Winchester is expanding their Silvertip defensive ammunition line, which used to be only a handgun ammunition brand, to also include centerfire rifle and rimfire categories. The company has released three Silvertip rifle cartridges (.223 Remington, .300 Blackout and .308 Winchester) and one Silvertip .22 LR load. Let’s take a look at the features and specs of new Winchester Silvertip cartridges.

Winchester Silvertip Centerfire Rifle Ammunition

The bullets of Winchester Silvertip rifle cartridges have rather large polymer tips which according to Winchester are designed to “accelerate expansion, resulting in massive stopping power for defense situations“. These projectiles have lead cores and nickel-plated jackets. Currently, the following loads of Winchester Silvertip centerfire rifle ammunition are available:

• .223 Remington (Bullet weight – 64 grains; MV – 2700 fps; ME – 1036 ft-lbs)
• .300 Blackout (Bullet weight – 150 grains; MV – 1900 fps; ME – 1202 ft-lbs)
• .308 Winchester (Bullet weight – 150 grains; MV – 2620 fps; ME – 2286 ft-lbs)

Here is a video showing the performance of the Silvertip .308 Winchester cartridge in a ballistic gel.

Winchester Silvertip Rimfire Ammunition

As mentioned above, the expansion of the Silvertip line into the rimfire ammunition category currently includes one .22 LR load. This ammo is loaded with a 37-grain bullet traveling at a muzzle velocity of 1,060 fps with a 92 ft-lb muzzle energy. The front section of the nickel-plated segmented hollow point bullet is designed to break into four pieces upon impact to dump energy into the target. At the same time, the base of the bullet stays intact and moves on to also provide deep penetration. Being a self-defense round, this cartridge is loaded with a propellant that is optimized for short barrels to ensure the described segmentation effect when fired from handguns.