Ranger T-Series vs Golden Saber (.45 ACP)

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Well, I just got my hands on a box of 5th Generation Winchester Ranger T-Series in .45 ACP 230gr and decided to do a review on them with the Remington Golden Saber 185gr .45 ACP.  I have some time to type so I figured I would share my findings with all of you!  This is an open review so say anything you want to say, but no flaming.  I'm not a professional so everything I type and say is strictally my opinion only... And I would enjoy all of your opinions as well.  So lets get to the review!

(The pictures provided are all taken by me and the tests performed were performed by me as well)



Ranger T-Series ammunition is quite hard to find amongst the common folk... Only intended for law enforcement, sometimes common folk are lucky enough to get their hands on a box or two of this.



On the other hand, Remington Golden Sabers are A LOT easier to get your hands on, BUT doesn't provide as much theoretical "stopping power" as the Ranger T-Series (5th Gen).


I took 1 gallon jugs out to the range and lined them up then shot them from 7 yards.  All ammo was fired from my Kimber Ultra Carry II (3" barrel).

The Rangers penetrated through 4 gallons and stopped inside the 4th gallon.  The Golden Sabers penetrated through 5 gallons and came out of the side of the 5th gallon, I had to find it about 2ft away from the 5th gallon.



As you can see, the shape of the expanded ammunition is a lot different.  Though, you can see that they both have the same idea as when they are expanded, they are made to cut through things.  The "talons" from the Rangers are definitely a scary thought.  As you can also see the "Sabers" on the Golden Sabers stick out enough to be considered "cutting edges"....

Since we are talking about the "talons" and the "cutting edges"... In the close up pics below, you can see that the Ranger's Talons are razor sharp.... and that is NOT an exaggeration.  They are super sharp and could cut through A LOT, especially when traveling at 875fps.  Not only are the talons razor sharp, they are 3x's longer then the previous generations of "talon" ammo by Winchester (aka Black Talons, Winchester SXT, Ranger SXT, Ranger T-Series 4th gen).  As the picture below illustrates, the talon it self extends all the way to Abraham Linclon's neck on a penny!



As for the Golden Sabers (pictured below)... The cutting edges do not extend out too far... Just enough to "scrape by".  Considering the cutting edges extend only 1/16th of an inch as opposed to the Ranger's talons at 5/16th of an inch, stopping power by the Golden Saber is not even comparable to the 5th Gen Ranger T's.  The .45 ACP provides plenty stopping power, yes... But for those who would like a little more security in the ammo they fire, comparing is very necessary.



How about expansion?  Great question!  Here are the specs that came from my testing:

Expansion

Ranger T-Series 5th Gen:

(from talon to talon)  1 1/16"
(from lead ends)        3/4th"

Golden Saber: 

(from saber to saber) 11/16"
(from lead ends)         5/8"



In the next pictures below, you can see the comparison between the expansion of the Ranger T 5th Gen and the Golden Saber against some of our american currency.  The Ranger T-Series does a GREAT job of expanding to larger than the size of a quarter (including the talons)... Unfortunately, the Golden Saber barely expands to the size of a penny.



Now... Which one do YOU think would best suit you for your defensive ammo?  The option is always your own...  Some ammo feels different then other for some.  Some are more comfortable with ammo that others ARE NOT comfortable with.  So it is a personal decision.  I just hope that I brought some light into the subject.



There are TONS of other "prefered" defensive ammo out there (Federal HST, Gold Dot, MagTech, Hornady, etc)... But for the review's sake, lets stick to the Ranger T's and the Golden Saber

I hope all of you were NOT bored reading this... This is my first review and I figured I would share my findings... Now the thread is in YOUR hands :celebrate

I'm sure you guessed what my prefered carry ammo is



Thanks for reading!

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Excellent comparison! And sweet farmer's tan.

Those Rangers/Talons are definitely nasty looking. The question now (and much hard to test) is whether there's actuallya perceptiblestopping power difference.

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Considering the GS has a proven track record, the T-series is just a relabeled BT with a few modern tweeks that may or may not improve performance.



http://www.handloads.org/misc/stoppingpower.asp?Caliber=18&Weight=All

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Considering that those rounds are spinning when they enter, WOW. Those Rangers would be like getting shot with a buzz saw. Get gut-shot with one of those, and IF you live, it's gonna be colostomy city fer sure. Not that you'd be likely to live. Massive internal bleeding would save a lot of medical bills as you'd be dea from internal hemmorhage before any help arrived. Stopper? Oh, indeedy.

On the other hand, for common LAC use in 99.99999% of defense situations, the Sabers are more than adequate, especially in .45 ACP.

Personally I'll just stick to my "city load" of sixx Glasers followed by 9mm or .380 hollowpoints in the P.38 or PPK/s.

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My daughter and I have GoldenSabers in our 45's, but I'll see if we can't find a couple boxes of that new stuff... A photo is worth more than a thousand words, IMHO...

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A friend of mine was given some boxes of the Ranger ammo a while back. He sold his .45, don't ask me why, but now those boxes belong to me. My daughter got one and I kept the others. My PT-1911 now is stoked with them, impressive pictures, and in my case, convincing too. Thanks for doing the testing and thanks to my silly friend for thinking of me:celebrate:what:

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Alexcabbie wrote:

Considering that those rounds are spinning when they enter, WOW. Those Rangers would be like getting shot with a buzz saw. Get gut-shot with one of those, and IF you live, it's gonna be colostomy city fer sure. Not that you'd be likely to live. Massive internal bleeding would save a lot of medical bills as you'd be dea from internal hemmorhage before any help arrived. Stopper? Oh, indeedy.

On the other hand, for common LAC use in 99.99999% of defense situations, the Sabers are more than adequate, especially in .45 ACP.

Personally I'll just stick to my "city load" of sixx Glasers followed by 9mm or .380 hollowpoints in the P.38 or PPK/s.

Click to expand...

I load up with a mix of Rangers and Glasers in my .45's. The firstone is aRanger, with one in the pipe, then every other one throughoutthe rest of the mags are Glaser's.

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I agree that whether .45 ACP in general is definitely adequate stopping power. But for comparison sakes, of course we can go ahead and see which one might be more effective.

GS's for sure have proven adequate for stopping a threat. Although IMHO... I'm positive that if the Rangers were available to the general public, we would see that they were just as adequate or even more adequate as the GS's.

Expansion of the expended round is a very very important part in "stopping power". As we can see, even if we take away the talons from the Rangers, the GS's iare still smaller in expansion than the Rangers.

Penetration... The ideal penetration is when the bullet goes all the way through the target and as soon as the bullet exits, its rolls out of the exit wound and drops straight to the ground to avoid collateral damage. That's ideal, but not really possible. In my opinion only, the Ranger T's are less likely to over penetrate which decreases the possibility of "collateral damage". Considering the Rangers went through 4 gallon jugs and stopped in the forth, then the GS's went through 5 jugs and might have penetrated through more if the bullet didn't stray off course when I found it a ways away from the jugs.

curtm1911: There are two generations of Ranger T's... This next picture was NOT taken by me, but it shows the difference between the two generations of Ranger T's



As you can see, the 5th Generations are on the left and the 4th Generations are on the right. The talons on the 4th Generation are a lot shorter than the 5th Generation Ranger T's... Also not as sharp as the 5th Gen Rangers. It is hard to determine whether or not you have the 4th or 5th Gen Rangers unless you do some ballistics testing. They look the same on the outside, but on the inside, one of them has a lot more fury than the other. The 4th Gen Rangers are basically the BT without the color, but the 5th Gen is a lot better than the BT. One possible way to determine if its a 4th Gen or 5th Gen is to look inside the tip of the slug and see if the talons look longer and skinnier or if they look shorter and wider.

AWDstylez: I made the farmer's tan for you lol. I didn't even know I had one honestly.

EDIT: Only 2 votes in the poll?

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How about a heavy clothing penetration test? The blunt, rounded nose of the Rangers has always been a turn-off for me. I can't picture it penetrating any type of barrier very well. However, that's based on nothing but subjective visual impressions.

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I just looked at mine, and the talons appear to extend almost1/3 to 1/2 of the way into the hollowpoint and seem to me anyway to be thinner than on my SXT Winchester ammo. Just my observation, but it appears I might have 5th generation Rangers. Maybe you could post a picture of an unfired round to illustrate this point of identification. Thanks for the further info BTW. Upon further inspection, I guess I have SXT type Rangers, 4th(?) generation then..

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The link below shows that the Rangers expands .01" less through 4 layers of denim than just through bare gelatin.

http://www.winchester.com/lawenforcement/testing/testing_t.aspx

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rolexbenz190e wrote:

The link below shows that the Rangers expands .01" less through 4 layers of denim than just through bare gelatin.

http://www.winchester.com/lawenforcement/testing/testing_t.aspx

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Interesting. Thanks. 9mm the penetration winnarz as usual.

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curtm1911 wrote:

I just looked at mine, and the talons appear to extend almost1/3 to 1/2 of the way into the hollowpoint and seem to me anyway to be thinner than on my SXT Winchester ammo. Just my observation, but it appears I might have 5th generation Rangers. Maybe you could post a picture of an unfired round to illustrate this point of identification. Thanks for the further info BTW. Upon further inspection, I guess I have SXT type Rangers, 4th(?) generation then..

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Well, lets say you have the 5th Gen Ranger T's Since both the 4th and 5th Gen boxes are identical and both say "Ranger T-Series" with no generation identification. Sounds to me like you have the 5th Gen T's. Nice choice in ammo

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GREAT review. I had GS in my Glock 30 but my Rangers came in today and your review was timely. Rangers in my Glock now..

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SFCRetired wrote:

Let me add a question to this: What do you think a prosecutor's reaction would be when he/she found you were carrying ammo marked, "For Law Enforcement Only"? Another question would be what would the reaction be if they saw these pictures?

I guess I'm getting a tad paranoid in my old age, but I see these pictures and read these test results and can't help but wonder what would happen if you had to shoot in self-defense.

For the record: The ammo I use is marked "For Law Enforcement Only" and I am very happy with it.

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I think that's 100% marketing ploy and 0% actual restriction.

IANAL, but I don't think it would be very hard to simply argue that you wanted to carry the most reliable, effective ammunition possible. Don't worry about the prosecution, they'll always be able to find something (caliber too big, gun too scary looking, zomg hAelloWZpoIneTz!!! etc).

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SFCRetired wrote:

Let me add a question to this: What do you think a prosecutor's reaction would be when he/she found you were carrying ammo marked, "For Law Enforcement Only"?  Another question would be what would the reaction be if they saw these pictures?

I guess I'm getting a tad paranoid in my old age, but I see these pictures and read these test results and can't help but wonder what would happen if you had to shoot in self-defense.

For the record: The ammo I use is marked "For Law Enforcement Only" and I am very happy with it.

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Good question my friend... As we all know, the best way (ammo wise) to keep off of the play ground of a prosecutor in the unfortunate event that you have to use your firearm in self-defense, is by using defensive ammunition that is used by law enforcement angencies.

The intent is to defend your self, your loved ones and other innocent lives... The intent is NOT to harm. So.... If a prosecutor were to go after you for because of your choice in ammunition saying that you had the intent to harm/injure/kill.... then they would have to say the same thing about those law enforcement agencies who's policy is to strictly use this type of ammunition in their officer's duty weapons and nothing else.

When you use the ammunition that was intended for LEO's, you also intend to use the ammo in situations only a LEO would use it (in the defense of human life). Which is completely justifiable as long as you DO NOT abuse your right to carry and you actually use your ammunition for a justifiable event. A prosecutor has no means to attack you when it comes to using law enforcement ammunition... If the prosecutor calla you a killer cause of your choice of ammo, then he calls ever single LEO who uses that ammo a killer as well.

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rolexbenz190e wrote:

SFCRetired wrote:

Let me add a question to this: What do you think a prosecutor's reaction would be when he/she found you were carrying ammo marked, "For Law Enforcement Only"? Another question would be what would the reaction be if they saw these pictures?

Click to expand...

Good question my friend... As we all know, the best way (ammo wise) to keep off of the play ground of a prosecutor in the unfortunate event that you have to use your firearm in self-defense, is by using defensive ammunition that is used by law enforcement angencies.

The intent is to defend your self, your loved ones and other innocent lives... The intent is NOT to harm. So.... If a prosecutor were to go after you for because of your choice in ammunition saying that you had the intent to harm/injure/kill.... then they would have to say the same thing about those law enforcement agencies who's policy is to strictly use this type of ammunition in their officer's duty weapons and nothing else.

When you use the ammunition that was intended for LEO's, you also intend to use the ammo in situations only a LEO would use it (in the defense of human life). Which is completely justifiable as long as you DO NOT abuse your right to carry and you actually use your ammunition for a justifiable event. A prosecutor has no means to attack you when it comes to using law enforcement ammunition... If the prosecutor calla you a killer cause of your choice of ammo, then he calls ever single LEO who uses that ammo a killer as well.

Click to expand...

IANAL however, I would think along the same lines as rolexbenz's post above.

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At least I hope a jury and a judge would understand that.

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Interesting range report. I've gotten to prefer the Golden Sabers (9mm) for the simple reason that they have a rounder end and I haven't had any feeding problems with them, compared to other, flatter-ended, hollow-point ammo I've used. I haven't tried the Ranger but it looks interesting.

As for prosecutors, I wouldn't worry about their opinions about ballistics and the esthetics of deadly force. Either you are justified in using deadly force or not, and hollow-point ammo is legal in my state, so I don't see how they have any cause for complaint with my choice of ammo. I understand "law enforcement use only" in this case as a marketing gimmick and not any legal proscription for non-LEOs. Good enough for them, good enough for the rest of us.

I didn't vote because I haven't used them both, although your report is informative. Thanks.

-ljp