This weekend I had the pleasure of wasting a little time in a Bass Pro Shop, and came across a few interesting items. Ostensibly, I was there to procure a 9mm boresnake and cleaning liquids for my new PPS (While I did remember to leave my firearms in such a location that we could receive shipment of them before our main household goods shipment, I neglected to leave out any cleaning materials... I have a rod set for 9mm firearms, but no boresnake, so I figured I could rationalize that purchase, as well as the necessary cleaning and lubricating liquids.), but, of course, I tried to waste as much time as possible in the store - I may not be a hunter or really much of an outdoorsman, but it is one hell of a toy store.

At any rate, I turned up some Winchester White Box, and was thoroughly disgusted at the price, and then stumbled across the thing I eventually purchased - a couple of boxes of Winchester SXZ.

The common thought behind practicing for self-defense has been to shoot the ammunition you intend to carry - after all, every made and model of round has different ballistic characteristics, and you bloody well better know how your particular bullet will behave coming out the barrel of your gun. However, this has always struck me, a cheapskate, as something of an expensive proposition, especially considering that some self-defense rounds can sometimes run a dollar a bullet, even for 9mm. Winchester's take with the SXZ line is to offer two identical bullets, one hollow-point and labeled "Personal Protection", and one with a flat nose and labeled "Training". Supposed, the training rounds match the personal protection rounds in feeding, ballistic performance, accuracy, and recoil characteristics... at about 2/3s the price (which, considering that particular Bass was having a 10% off on SXZ, makes it about as expensive as standard WWB). Of course, given that both varieties of the SXZ weigh 115 grains (just the same as WWB) and do not look a whole lot different (as documented below), I guess this equivalent price should come as no surprise to anyone. As for the black stuff, it is advertised as "Lubalox coating" that is supposed to reduce fouling and engraving forces, which sounds like a good thing to me if it behaves as advertised. Both the personal protection and training rounds advertise 1190 fps velocity and 362 ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle, and 1071 fps and 293 ft-lbs at 50 yards (which, by the by, is also perfectly identical to WWB). So, basically, when it comes right down to the nuts and bolts of the "training" round, you save yourself a buck just going with standard WWB, unless you are really, really concerned about the geometry of your bullets and feeding problems (which could be a sizeable argument, I will grant).

Anywise, range report on these and the PPS itself when I get out to the range this week sometime... I figure a hundred or two of the standard WWB, the 50 training rounds I purchased, and a few of the personal protection rounds should put the Walther through its paces and see if there is any difference between the three rounds.