Winchester Xpert Rifle Chambered in .21 Sharp: Squirrel Medicine

Winchester's Xpert rimfire and .21 Sharp cartridge combo are put to the test in the Kentucky squirrel woods.

February 28, 2026 By Will Brantley

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“Surprising” would be one way to describe the Suppressor-Ready Winchester Xpert rifle. It’s a little bolt-action rimfire that doesn’t cost much, weighs less than 5 pounds, and the ones I tested in the squirrel woods last fall were chambered in an unproven cartridge, the brand-new Winchester .21 Sharp. I’m fairly particular about my squirrel guns, largely because I don’t view squirrel hunting as an afterthought, or as something to fill the time when seasons for “more important” game animals are closed. The gray squirrels I like to hunt are nothing like the chubby city park dwellers that snack on stale popcorn, either.

In the late summer and early fall, I enjoy slipping through the tall timber, which is still leafy and green, and working my way into range of hickory and oak trees where squirrels are feeding. Once I’m close enough, I maneuver myself into a decent shooting position, find a good rest, and pluck the critters right out of the canopy, ideally with a precise head shot. The average shot distance is around 50 yards in that game, sometimes farther, and a gray squirrel’s noggin isn’t very big. You simply must have a rifle that shoots better than the average rimfire plinker. My personal gun is a .17 HMR with a walnut stock and a heavy target barrel; scoped out, it weighs 10.5 pounds.

So, when the Xperts arrived last fall, I was a bit dubious. Not that there was a thing wrong with the gun; I just wasn’t sure that such a lightweight budget rifle was up to the demands of my style of squirrel hunting. But I’d find out one way or the other, as I was hosting a late-August squirrel hunting camp with a few other writers and some staffers from Winchester Ammunition for a few days of chasing bushytails and putting the Xpert rifle and .21 Sharp cartridge to the test.

I walked away impressed. So did my buddy Ryan, who guides with me and is just as squirrel crazy as I am. The suppressor-ready Xpert is a great little gun, inexpensive enough to purchase for a plinker or trapline rifle, but accurate and reliable enough to make a dedicated small game gun, too. And the .21 Sharp? Like it or not, it’s a better squirrel round than the .22 Long Rifle. I’ll let you get good and cranked up about that, and then we’ll hash it out after discussing the Xpert rifle.

A FEATHERWEIGHT SETUP

lady shooting squirrels — Writer Alice Jones Webb takes aim at a squirrel high in a white oak. (Photo courtesy of Will Brantley)

Compared to my 10-pound .17, the Xpert feels like a toy, with a skeletonized molded polymer stock and stubby, 16.5-inch barrel. These rifles have a 1/2 x 28 TPI threaded muzzle, covered from the factory by a knurled thread protector. We paired each one (we set up four of them ahead of our squirrel camp) with a Silencer Central Banish-22, which are titanium cans that weigh about 4 ounces.

The Xperts’ steel receivers are drilled and tapped, so we added Weaver-style bases and then topped each with a Leupold VX-Freedom 4-12x40 scope. This is a relatively inexpensive optic that still provides the light transmission of a 30mm tube, 12-power magnification and a side focusing knob, all of which are nice features for zooming in on a squirrel’s head while maintaining a clear sight picture.

Once scoped, we zeroed each rifle from a bench, with sandbags, at 25 yards using the Super X 34-grain jacketed hollowpoint. The suppressed report was virtually indistinguishable from a .22 LR with a high-velocity hollowpoint. The rifles—all four of them—had no trouble clustering five rounds into a single, jagged little hole at that distance, either. Moving the targets out to 50 yards, it was still easy to keep a full magazine inside (or mostly inside) the edges of a 1-inch orange, stick-on target. The Xperts sported Winchester’s Rimfire M.O.A. trigger, which broke crisp and clean. Really, the biggest challenge to good shooting was in the light weight of the guns, which were susceptible to moving depending on hand positioning and pressure. The can, adding just a bit of heft out front, helped alleviate some of that. Ryan and I walked away from the range confident that if we could find some squirrels and that our guests could shoot, the Xpert .21s were up to the task.

HITTING THE HARDWOODS

aiming rifle — (Photo courtesy of Will Brantley)

The hunting was good, as I expected it to be, and we were in squirrels out of the gate the first morning. I helped point the critters out while writer Alice Jones Webb and Winchester’s Seth Brenton each worked into position to shoot. Both were excellent shots, with Webb tumbling one gray squirrel with a single bullet through the shoulders that may not have been quite 90 yards away, but then maybe it was, too. That’s what I claimed, and she didn’t protest much; whatever the exact distance, it was a hell of a shot.

The muted report with the Banish-22 is nothing but a good thing for small game hunting, especially early in the season, when the leaves are thick and a spooked squirrel can disappear by moving only a few inches. Shotgun shooters know that it doesn’t take long to run feeding squirrels out of even the best hickory tree once the blasting begins. To be clear, they can still be spooked by the report of a suppressed rimfire, too—but if you sit still, the lull in the action rarely lasts for long.

The .21 Sharp is simply an excellent squirrel hunting cartridge, and this is coming from a lifelong squirrel hunter who’s killed a bunch of them with a .22. Yes, the .22 is great, but it has shortcomings in the squirrel woods. The classic hunting load, a 36- or 37-grain hollowpoint at about 1,300 fps, has an arching trajectory that can make it easy to miss a squirrel’s head on longer shots in tall timber. There are faster, hyper-velocity options, usually loaded with lighter, frangible bullets. Those are fine if your gun shoots them accurately, but many squirrel rifles do not. Moreover, those light, soft-lead bullets can be pretty destructive on meat after a body shot (and again, I say that as a guy who carries a .17 HMR more often than not, typically shooting FMJ bullets through it).

looking for squirrels in the canopy — (Photo courtesy of Will Brantley)

The .21 Sharp doesn’t provide near the punch of the .17 HMR, of course, but it’s much quieter, cheaper to shoot, and far less destructive on meat, bullet designs being comparable. This is a cartridge to compete with the .22 LR, which is a tall order. But the .21 Sharp is a little faster (1,500 fps for the 34-grain hollowpoint, vs. 1,300 fps for a 37-grain high-velocity .22), making it flatter shooting. And the copper-jacketed hollowpoint bullets that we hunted with seemed to provide a nice, controlled expansion on squirrels. Body-shot animals weren’t ripped to pieces, but were killed decisively. The camp collectively shot around 50 squirrels during three days of hunting, and though plenty were missed, I can’t recall any that were wounded and lost. That’s just not something you can typically say after three days of hard squirrel hunting with .22s.

The Xpert is inexpensive; less than $400 MSRP, and chances are you can find one on the shelf for less than $300. If I were setting up a more dedicated squirrel gun in .21 Sharp (which I may yet do), I’d probably opt for a bit more heft in the rifle, and get the Xpert Thumbhole Target version, which is also suppressor ready but has a heavier barrel, laminate stock and Picatinny optic rail. Either way, if you’re shopping on a budget for a new bolt-action rimfire in the slick new .21 Sharp (or the classic .22 LR), the Suppressor Ready Xpert is a pretty fine option.

WHY THE .21 SHARP?

rifle and magazine — (Photo courtesy of Will Brantley)

Few things seem to cause veteran hunters (and gunwriters) more angst and handwringing than a new cartridge that competes with a proven classic. Since no cartridge is more proven, more classic, or more popular than the .22 Long Rifle, the .21 Sharp indeed has an uphill climb. But it’s still an excellent round.

The .21 Sharp is loaded into the same case as the .22 LR; the difference is in the bullet diameter and design. The LR (which has been around for about 138 years now) is loaded with a .225 diameter bullet with a heel, which means the rear of the bullet has a slightly smaller diameter than the middle, allowing it to fit into the case. That design is the reason why most .22 LR ammunition uses basic, soft lead bullets.

The .21 Sharp has a diameter of .2105, allowing it to fit neatly within the case and also for the use of better constructed bullets, including the 34-grain Super-X JHP that so impressed me on squirrels. But the .21 is also available with various lead-free projectiles. As noted by editor-in-chief David Draper in his review of the cartridge last year, hunters can expect more areas, particularly public areas, to restrict lead ammunition in the future. Since some of the best squirrel hunting out there is on public land, that alone is reason enough to give the .21 Sharp a chance. That it’s also capable of better performance on game than the .22 LR is another perk, too. I’m a fan of the cartridge, and while Winchester is making some nice little rifles for it, I hope other gunmakers follow suit with their own platforms as well.