ron Spomer

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150 YEARS OF LEGENDARY EXCELLENCE

W

What hunter doesn’t like deer season? This is the highlight of our year, our big chance to escape the restrictions and confines of modern life. We take to the woods and fields to glass and stalk, to sniff the forest duff and feel the crunch of leaves or snow underfoot.

We steep ourselves in the long traditions of our hunter/gatherer forefathers so we can once again thrill to the ghostly shadows of deer slipping through the brush, to the stamp of hooves and the rattle of antlers, the tiptoeing of fawns and the bold rush of a leaping buck.

Deer season is when we reconnect with nature and, most of all, our hunting heritage.

Now there’s another reason to make our hunts even more memorable and successful— Winchester Deer Season XP centerfire ammunition.

PHOTO BY PHOTOGRAPHER

Deer Season XP If ever a manufacturer stuck the right label on a product, this is it. Why, I’d buy this stuff just for the promise of its name. The fact that each box also includes 20 rounds of ammunition seems almost like a bonus. But, of

course, the cartridges are the main purpose, and they’re called Deer Season XP for a reason— Winchester has engineered them for optimum performance on America’s favorite big game species: whitetails, blacktails and mule deer.

They say some 10 million of us take to the fields in pursuit of deer each year. And a significant percentage of us do so with some doubt as to how our ammunition will perform when the magic moment arrives to pull the trigger. Deer Season XP is designed to remove that doubt.

We’ve all heard horror stories or seen them with our own eyes.

Ammo that scatters bullets far off line-of-sight. Worse yet are bullets that flatten like pancakes with insufficient penetration, break apart before reaching the vitals or zip through an animal like a hot target arrow through Jello carrying with it much of the energy needed to anchor the animal where it stands. Deer Season XP is engineered to end all of that.

Winchester engineers built the Deer Season XP Extreme Point® bullets specifically for dropping deer in their tracks.

Of course, no engineer can guarantee that will happen every time, because there are too many variables in nature.

Whitetails have been known to absorb elephant-stopping bullets and walk off as if untouched.

But many have been seen to collapse at the touch of a light varmint bullet. What engineers can do is design bullets that shoot far, fast, flat and hard.

They can build them so they expand reliably and quickly but not too quickly. They can make sure bullets remain intact for deeper penetration after impact and leave a sizable exit hole for blood trailing should the bullet shoot through.

Putting all of that into one projectile is a tall order.

Winchester approached it by creative thinking. How could they combine the increased impact area of a round-nose or flat-nose bullet with the sleek, pointy nose of an aerodynamically efficient bullet? The Extreme Point bullet was their solution.

we felt it was time to engineer a bullet specifically for what the vast majority of big game hunters actually pursue—

deer.”

— MIKE STOCK Winchester Centerfire Product Manager

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DEER SEASON XP D E E R

Many hunters have long felt that round- and flat-nosed bullets, like those on the old .45-70 Govt. or .30-30 Winchester, hit harder than pointy bullets. More surface area equals more energy transfer.

The downside to such profiles, however, is drag. The blunt bullet

IT’S CALLED Deer Season XP for a reason— Winchester engineered IT for optimum performance on America’s favorite big game species: whitetails, blacktails and mule deer

wastes kinetic energy by bulling its way through the atmosphere rather than slicing through it like a long, sleek, pointy-nosed bullet. Pointed bullets minimize drag much the way a bicyclist minimizes air drag by hunching over his handlebars.

This might seem like a lot of fluff and stuff, but consult ballistic trajectory calculators, compare round-nose against spire point and you’ll see a marked difference in downrange performance. Check out the comparison below of an average 150-grain round nose and a 150-grain spire point Deer Season XP, both fired from a .30-06 at 2,920 fps in a 10 mph right angle breeze and zeroed at 200 yards.

Deer Season XP VS. Conventional Round Nose Rifle Zeroed at 200 yds

These differences in ballistic performance are already apparent at 100 yards but really add up by 300 yards. The round nose is losing nearly twice the energy, dropping an additional 3 1⁄2 inches and drifting twice as much in the wind.

What trajectory tables don’t show is how much “punch” is lost or gained, one way or the other. Obviously, the round nose carries much less kinetic energy downrange, but could it be hitting harder because of its greater nose surface area? Many hunters think so, especially at 100 yards and closer. Others say the spire point expands so fast and carries so much more energy that it more than compensates for any

initial advantage in surface area the round nose carries.

Winchester engineers apparently skipped this argument by giving deer hunters the best of both worlds—a sharp-nosed, highly efficient, high-ballistic coefficient (B.C.) bullet that also, on impact, exposes the initial lead surface area of a round nose.

They do it by increasing the base diameter of the familiar polymer tip. Instead of the tiny tip seen on most bullets, which is there to slightly increase B.C., but mostly to prevent tip battering of rounds in the magazine, Winchester gives each Extreme Point bullet in Deer Season XP a polymer tip twice the usual diameter. When this tip strikes game, it is smashed back into a

Velocity | Drop from Line-of-Sight | Remaining Energy | Wind Drift 100YDS

300YDS

400YDS

2,676 | +1.7“ | 2385 | 1.2”

2,238 | -7.5” | 1668 | 8”

2,036 | -22” | 1381 | 14”

2,419 | +2.3” | 1949 | 2.2”

1,601 | -11” | 854 | 19”

1,291 | -36” | 555 | 37”

DEER SEASON XP B.C.* .392

10 mph Crosswind

Conventional Round Nose B.C.* .186

*Ballistic Coefficient

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Hard Hitting

150 YEARS OF LEGENDARY EXCELLENCE

surface area of core lead as wide as or wider than conventional round nose bullets. This larger impact diameter more efficiently transfers energy to the target and initiates larger, more deadly wound cavities.

“Ammo manufacturers for decades have created general purpose bullets,” says Mike Stock, Winchester’s centerfire product manager. “They’ve also made specialty bullets for extra large or extra tough game like big bears, buffalo and hogs. We do the same thing. We even make special varmint and predator bullets. Well, we felt it was time to engineer a bullet specifically for what the vast majority of big game hunters actually pursue—deer.”

Building the Perfect Deer Bullet When beginning their search, Winchester engineers considered a time tested and proven cartridge widely considered one of the best and most efficient calibers for dropping deer—the good old .30-30 Winchester.

Since way back in 1895, this cartridge has dropped more whitetails and mule deer than probably any other, and usually quickly, if not instantly. As a boy, I shot my first two whitetails (one a massive old buck with the largest antlers anyone in our county had ever seen) with a Model 94 lever-action and Winchester 170-grain .30-30 bullets. Both deer collapsed in their tracks.

ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN KIRBY

Straight Flying

MAXIMUM IMPACT DIAMETER

PAUL SHERAR

Polymer Tip 1 Alloyed 2 Tapered 3 For flat trajectory Jacket and energy Lead Core Engineered retention Optimized for maxifor lethal penemum energy transfer tration on deer and impact power So I understand where the Winchester boys are coming from. But how do you build that kind of potential in other popular deer cartridges? The Extreme Point bullet is their answer.

“We call it Maximum Impact Diameter,” Stock says. “The more bullet surface area that contacts the deer on initial impact, the more energy is transferred to the animal. According to our highspeed video of bullet impacting ballistic gelatin, these Extreme Point bullets are indeed opening quickly and carving a wide wound channel. But they’re also retaining enough mass to drive the expanded bullet deep, ensuring additional trauma. Hunter reports from the field last year confirm our tests. They reported noticeable, dramatic hits that dropped deer in their tracks.”

The beauty of this bullet, of course, is that it flies like a sleek spire point despite hitting like a less aerodynamically efficient round nose. At all ranges you get maximum contact surface with a

high-energy transfer matched to the maximum retained energy, minimum drop and minimum wind deflection of a high B.C. long-range bullet. It’s the best of both worlds.

“Cut off the polymer tip of an Extreme Point bullet,” Stock suggested, “and you’ll see the wide nose profile of a classic .30-30 bullet.”

I tried breaking off this plastic tip, but discovered it was too resilient to break. I was able to deform it with locking pliers, but neither snap it nor tear it from the rest of the bullet. This suggests it drives hard against the flat lead bullet core that backs it and initiates that rapid expansion and energy transfer.

Holding the lead core and protecting it from stripping during its high-velocity trip down the barrel is a tapered gilding metal jacket that’s built thin near the front but thickens slightly toward the rear. About halfway down it is squeezed with a cannelure (or groove) that grips the lead core.

The diameter of a bullet at impact is what initiates expansion. The larger the diameter, the more rapidly the bullet expands, allowing a higher transfer of energy and a larger wound channel.

Load Selection Made Easy Because Deer Season XP is a deer-specific load, Winchester doesn’t muddy the waters with a wide selection of bullet weights.

“We chose what’s been proven over the decades to be just about perfect for deer in each caliber,” Stock explains. “There’s no need to puzzle over whether you should shoot a 125-grain, 180-grain or 165-grain in a .3006, for instance. In .30 caliber the 150-grain is perfect for deer and that’s what we load in all 30-caliber Deer Season XP ammo.”

Happily, the new ammunition is proving delightfully accurate, too. Every rifle shoots a bit differently, but reports largely praise Deer Season XP for consistent accuracy. I tested it last season in a .270 Win. XPR, a .243 Win. M70 and a .300 Win. Mag. The M70 delivered 3-shot groups between .784 inch to 1.4 inches. The other loads were right there. Better yet, the ammo took eight whitetails out to 380 yards. And there was a bonus, after belly crawling within 160

Conventional Polymer Tip

Conventional Soft Point

In .30 caliber the 150-grain is perfect for deer. That’s what Winchester loads in all .30-caliber Deer Season XP ammo.

yards of a six-point bull elk, I unlimbered the .270 XPR and parked a 130-grain Extreme Point Deer Season XP load that stopped that bull within 25 yards. Hey, an elk is a deer, too, and even though Deer Season XP ammo wasn’t designed for elk,

it’s nice to know it has the integrity to stand up to one.

Still, I suggest you try Deer Season XP for the species Winchester had in mind—whitetails, mule deer and blacktails. It’s deer season, and Deer Season XP can help you make the most of it.

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