Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Winchester Power Core - What are they thinking?

Just wondering if any industry people have had a chance to grill a Winchester rep on their Power Core strategy and get a non-speculation-based perspective?

From their site, it appears to be six bullets loaded for 12 different cartridges (seven and thirteen if you count the "Razor Boar XT" line that appears to be exactly the same except for the powder and includes 7.62x39). It's been available for several years now, and there's virtually no chatter about it on the web. It's out of stock most places that list it, except in California.

It seems like Winchester's entire strategy is to "be priced right and be there". Slightly more wordy... be $10-15/box below factory loaded ammo with Barnes, Nosler or Hornady bullets, and rely on their distribution to make sure they are in every Walmart that sells ammo in a lead-free hunting zone. They will for sure get the kind of hunter who goes to buy a box of ammo for the season, buys whatever's cheapest, uses half a dozen rounds to sight in at the range, and brings home a deer or two and maybe a couple pigs for the next few years with that same box.

But to a rifle loonie, it might as well not exist.

I've found comments that it's designed to replicate the performance of Power Points, which are well-liked by reloaders. They may not be the highest-performance stuff, but they get it done for most hunters in most situations and are a great choice among cup-and-core options. A monometal replicating Power Point performance would be especially great for people shooting lower-powered calibers, wanting the toughness of a monometal but maybe wanting reliable expansion at lower speeds. If that's the case, it would definitely be a technically differentiated product, filling a niche in the market that is currently available for an innovative company to go after.

If I bought a box of the factory ammo, I'd go to the range and see how it groups in my rifle. If it's good, take it out and shoot some pigs. If I like how that works, try it on stuff with longer legs. But a box of 20 might get me through the year. If it didn't shoot that well, pass it along to someone else to try or use it up practicing field positions. I probably won't buy a box, though. I'm a bit of a control freak, and it would bug me that I couldn't tweak it looking for that little bit more. And the price per trigger pull burns.

On the other hand, if they sold component bullets, I'd buy at least one box of 50, and quite possibly use up many of them seeking to optimize the load in my rifle. Once I had results I was happy with, assuming I did, I'd buy a few more boxes just so I'd be sure to have them on hand. In a short period of time, they'd have sold me many more of the bullets than they are likely to sell me in many years as loaded ammo. Of course, hand loads costs less to shoot, so I'd likely shoot more of them.

There are plenty of people who would stick with the known products because they are known, but there are plenty of other people who would try the new stuff just to see what it's all about. And if it worked well, they'd tell everyone.

Winchester sells brass, primers, powder and bullets. Not making their hot new product available to reloaders, so it can get dialed in and be made to work by the best shooters in the most rifles who shoot the most rounds, and used in more than the 12 cartridges they load at the factory, almost seems like they are trying to prevent it being too successful.

So I'm wondering whether any of the pros in the room can pass along input from Winchester, or have knowledge of relative volumes of product moved in loaded ammo vs. components that would explain Winchester's decision to not make the new bullet available in component form as being a logical business plan. Or are they just trying not to pee on the campfire of their business partner Nosler?

I suppose the loonies who don't reload might simply seek out the E-Tips they also load in their ammo?

I'm not a "pro", but I suspect that the profit margin on loaded ammunition is greater than from components and most businesses are profit driven.

Probably, but it's not like they are really taking away from loaded ammo sales if they offer components. The reloader is going to take his money elsewhere. It's two different markets, and they're completely ignoring additional sales.

It seems likely that the opposite of cannibalized sales would happen. Selling components would be an important means of building the brand. The loonies, if they like the stuff, would likely talk it up so when the factory ammo buyer goes shopping, he is more likely to choose it. Seriously, would anyone who wasn't legally required to do so pay the price for loaded Barnes/E-Tip/GMX if they hadn't seen all the good results hand loaders get with it?

Most people who shoot/hunt don't reload or frequent sites like this, so the opinions of "loonies" is lost on the masses.

I would suspect that Winchester/Olin's priority would be ammo and brass over primers and projectiles.

I doubt that Winchester/Olin feels that "building the brand" is necessary, since the brand is pretty well established.

Part of the overall problem in recent years, which got worse after Obama's reelection, is demand for both ammo AND components rose so high it's been difficult for manufacturers who make (or contract for) ammo, brass, bullets and even primers to make enough of everything to satisfy each of those markets. There's also considerable military demand.

As a result, a lot of components get turned into ammunition, because people who don't handload have no alternative, but handloaders don't HAVE to buy component brass. Instead, if they really need to they can buy ammunition and either break it down, or actually shoot it, whereupon they end up with reloadable brass. This may be unimaginable to hardcore handloaders, but there it is.

Ammunition sometimes provides a higher profit margin than components, but not always. Certainly a lot of ammo loaded with "name brand" premium bullets isn't all that profitable, because ammo companies have to buy those bullets from separate companies, who need to make a profit on their products. Thus there are at least two layers of profit in the price of premium ammo. But if the ammo companies can make their own "premium" bullets then the price can be lower.

Also, a few years ago Winchester Ammunition terminated their long-time relationship with an outside PR firm, which had done an excellent job in providing both info and product to writers, editors, TV-show people, etc. Like many companies these days, Winchester figured they could do just as well in-house, rather than paying money to an outside PR firm. No doubt they're right, at least in the short run, because demand for all sorts of shooting products has been so high during the Obama administration that firearms and ammo manufacturers don't really have to put much effort into advertising and promotion.

But getting products into the hands of gun writers has dropped off considerably, partly because many companies now have one or two in-house people doing a job that used to be done by several people. The new in-house people often don't even know who all the gun writers are, partly because the PR people are so over-worked there's far more turnover. I can easily think of half-a-dozen in-house PR people who've resigned their jobs with BIG companies in the past year or two, simply because they were working too hard.

Ten years ago I could easily contact a PR person for all the major companies who'd worked there for a long time, so knew their stuff. These days I don't even know who the PR person is for many companies, and when I do find out, they're often gone within a year.

This hasn't mattered much during the past few years, because so many shooters have been buying so much stuff, but if a Republican gets elected president that will change.

All of which is partly an explanation about why I have no idea what's going on at Winchester, and neither do a lot of other gun writers.

Thanks, MD.

Another thing I've seen in other industries is that with consolidation, there can often be an emphasis on cutting costs to the bone more than on overall excellence of operation, in order to make the payoff for acquisitions look better. Marketing and PR can be a big part of that, unfortunately.

260RemGuy, the Winchester brand is obviously established, but Power Core doesn't really mean anything in the market. Not like TTSX or Accubond, for example. Individual products have "brands", not just companies.

I would consider "Power-Core" to be a product line within the Winchester/Olin brand, but it can be whatever you want it to be. It is highly likely that you know more about the art and science of marketing than I ever will care to know.

If you go to www.winchester.com and look at component rifle bullets, Winchester/Olin is offering very few options, just 14 by my count, so it appears that Winchester/Olin isn't very active in that market niche. I suspect that if they felt that there was money to be made in the component rifle bullet market, they would be more active.

I also looked at the Power-Core ammo options and note that the there are only 12 factory loads that appear to use only 6 different bullets:

.224" - 64 grain in 223
.243" - 90 grain in 243
.277" - 130 grain in 270 and 270 WSM
.284" - 140 grain in 7mm-08, 7mm WSM, and 7mm Rem Mag
.308" - 150 grain in 308, 30-06, 300 WSM, and 300 Win Mag
.308" - 150 grain round nose in 30-30

I think I'll go fill a case up with some version of 4350 and put a Nosler Partition atop it.

260 -

I'd bet that when/if this panic is over WW will be glad to build/make all their components available to handloaders.

As MD has said 'multiple' Xs, there's MORE money in AMUNITION than components.

jwall -

I have no idea what Winchester/Olin will do when the current panic buying market changes. I've been reloading for around 45 years and have purchased very few Winchester/Olin component bullets during all of that time and I think that the majority that I did buy were antique or collectible components. I am shooting some of their Power-Max Bonded 130 grain 270 ammo in my CLR and 760 elk rifles, but I think that I'd just buy Partitions if I was going to reload for the 270.

It's not like we don't have enough choices, although sometimes stuff is hard to find. Be patient.

Used to be that component bullets from WW and Big Green were priced pretty well, and I still have some I got really cheap. Now it seems they want a premium for often rather ordinary bullets.

I'll just buy blems and watch for sales.

I think it's interesting that they engineered the perfect deer bullet with the XP but 5 years ago they already engineered the perfect whitetail bullet with the Power Max Bonded. Maybe the Max Bonded was too expensive to make and not good for mule deer so they need one engineered kill both whitetail and mule deer.

Mule deer are harder to kill that whitetails?

If the XP is the one American Rifleman blurbed it looks about as simple as you can get. A flat nosed bullet with a big plastic aero cap.

It will, no doubt, kill deer. Surprise surprise.

I'm equally amazed by the Ruger American knockoff, imported from Portustan for only 150% of the price.

What will they think of next?

It was sarcasm.

Scott --

sarcasm, irony, etc. is lost on some folks.

Not directly directed at 260!

[quote=scottfromdallas]It was sarcasm.
[/quote

I don't interpret sarcasm from the printed word very well.

Which is, the answer to most questions on here.