IS Winchester Black Talon Ammo Legal?

I have been offered a box of Winchester Black Talon 230 grain SXT, hollow point expanding .45 Auto ammo.  Is it even
legal to posses this ammo?  The local gunshops don't carry it.  (as if they carried any useable ammo)

I don't think that anything is legal in California.

Winchester voluntarily discontinued black talon, because of pressure from liberal groups and the media that the black was ominous and even tried to say it was armor piercing which was BS  it was never banned or outlawed.  they continue to make it till this very day under the SXT branding which is said by insiders to stand for "same xact thing" they just don't coat them black. Today they are more a collector item than anything else.

Media furor included a lot of whining from ER trauma docs about the rare events but undeniable hazards of the wound-enhancing "talons" piercing the rubber gloves and exposing them to the still relatively-new hazards of AIDS.

Then of course, there was a lot of whining and moaning about ammunition somehow being too dangerous. Like there is a nice way to apply deadly force to someone who's trying to kill you. The need for effective and speedy stopping power in legitimate self-defense shooting situations was completely drowned out in the hullabaloo over the nation's murder problem, which is characterized by gunwielding felons and sociopaths shooting unarmed people.

It was a boring rerun of the hollowpoint ammunition complaints of the late 60s and early 70s which had been levied against law enforcement.

Sort of like the Hague Convention making a big deal out of ammunition designed to cause "superfluous" injury, in a world where high explosive artillery shells could liquefy the body of a person a few yards away from the alleged victim who was so cruelly shot.

One of the objections was that they compared the expanded bullet to a saw blade and made a big deal about it rotating at 1,000 rpm. The cute animations showed it continuing to rotate at that speed as it entered and passed through a 'victim'. I never knew whether they did not understand the physics or conveniently ignored the fact that the bullet, while indeed rotating at about that speed was only rotating at about one revolution per foot of forward motion and was not at all synonymous with plunging a buzz saw into the victim.
My Black Talon ammo is getting old enough that I might have second thoughts about using it as carry ammo, then again, all my other old ammo appears to work fine so.....

Bruce

I carry Federal HST in both 9mm and .40 S&W which expand with "cutting edges".  The are pretty much the same thing as the old "Black Talon" bullets, and they are legal for civilian use.  At least in PA they are.  California is an entirely different world.

Of course it's legal. The only ammo that has been banned to my knowledge was KTW, and that wasn't really even in the civilian market to begin with. The ammo is probably 20 years old, and I personally wouldn't consider it to be first line self defense ammo because of it's age. It's more of a collectable at this point.

Yes, legal. Media hype in the 90's. The SXT rnd is the next gen. of Win defense ammo. very accurate,very reliable. If stored high and dry it will fire for many decades. shoot fast shoot safe
Steve

black talon is totaly legal, the design has been modified over the years, and the name has been drop from the product line do to the media. The newest rendition of it is the Winchester Ranger T (talon). it is good stuff in all calibers and one of the few self defense loads that has a flash suppressant in the powder