The new XP3 bullet's body swells as it expands to ensure a large frontal diameter.

But Winchester (Dept. ST, 427 N. Shamrock St., East Alton, IL 62024; 618-258-2000; www.winchester.com) now has taken bullet technology another step into the future of components by introducing a bullet in a new line of Winchester ammunition called Supreme Elite. The new bullet is called XP3, which is short for Precision accuracy, reliable killing Power, and deep Penetration.

It is built tough enough to smash through bone and penetrate about as deeply on large game as the Fail Safe while at the same time its front section is capable of greater and more reliable expansion on deer-size game at long range where impact velocity is relatively low.

Tests performed by Winchester technicians in the laboratory and in the field revealed that the XP3 will retain upwards of 100 percent of its weight at extremely high impact velocities on heavy game, yet it is capable of expanding on light game at impact speeds as low as 1800 fps, or out to about 600 yards when fired from the .30-06 and about 700 yards from one of the magnums. Those maximum distances are several hundred yards farther away than any of us should be shooting at big game, and I mention them only as a way of emphasizing how well the XP3 bullet should work on deer and such at the ranges at which most of us actually do take our game.

The XP3 is solid copper alloy up front, and it has a cavity at the rear containing a lead core. A polycarbonate tip or expansion initiator positioned at the mouth of its nose cavity encourages the new bullet to expand at lower impact velocities. Its opposite end has important differences as well. A problem we discovered when using those prototype Fail Safe bullets on the elk hunt back in 1992 was a tendency for its jacket to swell up and fracture longitudinally at the front of the lead core.

Browning's A-Bolt Mountain Ti

The rifle I used for testing the new XP3 bullet at the benchrest and in the field was an A-Bolt Mountain Ti from Browning, Dept. ST, One Browning Place, Morgan, UT 84050; 801-876-2711; www.browning.com. I own so many rifles that I am seldom tempted to add a new one to my battery, but I may not be able to turn this one loose. For the elk hunt in New Mexico I used a Browning lightweight mount to attach a Zeiss 3-9X scope, and that along with a Weatherby superlight nylon carrying sling and three .300 WSM cartridges in its magazine brought its weight to exactly 7.5 pounds. Browning makes the rifle light by using a receiver made of titanium, a metal that's about 40 percent lighter than steel. That trimmed away four ounces when compared to the steel A-Bolt receiver, and another three ounces disappeared when a composite bolt body sleeve was incorporated into the design. The stock, according to Browning, is 10 ounces lighter than the synthetic stocks on other A-Bolt variations. On top of all that, the Mountain Ti can be even lighter than the one I used. A rifle built around the supershort action used to house the .223, .243, and .25 WSSM cartridges is four ounces lighter. Chambering options in addition to the four I have already mentioned are .243 Winchester, 7mm-08, .308 Winchester, .270 WSM, 7mm WSM, and .325 WSM. Standard barrel length for all calibers is 23 inches. I like a lot of other things about the Mountain Ti. Two of those things are the way it handles and feels. The Dura Touch Armor Coating on its stock is absolutely the best finish available on a synthetic stock. Its velvety surface texture is warm and friendly to the touch, and it offers a nonslip grip to cold, wet hands. I also like that the two-position safety of the rifle operates positively but so quietly it will never spook the deer or bear or moose or elk I am about to shoot at close range. The new breed of short and stubby magnum cartridges is known to cause acute indigestion in some rifles, but the A-Bolt feeds them from magazine to chamber as smoothly as silk on silk. This is mainly due to the use of scissors-style struts rather than the more conventional flat spring to power its magazine follower. That system prevents the nose of a cartridge from tipping downward as it is being pushed by the bolt from the magazine to the chamber. The swing-down magazine of the A-Bolt is another great idea from Browning. The magazine can be charged with cartridges in four ways, through the ejection port, as Paul Mauser preferred, with the magazine box swung down but still attached to the hinged floorplate or with it completely detached from the floorplate. Another option is to remove the empty box from the floorplate and snap in a loaded one. The latter two methods allow the magazine of the rifle to be recharged while the bolt is closed on a cartridge in the chamber, a great option to have on a rifle used for hunting potentially dangerous game. Considerable overtravel prevents the A-Bolt trigger from ranking among the best, but it has a crisp 32-ounce pull with no detectable creep, which is plenty good on a big-game rifle. Other than that, the Mountain Ti is as close to perfect as we are likely to see in a big-game rifle for quite some time to come.

Winchester quickly solved that problem by inserting a steel liner inside the rear cavity. The steel lining was purposely omitted in the XP3 to allow it to swell to a larger diameter so that even if the bullet loses its front petals during expansion it will still maintain a relatively large frontal diameter. This is important in transferring energy to the target.

Bonding the lead core to the jacket prevents the splitting problem experienced with the original version of the Fail Safe bullet. On lung shots, the XP3 can be expected to retain upwards of 100 percent of its original weight, but as it goes with any bullet it is likely to lose a few grains when encountering heavy bone. A black Lubalox coating on the exterior of the XP3 cuts down on copper fouling in rifle bores.

Ballistic coefficients (B.C.) of the XP3 bullets are some of the highest in the business. The .30-caliber 180-grain version is rated at .507 compared to .391 for the Fail Safe. When both exit the muzzle of a rifle in .30-06 at the same velocity, the XP3 will be traveling seven percent faster and delivering 14 percent more energy once the two reach 300 yards.