Winchester's 115-grain full metal jacket is rated at 1,190 fps and 362 ft-lbs at the muzzle, which works out to a power factor of 137, 12 points over the 125 minor floor for USPSA and IDPA. With a 25-yard zero it drops 1.2 inches at 50 yards and 9.5 inches at 100, and it is still moving about 1,070 fps at the 50-yard line. Recoil in a 1.9-pound compact pistol is estimated at 4.3 ft-lbs.

Among the five 115-grain ball loads in this comparison, only Fiocchi Training Dynamics runs faster, and by just 10 fps, so the two are about 1 percent apart in recoil energy and interchangeable in practice. The rest sit lower. ZSR leaves at 1,148 fps, Magtech at 1,135 and Federal Champion at 1,125, which puts the Winchester 42 to 65 fps ahead of that group with an estimated 6 to 9 percent more recoil energy in the same pistol. The gap in drop is small: 1.2 inches at 50 yards for the Winchester against 1.4 for Magtech and Federal Champion, and about an inch at 100. None of them needs a different hold at pistol distances.

Buy this as a general practice load if your pistol runs a stiff recoil spring, or if you want margin over the minor floor when a match chronographs from a short barrel: Federal Champion's power factor of 129 leaves only 4 points of slack where the Winchester leaves 12. If the goal is the lightest-kicking 115 for a long session or a new shooter, Federal Champion or Magtech give up nothing in drop that you will notice and cut recoil energy by 8 to 9 percent. Fiocchi Training Dynamics is the same load on paper, so there is no ballistic reason to prefer one over the other.