The Latest Hot Tip

"The Latest Hot Tip"

Controlled-expansion evolution:
Winchester's no-lead E-Tip bullet combines environmental friendliness with smashing performance on tough game.

By Wayne van Zwolle - Guns & Ammo Magazine

Winchester's name on ammunition carries the same cachet as it does on firearms. Back in the days of milk deliveries, surplus Jeeps and 35-cent movie matinees with Andy Devine, hunters could choose the Power-Point or, for tough animals, the Silvertip. A change in the Silvertip's nose during the 1960s diminished that missile's reputation for deep wound channels. Meanwhile, the Power-Point vied with Remington's Core-Lokt and Bronze Point at market. I killed my first deer and several thereafter with Power-Points.

By that time Nosler had established its Partition as the premier bullet for game with substantial bone and muscle. As Barnes turned from traditional lead-core bullets to hollowpoints of solid copper and Texan Jack Carter promoted his new Trophy Bonded Bear Claw, a Kansas farm boy named Lee Reed took the Partition design a big step further with a bonded dual-core bullet. He called it the Swift A-Frame. About then, Winchester hawked its Fail Safe, which combined (essentially) the nose of a Barnes X and the encapsulated lead heel of a Partition, with other refinements.
Suddenly, the world was awash in bullets that would punch through a column of grizzly bears, a Caterpillar engine block and a pair of Douglas firs stout enough for a spotted owl commune. Such bullets, recovered, would weigh about the same as they had in the seating die. Upset characteristics varied, but animals obligingly succumbed when shot through the forward ribs with one of these so-called "controlled expansion" bullets.

Actually, the CE label is a misnomer because all hunting bullets are designed to open in a manner dictated by their design. But the moniker stuck, shorthand for bullets that penetrated beefy animals without fragmenting. Of course, most animals shot by hunters are not beefy at all. Whitetail account for an overwhelming slice of the big-game-harvest pie each fall. The quickest kills on creatures of that build come with bullets that upset easily and expand fully--even fragment.

Sierra, Hornady and Speer had plenty of missiles answering to that description. Most were less costly than any CE bullet. Loaded by Winchester and its competition, .30-06 cartridges with ordinary softpoint bullets retailed for about five bucks a box. Handloaders spent about half that. Yes, this, too, was back when postage stamps cost four cents and pop-music artists wore suits and ties.

But beginning in the late 1950s, high-velocity impact from magnum cartridges on burly animals challenged ordinary softpoints. Jackets ruptured; cores disintegrated. Even deer hunters began to choose CE bullets. Traditional roundnose missiles from Barnes and Bitterroot lacked profiles for flat flight. Newer CE spitzers, however, combined long reach with the toughness to handle up-close collisions with elk.

Meanwhile, the Nosler family was applying its genius to an entirely new bullet for the deer hunter. A sleek hollowpoint with a polycarbonate tip, it carried well at distance and delivered pop-can accuracy to 300 steps. Upset described as explosive dropped deer and pronghorns with a suddenness that emptied scope fields during recoil. Soon Nosler and Winchester collaborated on a black Lubalox-coated version of this Ballistic Tip bullet, christening it the Ballistic Silvertip and peddling it only in Winchester ammunition.

Swift appropriated the tip for a deep-driving bonded bullet called the Scirocco. Hornady's Dave Emary later came up with a resilient polymer nose to allow safe use of pointed bullets in tube-fed rifles. LeverEvolution bullets atop stacks of modern ball powders have energized traditional "close cover" cartridges like the .30-30 and .45-70, affording them flatter flight, greater accuracy and more downrange punch.
The Winchester/Nosler connection yielded other "combined technology" bullets--those made, packaged and sold as components by Nosler but altered cosmetically and factory loaded exclusively by Winchester. A bonded polymer-tip bullet for heavy game followed the Ballistic Silvertip and Fail Safe. Called the AccuBond, it proved an excellent all-around bullet for North American big game. It marries a super-sleek profile with ready upset and the integrity to smash elk shoulders. An expensive but eminently marketable product, the AccuBond might have stayed atop Winchester's line had not the East Alton crew hankered for its own do-all bullet.

That project resulted in the XP3, introduced three years ago in Winchester ammo. It immediately set sail for southern Africa, where it unhinged a variety of big game, from duikers to eland. While the Ballistic Silvertip and AccuBond bullets now define Winchester's Supreme line, the company raised the hype a notch for the XP3, with "Supreme Elite" on the box flaps. "It's a culmination of decades of bullet research," says Kevin Howard, whose firm delivers Winchester news to the press. "It has the best features of our other bullets, the best all-around performance of any we've tried. It opens aggressively on deer, but the bonded heel drives deep, with minimal weight loss. So you get a grenade cavity in the vitals, plus that channel to the off-side."

If the XP3 is so versatile, the AccuBond a sure killer on tough game, the Ballistic Silvertip a lightning bolt on a leash and the Power-Point as deadly as I remember it, why would Winchester develop another hunting bullet--especially in a market saturated with expensive options?

"The goal was a bullet with no lead," says Kevin flatly. "We fear some states will eventually bring pressure to disallow lead." Such regulation makes little sense, as bullets do not land in quantity where birds seek grit. And they pose no demonstrated residual hazard to big game. Still, along with the assurance that it could sell its own unique hunting bullet right now, the legislative threat prompted Winchester to proceed.
The East Alton team, headed by Glen Weeks, collaborated with the Nosler crew to deliver a bullet at record pace. Initiated in October 2006, the work culminated in the new E-Tip bullet in time for winter field testing and a debut at the April 2007 NRA meetings.

While at this writing no factory-loaded E-Tips are available, Winchester is on track to box 180-grain, .30-caliber bullets in four loads soon. You'll find E-Tip first in .308, .30-06, .300 WSM and .300 Winchester Magnum cartridges. The bullets feature an olive-drab polymer tip and the familiar black-Lubalox metal finish. Nosler, the sole source, will later offer them in traditional polished-copper finish as components

What makes E-Tip unique? It is the only poly-tip bullet with a body of gilding metal. There's no jacket, no core; a deep nose cavity initiates upset. "Unlike most copper bullets, the E-Tip's metal is 95 percent copper, 5 percent zinc," explains Glen Weeks. "It's as hard as or slightly harder than copper, so it has less tendency to gall. That means easier cleaning and reduced metal fouling."
But what about sealing in the bore? To cork powder gas and ensure that the rifling lands take an authoritative bite, bullets must be malleable. Lead-core bullets "slug up" nicely to fill the grooves. Copper bullets can be less inclined to deform.

"The secret to E-Tip's fine accuracy is its deep nose cavity," Glen says. "It extends well below the tip, down even below the ogive. So the leading portion of the shank can yield slightly as the rifling begins to engrave. Gas pressure on the bullet base clinches the deal, ensuring that the E-Tip is securely gripped and seals the bore." The cavity also moves center of gravity back toward the tapered heel, which is what accuracy mavens want.
As for terminal performance, the E-Tip delivers a four-petal upset. But unlike solid-copper bullets, whose petals curl back separately, the E-Tip winds up with a broad face that more closely resembles that of a mushroomed softpoint. "It won't drive quite as deep as the AccuBond," says Kevin. "The E-Tip behaves most like the XP3, so in sum, it's one of the most versatile bullets you can buy, and it has no lead."

The modest sectional density of gilding metal means the E-Tip can't match the ballistic coefficients of its stablemates (and will be a bit longer for any given weight). Still, this bullet flies very flat. It will also be loaded to standard SAAMI velocities listed for featured cartridges: 2,620 fps for the .308, 2,700 for the .30-06, 3,010 for the .300 WSM and 2,950 for the .300 Winchester Magnum.
Is the E-Tip necessary? Given the current field of excellent CE alternatives, it probably won't change the way hunters choose bullets. It's unlikely to unseat traditional softpoints like the Power-Point, as the E-Tip costs considerably more. It may not woo die-hard Partition fans or inspire other hunters to abandon solid copper for gilding metal. But it does deliver what Winchester promised: fine accuracy, dependable upset, a deadly mushroom, deep penetration and very high retained weight, all in a leadless bullet that is less likely than copper to cause fouling--and it may someday, someplace, be one of few legal options.

That's an impressive list of improvements, indeed