History of Winchester 45 ACP Ammo

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Since 1886, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company has been at the forefront of innovation for firearms and ammunition technology. This legacy is reflected in the multiple lines of Winchester .45 ACP ammo that are second to none in the industry.

For personal defense, don’t ever hesitate to reach for Winchester 45 ammo as it has a reputation of being able to stop the threat. Some of the best self-defense ammo ever made was the Winchester Ranger .45 ACP. With devastating terminal ballistics, the Ranger T 45 ACP loads were often carried by law enforcement and civilians alike.

Although the Winchester Ranger .45 ACP ammo is getting harder to find, Winchester PDX1, Defender, and their new Train and Defend ammo lines are filling the void. Defender Winchester .45 ACP is the new breed of self-defense ammo, with insane expansion and weight retentions in FBI ballistics gel testing. On the other hand, Train and Defend ammo lets you train with ammo loaded for training and then quickly switch to defensive ammo.

But if you just like taking your 1911 out to the range or love your Glock 21, make sure to check out all the different Winchester .45 ACP ammo options we have available. From Winchester white box, WinClean, lead-free, and subsonic suppressor-ready ammo, there’s a target ammo for every occasion.

USA Ready Select Grade Winchester .45 ACP ammo represents the best match ammo on the market. When you’re headed to a bullseye competition, USPSA or IPDA match, Winchester USA Ready ammo is ready to help you reduce your split times and win all of your local matches.

With so many different lines of ammo, it’s no wonder why Winchester .45 ACP ammo is some of the best in the business!

How Can You Save Money on Winchester .45 ACP Ammo?

Listen, we understand that sometimes money is tight, and you need to squeeze every bit of value out of your hard-earned dollars. Therefore, bulk Winchester 45 ammo is a great choice if you’re looking to save money.

You see, it may be tempting to just buy Winchester 45 ammo 50 rounds at a time at the range or your favorite gun store. However, when you buy from Ammo.com and get your hands on some Winchester 45 ammo 500 rounds at a time, we can help cut out the middleman and save you some serious bucks.

Sure, making the plunge on a large order of Winchester 45 ACP 200 rounds at a time can be a daunting task, but it will pay for itself over the course of a few range trips. Just think about it, you’ll be cruising to the range locked and loaded with a ton of Winchester .45 ACP ammo ready to go while your buddies are just hoping that the range will have ammo waiting for them.

When you purchase bulk 45 ACP ammo, not only do you save money, but you also ensure that you’ll not be stuck at home dry firing while you could be at the range. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that the supply chain is fragile, and ammo can disappear from your local stores. It’s a lot better to be sitting on a Winchester 45 ammo 500 round crate with loaded mags instead of wishing you had got it when times were good.

The verdict is clear, make sure to stock up on bulk Winchester .45 ACP ammo and always be ready for home defense, CCW, or range training.

History of Winchester 45 ACP Ammo originally appeared on Ammo.com

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or…

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Back to .45 ACP. ?What didn’t they tell you.

First and foremost, you have to remember the cartridge is a throw-back to old days. It’s smokeless, but more related to the black powder cartridges than to modern auto loader stuff.

Second, most .45 ACP barrels are NOT ramped. You do find ramped 1911 barrels, but not usually in .45 ACP. They seem to be relegated to 9 mm, .38 Super, and 9X23. The lack of a ramp makes the guns usually sensitive to ogive shape. You may well find a particular hollow point shoots well in all your …45’s - but one. THAT one just won’t accept the cartridge reliably. HK USP’s tend to be quite ogive sensitive (and to OAL). You will have to figure out by trial and error what works and what doesn’t. Chauffeuring (or cutting a wider “lip”) to more easily accept the case is not a great idea as it leaves a larger part of the case unsupported.

Which brings us to the next point. Most .45 ACP’s have unsupported barrels. Under normal conditions this makes little difference since the round is a low pressure round. But when you get to +P and +P+ (which is a kind of standardless rating, as all it says is that it exceeds some value; by how much is undetermined) loads, the unsupported chamber becomes an issue. In early Rob Leatham’s career as national IPSC champ, he introduced a 1911 with a comp - and cleaned up that year. The following year predictably everyone (who was anyone) had a compensated .45 - except Leatham - who had a compensated .38 Super. And so the “race gun” concept was born. Still, what drove Robbie was that the pressure in the .45 was too low to make the compensator work well. Super OTOH was a naturally high pressure round, and when you hyped it to major loads (which were equivalent to .357 Mag levels) it worked a world better than the .45.

Split times. A .45 ACP gun will NOT give you great splits no matter what you do. That’s because of the above mentioned low pressure round. At the lower pressures it can’t drive the slide with the kind of velocity you need to get faster splits. You can only shoot as fast as the gun can shoot. On steel, where usually a hit knocks it down, you can move fast, mostly because you are moving to the next target while the gun is cycling, so you aren’t wasting time waiting for the gun to reload. On double tap parts of the course, even the 9’s will beat you.

STILL I believe it’s a heck of a defensive cartridge. You really have to go all the way to .357 Sig (kind of a 9 mm Magnum) or .357 Magnum to find a bigger train to hit the BG with.

One last word, on 1911’s, not necessarily ,45 ACP. I am a huge fan of 1911’s. My 3rd gun ever was a Colt Commander - alloy - bought in 1966. I still have that piece. It’s been around the world with me, has had several triggers, several sears, and several hammers (one a titanium one, back when that was the craze - broke as expected and replaced with a hollowed out steel one it still sports) and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But 1911’s have an operating space issue. The original government model, as JMB drew it up, is not problematic. But the shorter versions - Commander & Officer & Commanding Officer - are “snug” in space inside the slide. So use of a shock buffer, especially on a defensive weapon, is problematic as it could cause a jam at a crucial moment.

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Love me some 1911 but what gives on the ogive term?

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The ogive is the term for the shape of the nose of the bullet. Bullets will not have the same shape even though they may be similar. Just how the curve is created is important for auto-loaders. Wheel guns - not much, because they are loaded differently.

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I’ve not owned a 45 in so long for any design let alone 1911, I didn’t realize the barrels weren’t ramped, I run 9’s for volume and 10’s for the pow and just lost the desire for a 45, they do run slower, I ran a double stack 45 in a mini monster match once and by the end I was beat, that was likely when I lost interest in them.

Thanks for the knowledge I love to learn new things!

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