Olin-Winchester 260 grain 45 / 50 Platinum Tip Bullets
Over the years, scant few jacketed bullets have been well developed for muzzleloading use. Originally, handgun bullets were extensively used as they were pre-existing and inexpensive, and they still are today. By being developed for far slower velocities than today’s muzzleloaders can produce, they have resulted in poor performance when pushed beyond the velocities they were designed for. Premature core separation and inadequate terminal performance was the result in some cases, but certainly not all. With the .44 Magnum pistol bullet as perhaps the most popular, poor accuracy with the .429 inch diameter bullets was reported with the sabots of a few years ago, to the point where even the Hodgdon Pyrodex manual makes this not entirely accurate statement. Sabot formulations have improved at least four times over the last eight years, and their designs along with them—to the point where the older accuracy axiom may still have some merit appertaining to some jacketed bullets, but in no way close to the clear trend of even a few years ago.
Somewhat late to the muzzleloading plate comes Olin-Winchester, but not without a level of muzzleloading testing and attention that few of today’s front-loader projectiles receive. The muzzleloading projectile market is still small compared to center-fire rifle and pistol markets, making development cost a correspondingly high percentage of potential sales. To partially compensate for this, Olin has sought multi-purpose bullets, and that is the case with the Platinum Tip line—at present, consisting of only the 260 grain .45 caliber bullet in a black MMP .50 caliber sabot, though a .40 / 45 offering has been announced. The bullet is the same bullet that has already proven itself to be an outstanding hunting projectile in Winchester’s high performance 20 gauge saboted slug round, and also in their .454 Casull pistol cartridges.
The 260 grain Platinum Tip features a hardened, swaged lead core with the addition of about 2-1/2 percent antimony—the hardest lead Winchester found that their swaging presses would smoothly handle. The silver colored, “Platinum” jacket is one of the thickest I’ve seen on a muzzleloading bullet, featuring a very deep hollow point, and has an exposed lead base. Prior to its release, it was designed and tested to be the “ideal” muzzleloading deer-hunting bullet. Winchester consulted with MMP, and found that the HPH12 sabot—which appears overly long for the bullet, gave them the best accuracy from their ensemble of test guns.
Ballistic coefficients have been used and abused, with most published numbers from various companies devised by methods unknown. Whatever methods are used, they are almost universally inflated in my experience. Well, Winchester didn’t guess at all. Having their own Doppler radar range on site in East Alton, Illinois, they were able to pinpoint the average 200 yard G1 BC at .200, based on a 90 grain Pyrodex charge. It is one of the very few muzzleloading BC’s with much real-world meaning. Pushed at 2000 fps, this bullet will retain over 1000 foot pounds of kinetic energy past 200 yards. The maximum point blank range with a 6” kill zone is about 185 yards with this load.
On to the bullet impact testing, where Winchester fired rounds into deer hide covering ballistic gelatin at 100 yards, and recreated the same testing with the “four Denim” method, and added some of their FBI barrier testing procedures to further examine this bullet’s capabilities at different velocities. As a result of this battery of testing, Winchester found that positive expansion, long a problem with some bullet designs, is a guarantee between 1200 and 1700 fps, with no chance of core separation. The possibility of core separation hitting bone above 1700 fps is there, but still unlikely until 1800 fps or so terminal velocity, according to Winchester’s data. Winchester found that even in the most extreme cases, the heavy jacket penetrated almost as deeply as the core itself. Based on the results reported from a wide variety of sources from the 2003 season, this bullet is an outstanding performer on deer whether fired from a muzzleloader, shotgun, or handgun. In weighing the bullets, they varied from 258.1 to 259.5 grains from among one 30-pack.
In testing with four different muzzleloaders, 3 shot 100 yard accuracy varied from the 1” to 1-3/4” contingent on gun as supplied, when pushed by 100 grains of Triple Seven FFg. Use of the latest formulation MMP HPH 12 sabots showed no significant change with the same load, but substitution of the shorter, “MMP” black sabots improved the groups by approximately on half inch in three out of the four guns, about on quarter inch in the fourth (which was already shooting right at an inch). That seems to be a reasonable, if statistically small; trend that shows Winchester might be able to improve their product a bit with a little more attention to current sabot styles and formulations.
Though personally I’m a pure lead bullet fan, Del Ramsey pointed up the one clear advantage a jacketed bullet has—that is, it always looks like a bullet. A few inadequately packaged pure lead bullets seldom arrive looking like they should, no great surprise after handling by plane, trick, rail, or being knocked off of shelves. The Winchester Platinum Tip is one very tough bullet, its deer bagging past performance is superb, and it is available at a price point of well less than half of some other “premium” bullets. Winchester has done well, and I do hope they expand this fledgling line to include what would logically be a .40 caliber 210 grain area bullet, and a .45 caliber 310 grain area bullet.
