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(courtesy Browning)

“A global leader in offering quality and innovative firearms, Browning now introduces a new, full-line of superior performance ammunition for hunting, personal defense and target shooting,” Browning’s presser proclaims. “The development of Browning Ammunition will provide millions of men and women, including new shooters and hunters across the world, with ‘The Best There Is.™'” Ah, but is it The Best A Man Can Get™? We’ll have to wait and see. This much we know . . .

Browning and Winchester developed this full line of ammunition products under the Browning brand, which will debut in January, 2016.

The Browning Ammunition portfolio includes popular ammunition offerings in rifle, shotgun, handgun and rimfire, featuring advanced technologies for hunters and shooters.

“It is a tremendous opportunity to partner with Winchester, the world’s leading manufacturer of ammunition for shooters and hunters,” said Hall.

Winchester is responsible for product development, manufacturing, marketing and sales. The alliance connects world leaders in firearms and ammunition manufacturing, as well as legendary brands.

Aside from the logo and brand-faithful color scheme, what sets Browning ammo apart from, thinking out loud here, Winchester ammo? TTAG’s sent an email to their media guy. Meanwhile . . .

“An alliance with Browning allows us to drive strategic ammunition products deep into the hunting and shooting sports categories,” said Brett Flaugher, vice president of sales, marketing and strategy for Winchester. “This is a significant milestone in the history books of both companies.”

Noted and logged. Now we wait and see.

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32 COMMENTS

  1. I see 22LR..Winchester ammo in Browning packaging..Well hopefully the more they make, then the more there is to choose from.

  2. They would be fools to allow any real innovation to be sold under the Browning name rather than the Winchester name, so I expect slick packaging and higher price points. We’ll see.

  3. Sounds like just a co-branding effort at market segmentation. In other words, appeal to certain groups’ brand loyalties and charge them more for an affinity product. I’m not seeing Browning stick a shovel in the ground to build an ammunition factory, though, so I don’t expect any expansion of capacity or serious innovation.

    • I hold Winchester and Browning guns with about the same regard, since most of their firearms (except for the M70/SPR, and the pump/auto shotguns that FN brings over from Turkey) are made in the same factory in Japan.

  4. Sounds to me like the same overall amount of ammunition will be on the market, only some of it will cost more now.

  5. So we’ve gone from cheap, effective ammo to expensive, bespoke ammo in just three years. Thanks Obama, and thank you, too, ammo companies — you rat bastards.

  6. I have a couple of boxes of old 338WM from a purchase in 1979 by Browning it’s nice to see them come back around full circle. It was priced about the same as any other ammunition when but that’s been a year or two.

    • I still have 4 or 5 boxes of Browning .357 magnum ammo from the late 1970’s, so Browning used to sell ammo back in the day. I wonder what the story was that caused them to stop and now to reintroduce an ammo line?

  7. I guess they decided the hollow points are staying Winchester since they didn’t get a new color scheme…

  8. Winchester has trashed the Super X brand. 25 years ago I bought Winchester ammo in complete confidence, no matter what the price maybe. Now I treat Winchester products with the same respect as PPU. For all you know it could be PPU in that Winchester box. Sticking the Browning label on Winchester ammo is like putting lipstick on a pig.

    • Johnny B; you’d really love the Remington stuff then, a complete bunch of crap. Winchester ammo is still the best bang for the buck. I shoot a whole lot and tried them all, but the Winchester stuff is about the most problem free I found.

  9. Folks, this is really no surprise if you realize these 2 companies are already in partnership and have been since 2006. Than is when the Winchester factory shut down and production went to the Herstal Group, who owns Browning and FN. Olin, the largest ammo manufacturer in the states, had been in partnership with Winchester since the 30’s, and still owns the Winchester name. Do you see the connections here? Pretty straight forward. Look at a box of Winchester ammo. Whose name is in fine print? Olin! I bet when this ammo comes out you will find the Olin name on the box. Even if it says Winchester in the fine print, it is still the same as Olin.
    One comment for Anonymoose; Yes, FN/Herstal does have a lot of factories throughout the world, including Japan. And if you check their site, not the USA site but the http://www.fnherstal.com site, and start digging you will find they also own and build the Miroku Japanese line of shotguns. Another company that has existed since the late 1800’s. And they are a very high end shotgun. There really is nothing wrong with these guns. The Japanese actually build very fine weapons. Who made the Samaria sword? If you look at Herstal’s history, they are about the oldest weapons manufacturer in Europe, at least in firearms. Toledo, Spain is actually the oldest armory in the world, but they do not build firearms. All that to say that the company still exists today because the management has remained smart. They built/bought out a couple arms manufacturing facilities here in the states and brought a lot of production here. That is why when you buy an FN/FNH and open its box it says US inside. If you open one that actually comes from Belgium, it costs a lot more. Not necessarily because of quality but because of import tariffs. I know the “Made in Japan” is hard to swallow, but do not sell them short.

  10. ‘Winchester is responsible for product development, manufacturing, marketing and sales.’ So, what exactly is Browning responsible for in this deal?

  11. FN Herstal owns Browning and Winchester firearms. Winchester Ammo is manufactured by Olin, as I understand it.

    So, A Winchester long gun is, pretty much, a Browning. Winchester ammo is is something else entirely.

    My best shooting buddy calls me an “Ammo Whore”. Meaning, in this instance, that I will shoot any ammo made by any manufacturer from any part of the world that will fit in my firearms. I’m not brand loyal for ammo.

    Of all of odd-ball crap that I’ve shot in my guns, I’ve had had relatively few problems with ANY of it. But, almost all, of the few problems I’ve had have been with Winchester Ammo. Split cases, failure to fire and failure to eject problems with Winchester have not been many. But, they have been, almost, exclusively, Winchester. I recommend against this brand for anyone seeking my advise about ammo.

    So, Browning Ammo made by Winchester. Nah.

  12. Just purchased two rim fire Browning branded offerings today. I paid $28.99 for 400 forty grain round nose bullets with 1255 fps muzzle velocity. This comes to less than 7–1/2 cents each. Not dirt cheap but not bad. The other flavor cost $9.99 for 100 rounds of 40 grain hollow points listed as having 1435 fps of muzzle velocity. That’s fairly competitive with CCI Mini Mags here in CT if I was able to find any CCI.
    Off to the range.

  13. Got a 400 box for $22.39 today (22lr 40gr) compared to Remington golden bullets at $32 for 325 I’ll take em

  14. You Guys need to step back and take a breath. I just bought a box of 400 rounds for $19.95. By my math, that’s 5 cents a round, and cheaper than anything I’ve seen lately.

    I just bought it and haven’t had a chance to shoot any of it yet, but it looks like good stuff. No conspiracy theories, no dark-of-night shenanigans, just available .22 ammo for cheap.

  15. the 22 ammo is basically the same thing as Winchester 22 i wouldn’t expect to be impressed.

    the shot shells in my opinion are as good or better the AA’s

  16. I recently bought 4 boxes of your BPR performance rimfire 22 ammunition. My wife and I use approximately 3 boxes of ammunition a week. We were told it was great ammunition, however, on using it we had (using a well cleaned weapon) (Ruger target) 2 jams and this AM the rear end of the case of one cartridge blew off completely when the powder charge ignited. This could have blown back into my wife’s face and thus I consider it very serious. We will be switching to a different manufacturer and let our friends and dealers know what happened.

  17. Bought a couple of 400 round boxes, very, very, dirty ammo. Fouled the bore something awful. Tried to shoot it out of my Ruger MkII, couldn’t get it to chamber half the time. After 50 rounds through my SP101 I had bullets going sideways through the target. Very poor ammunition, I think I’ll stick with Federal or CCI if I can afford it.

  18. My wife put a 100 pack of the 40gr in mt stocking for Christmas. I’d never shot these before so I loaded up my Marlin 99 with some. I had never had a problem with this rifle and it was clean. I had 4 Fail to Fires in about 20 rounds and one Fail to Feed. One of the FTF did fire after recycling it. All of the FTF had hammer marks deep enough to fire the round. I cleaned the rifle again and had 2 FTF in 10 rounds, Don’t buy this ammo. I expected better but will stick with CCI.

    • Yeah, most .22 ammo is junk these days. I try to stick with CCI, at least their QC hasn’t gone down the tubes yet. I look for better things since the election, though.

  19. I shot 12 shots at 50yrds of the browning BRP ammo and could cover all of them with a dime my gun was a cz I sure would like to have some more if you know where I could find them let me know.

  20. My PMR 30 will fire anything with no malfunctioning except for Browning 22 WMR.
    So I measured and the case heads at the rim on the browning ammo is 18 to .020” smaller at the rim so what up with that Browning??

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