Black Talon

Talon drew controversy in the early 1990s following a media circus surrounding its purported effects, as well as its use in several mass shootings. Winchester discontinued sales to the general public in 1993 and ceased manufacture of all Black Talon-branded munitions in 2000, though Winchester has since continued to produce and sell nearly identical rounds under different brand names.

• Name — Black Talon

• Illustration — Detail of a 9×19mm Black Talon bullet The Black Talon bullet was designed in 1991 under the supervision of Alan Corzine, then Winchester's VP of research and development. The Black Talon handgun bullet (from the resemblance of the opened segments to the talons of a bird of prey) is a jacketed hollow-point bullet with perforations designed to expose sharp edges upon expansion. The bullet featured a Lubalox coating, a proprietary oxide process, that gave it an unusual black appearance compared to other copper-jacketed or lead bullets. Though widely misreported to be Teflon, molybdenum disulfide, or wax, the Lubalox coating was simply intended to protect the barrel rifling, and did not give the bullet armor-piercing capabilities. This coating is still widely used on many of Winchester's rifle bullets. The Black Talon rifle bullet did not share the handgun bullet's barbed petal design and was essentially a solid copper hollow-point with a hollowed out rear shank containing a lead core in a steel liner to prevent jacket rupture thus maintaining necessary penetration in tough game. This ammunition line was renamed Fail Safe.

Despite the Black Talon brand having been discontinued in 2000, nearly identical munitions have been produced by Winchester almost immediately after its discontinuation.

The Ranger SXT ("Supreme eXpansion Technology") was released by Winchester shortly after the discontinuation of Black Talon, in the early- or mid-2000s. It is nearly identical to Black Talon bullets, but without the black Lubalox coating on the bullet. The hollow point cavity dimensions and angles of the meplat were altered to enhance reliability of expansion, though the basic "reverse taper" design pioneered by the Black Talon was retained. This "reverse taper" refers to the bullet's jacket being thicker at the tip than toward the base, enhancing rigidity which allows the sharp petals to remain largely perpendicular to the wound path, unlike traditional designs where the expanding jacket petals would peel back almost completely behind the expanded lead mushroom. This difference is obvious after firing into ballistic gelatin. In 2007, Winchester updated the Ranger SXT line and renamed it to the Ranger T-Series. Besides further dimensional changes to the hollow point for reliable expansion, the distinctive perpendicular petals were made longer yet more rounded at the tips to retain stiffness.

In 2009, Winchester-Olin released a new hollow point bullet in its Supreme Elite line of handgun ammunition called the Bonded PDX1. It is similar to the Ranger SXT series and the older Black Talon design in its structure, and is available in several calibers and loadings. The most obvious difference from the SXT is that the bonded design, meant to maintain structural integrity through difficult intermediate barriers like auto-glass, largely prevents the sharp petals from peeling away from the lead core and fully protruding into the wound track. The.40 S&W PDX1 cartridge is available for purchase by civilian shooters and was the primary service ammunition of the FBI until 2017 when they switched to the Hornady Critical Duty line.

Following the United States Army's selection of the SIG Sauer P320-derived M17 pistol in the Modular Handgun System competition, the Army announced two new 9mm rounds would be adopted alongside the gun: the M1152 Ball, a 115 grain full metal jacket round "for use against enemy personnel, for training, and for force protection"; and the M1153 Special Purpose, a 147 grain jacketed hollow-point round "for use in situations where limited over-penetration of targets is necessary to reduce collateral damage." The latter hollow-point round is conspicuously similar to the Black Talon and Ranger T-Series, though Winchester only stated it was designed to "maximize performance based on the government specification set out in the request for proposal." Both the round and the firearm have subsequently been adopted by all branches of the United States Armed Forces, except for the Coast Guard.

A fictionalized version of the Black Talon bullet called the "Black Death" is used by Hank Schrader in a pivotal scene in the Breaking Bad episode "One Minute". In E.R., Season 8, Episode 10, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” a Black Talon bullet injures a six year old boy. Doctor Romano identifies the bullet by its razor sharp fragments. Black Talon bullets are used by The Professor in the 1997 anime film City Hunter: Goodbye My Sweetheart. Black Talon bullets are referenced in season 1, episode 15 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Black Talon bullets are referenced in The Mountain Goats album Bleed Out, in the track "First Blood", where they are erroneously called armor-piercing. Black Talon bullets are mentioned in The Notorious B.I.G. album Ready to Die, in the track "Warning". Black Talon bullets are mentioned in 50 Cent's track "When It Rains It Pours" from the soundtrack of his autobiographical film. Black Talon bullets are mentioned in the song "sameolemeek" by Meek Mill. In Tess Gerritsen's novel Body Double, a murder victim is killed with a Black Talon bullet. In the Preston & Child novel White Fire, Stacy Bowdree, an ex-USAF Captain, says she has a couple of Black Talons for the would-be assassin of another character (Corrie Swanson).