AMMUNITION / 01
9 mm
Winchester Magnum.
An early chapter in the Wildey story.
Both the 9 mm Winchester Magnum and the .45 Winchester Magnum are closely linked to the development of the Wildey. This page introduces the seldom-seen 9 mm cartridge through period Winchester Super-X packaging.
A single cartridge displayed on the Super-X box.
Wiley Clapp recalled that the people developing the Wildey persuaded Winchester to manufacture both 9 mm Winchester Magnum and .45 Winchester Magnum ammunition. The two cartridges form separate strands of the same development story.
Wiley Clapp · American Rifleman · 2021
WILDEY J. MOORE’S RECOLLECTION
It began with a handshake.
Winchester developed the 9 mm Winchester Magnum and .45 Winchester Magnum cartridges for the Wildey pistol project, later known through the Hunter and Survivor models. Moore recalled the agreement in his own words:
On the basis of a handshake, Bill agreed to develop the cartridges. At first we settled on 9MM and .45 Magnums, strictly because these were the most popular bore diameters at that time, and still probably are. […]
Sounds simple, but you have to develop tooling, loads, packaging, marketing etc. for those cartridges, which, needless to say, is expensive. And this was the first time in history that Winchester had ever developed cartridges for a specific gun that wasn’t even a prototype yet. The cards were surely aligning in my favor. In a way, so much of my career up until this point came together to make this pistol a reality.
PERIOD WINCHESTER SUPER-X
The box tells its story.
The photographs show period packaging for Winchester 9 mm Winchester Magnum ammunition.
- Manufacturer
- Winchester
- Brand
- Super-X
- Factory designation
- 9MM WIN. MAG.
- Factory product code
- W9MMWM
- Box quantity
- 50 cartridges per box
- Box marking
- 115 GR. · F.M.C.
Sources
Winchester: Reloader’s Manual, 15th edition · 1997 · pp. 43–44.
Photographs from an online forum post.