Winchester Elite PDX1 Defender 357 Magnum Ammunition
We’re in the middle of testing about a half dozen different calibers of – one of which is the .357 Magnum 125 grain load. A classic self defense and law enforcement load in terms of bullet weight and velocity.
Since we focus more on personal defense solutions, we elected to test the .357 Magnum load in a snubbie revolver. A Ruger LCR .357 Magnum revolver to be specific.
The uses bonded jacket technology, meaning that the bullet jacket is welded (as described by Winchester) to the lead core. This is designed to prevent separation of the heavier bullet core from the jacket material. In our testing, we found the .357 Magnum PDX1 loads to retain virtually all of their weight, even when torn up by tough barrier material.
Expansion performance of the Winchester Elite PDX1 Defender load was excellent
Winchester advertises velocity of 1,325 feet per second velocity measured at the muzzle. While we were unable to verify, we’re assuming that this measurement is from a somewhat standard 4 inch barrel. Out of the Ruger LCR .357 Magnum, with it’s 1.875 inch barrel, we measured average velocity of 1,214 feet per second with our placed 15 feet downrange. not bad considering the LCR barrel is shorter than the average car key.
Expansion performance was excellent. We shot through 4 layers of light canvas into wetpack and achieved maximum expansion of .665 inches in diameter, or nearly 1.9x expansion. That was well above Winchester’s claim of of 1.5x expansion for this round.
We’re having equally good success with other loads in the family and will cover those separately in the next several articles.
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Sounds like a wonderful self defense round for my SP101 with 3″ barrel or my Model 19 with 4″ pipe!
Great review. Have you guys seen the video review on Youtube by tnoutdoors? He shot two of these rounds and neither expanded AT ALL. In fact, one bounced off the target and onto the ground. I was going to buy this round until I saw the video, but I’ve read good things about it so I don’t know what to make of it.
Any opinions?
Thanks – Are you sure we’re talking about the same round? Just checked out TN’s video on the Winchester PDX1 .357 Magnum round here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjAzt-yO3e0 and it looks like we got pretty similar results.
You’re right! I was looking at the 38 special PDX1 review which didn’t expand at all. Thanks!
Funny you mention that, I have an article on the .38 Special Winchester PDX1 coming up. Sneak preview, I found about a 60% expansion rate in my tests, ie most expanded, but ~ 40% did not.